In the past two months or so I have been busy researching and writing for a new book I am working on for The Mountaineers Books on bouldering. Along with this writing I have started another blog called The Bouldering Book. This blog will include snippets from the work in progress, thoughts on the process both of writing and mastering the art of bouldering, photos, interviews with boulderers, and so on. The blog is in its incipient phase right now but will continue to build through the fall and winter as I develop the book. It's a big project but one that I am excited about and will keep you posted on continuously here as well.
Conditions were excellent up at RMNP yesterday but I was feeling tired from several hard previous sessions. After a sluggish warm-up and some chalk-testing, (I have tried three different types of chalk out up there since Metolius is just not working out anymore. Results to follow), I wandered over to the Centaur boulder to see how GB Arete felt. It felt terrible but slightly more doable, so I started working on it again. Strangely, I found I had the strength to cut down the swing after the first move and soon had the dyno move in hand. After a couple of failures, I stuck the dyno and held it together on the throw to the top and the nemesis was done. The hardest "V8" around has been climbed and I can move on.
A couple of things to note. While I like climbing alone, there is no question that group energy can assist in getting some motivation that initially might have been absent so thanks to the crew that was there that afternoon. Also the air was dry and breezy like I have almost never found recently there so the slippery opening holds felt quasi-sticky. Anyway, I will be moving on, though the Marble Sit looks appealing. Two recent videos give some perspective on this side of the boulder.
Props to both climbers, especially Carlo's proving you don't need to stash a pile of pads to do a hard and scary problem. Thanks everyone for the suggestions on dealing with this issue and yes, stashing pads definitely is coming back in vogue this season. It's a shame. Keep the ideas coming.
Obviously RMNP is not the pristine bouldering area it might once have been but it is clear from a number of things I have seen and heard recently that boulderers are not doing what they could to help keep it as natural as possible. Above is someone's contribution to the problem. This information was added to the overhang just left of the Automator, a pretty ordinary piece of rock at best. Nobody really needs to know (and probably nobody cares) about the grade of this problem but in any case, nobody needs to write it on the boulder itself. I am assuming this has been erased by now. I didn't have a brush when I took the photo. Obviously it's not as bad as the photo below. This was some graffiti recently added to Flagstaff Mountain and a great argument for outlawing spray paint. Thanks to Andy Mann for the photos.
But the impulse to mark the rock is essentially the same and it should be stopped. No excuses, no rationales, no nothing. Leave the rock the way you found it.
I am also seeing and hearing indications that pad-stashing is creeping back into style. I am thinking Upper Chaos especially but I have heard of climbers leaving gear elsewhere as well. I have seen a few groups of "hikers" who were obviously boulderers (sorry, the big shoulders and Organic packs don't fit the typical hiker profile) cruising on up the trail, free of pesky burdens like crashpads. I guess they were going to "freebase" Eternia or some similar objective. I cannot emphasize enough A. how weak it is to stash gear and B. how easily Chaos could be closed because of poor climber behavior while RMNP comes up with a more restrictive management plan. Needless to say I feel a bit foolish carrying two and a half pads plus gear when I see others carrying nothing but a light daypack but I know it's the right thing to do. I am planning on a survey hike very soon to see what's up at Upper Chaos. I am not looking forward to the results.
Rocky Mountain Highball, a climbing movie three years in the making, is a truly unique production since it is that rarest of creatures, a meditative bouldering movie. As an exploration of what it's like to climb on the edge of soloing, it mostly lacks the usual dynamic double-digit efforts of the typical bouldering video, RMH depicts a niche of climbing that only a few brave individuals routinely explore, a niche that ironically was once mainstream in bouldering, especially before the advent of bouldering pads. The historical interviews at the beginning illustrate this truth well and time spent with John Gill and Jim Holloway, among others, is always instructive on what it was like when bouldering was not the popular pursuit it is today
Jenn Fields, reporter for the Boulder paper, contacted me recently about the practice of sharing information about boulder problems via blogs, Facebook, etc. I have a lot of videos posted at this blog for this purpose. She also talked with Jon Glassberg, routesetter at the Spot and prolific video maker. The story was a good look into the changing landscape of media in climbing. I definitely think guidebooks have a permanent role in the climbing world but there is no question that, regardless of climbing level, more and more climbers do a Google search to see if a video is available for their project. The widespread availability of cheap cameras and editing software has pretty much ended the idea that climbing video per se is special and a more information-based model for video is taking over. Obviously bouldering with its short video times and dynamic nature is a perfect fit.
Speaking of video, the short clip I made of Jimmy Webb on European Human Being was posted on 8a.nu and was seen well over 2000 times that day. I just happened to pull out the camera in time for what turned out to be Jimmy's last try, the one he took after he was supposed to be done. Moral of the story? Always have the cameras on hand and ready.
This was a great fight to the finish. With this problem Jimmy Webb has done everything V11 and up in Chaos except Freaks of the Industry which is buried. I probably don't need to add that it's a long-term project of mine. See you up there!
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