We’ve all been to Woodson and looked at some of the heinous offwidths out there, but few actually DO them. Well, on a recent trip we managed to rope in one of the true present day Woodson “Locals,” the very understated and modest Eric Roed. He was kind enough to show us what punishment really meant. He’s sent most of the offwidths on the mountain, including a still growing number of first ascents. With his knowledge and our stupidity, it was a perfect recipe for attempting Right Long’s Crack, one of the few “inversion” offwidths on the mountain. Beta: Stack, flip, hang off feet, thrash feet upwards, flip, finish. Here’s Erik showing us how it’s done!

We all thrashed for a while, no one else successfully.

The plant in the bottom of the picture managed to skewer my back pretty good. After that we moved on to some of Eric’s recent routes lower on the mountain. There was a short arete, much harder than it looked which we worked on. I managed to get both sides shortly after Eric got the FA on one of them, then he showed us his most recent style of FA at Woodson. Climbing the flares between boulders!

Nate and I managed to send this one also, but Nate and I both had damage to our pants. Nate’s was a little more dramatic.

Our skin fared about as well as our pants.

When the dust had settled, I had a skewered back, we were all missing tons of skin, and Nate couldn’t feel the back of his right hand and left thumb/palm. He hit a nerve in his left hand stacking in Right Long’s Crack and still can’t jam a few weeks later! It was so worth it!

Punishment = Glory