Palisade and Turning Off!

This weekend was my last "Huzzah!" to the outdoors before I hunker down into paper-writing and studying mode for the remainder of the semester. It was an amazing weekend for it, too. I went up with a bunch of my guy friends right after I finished with work on Saturday, then we stayed at my buddy Scott's house (he lives maybe fifteen minutes from the cliffs) so we could get to early climbing on Sunday, all day.Saturday was gorgeous- the weather was warm and fantastic, with an inland breeze that kept us cool while climbing. Because we got there a little later, I was only able to mark a couple of routes off my to-do list. After warming up on Danger High Voltage, I jumped on one of the longest climbs out there- Scars and Tripes Forever, a 200-ft pump-fest of hard 5.10 crack with three roofs to pull through. I fell only once, 30 feet from the top, with my arms burning from the climb. The crack goes from fantastic hand jams to little finger cracks (I fell at the second roof, where you have to grab a finger crack to pull over, and there's not much for feet), although the granite is harsh and not very forgiving to hands. Sunday the wind switched and started coming from the lake, making it really hard to stay warm. I pulled out my legwarmers and five layers of clothing while the guys stayed warm in their down jackets- I suppose it is April, so we can't complain too much. After a warmup on Phantom Crack, I got on Hidden Treasure- a 5.11b sustained corner, where I fell once at the crux before I figured out a way to do a side pull and shimmy up past the hard part. I'm excited that I got it the rest of the way, and I'm pretty sure I found my new project for the summer. A couple of the guys trad lead Urge to Mate, a beautiful 5.10c crack, and I followed after without falling once (woohoo!). The guys set up and worked one more route before we bowed up late in the evening and headed back to Duluth.
This week is going to be full of homework, and it's also National Turn-Off Week in honor of Earth Day. It's supposed to only be for TV, but I'm going to extend it to as many electronical devices as I can. I'm spending only today online before I turn off all my electronics for the week that I don't need for school. Therefore you probably won't see me till next Monday, since I'll only be using my computer for research and writing papers. No blogging, facebook, ravelry, watching movies on here, no TV, minimum electricity use, and I've parked my car for the week as well (though that's not too much of a change, since I didn't use a car for the last few years). It will probably help me stay focused on school, too. If you want to participate, feel free to join me- I feel like it's for a good cause, and it'll help open my eyes to other things as entertainment (as if I'll have time with school... gulp)- more knitting, embroidery, cleaning around the house, things I enjoy as much as watching a good movie! Staying away from certain sites will be the only difficult thing, I believe.
See you all in a week, I'm going to go boil some water for French Press coffee (woohoo!!!) and get me some reading and research done. :)