An Introduction to My Book

I have written a brief introduction to my new book on bouldering. Please check it out. If you have bought the book already and would like to let me know what you thought of it, please contact me via email or Facebook.

The Bouldering Book on Facebook

Also here is an image of the review in Rock and Ice:

Against the Grain, or Why I Climb at Flagstaff

Well, this afternoon I failed, by the smallest of margins, on a project that the lords of bouldering around here would describe as a turd, that is, a problem of minimal height, dubious rock quality, and an awkward fairly licheny beached-whale finish. Needless to say, I mostly climb alone on this kind of problem. This time of year especially, many prefer to migrate to Hueco or Bishop or even Switzerland, where the real climbing is happening, the kinds of places where climbers are somehow able to live for weeks even months on end, never punching a clock, seemingly on permanent vacation in the midst of the worst economy in over three generations. My vacations usually come in three-hour stints a few times a week and I have it easy compared to most, as I have a flexible schedule, summers off and living next to an amazing variety of excellent climbing opportunities. I know I am privileged.

Yet I climb a lot at Flagstaff Mountain, the place that more than any other location I have heard of, possibly even worldwide, endures all kinds of abuse from the type of climber mentioned above. Dude, it's such a pile, such crappy problems and that rock is so sharp! Yeah, I might climb there if I have to, say before another week off to Joe's then maybe a month at Bishop, before a really long trip, maybe South Africa...

Well why do I climb here? There are a few reasons. Obviously I can be climbing in a few minutes from the car, meaning I don't have to drive for hours and be gone all day in order to climb something interesting. And there is a lot to climb here, even if it's not very cool. With a family and job, I simply don't have the freedom that many do in this town. Fair enough, I can live with that.But there's something else. I like being contrary, I think. I like finding value in things that the mainstream ignores, that the bandwagon passes by, especially when that bandwagon represents an increasingly commercialized vision of the sport.

Andrew Bisharat recently wrote, "I recently observed one interesting difference: Climbing used to be a refuge for social derelicts. The best climbers in the world were often the poorest people. Today, the best climbers are instead some of the richest. You need money and free time to be able to train in gyms, compete on the World Cup, and be constantly traveling all over the world to different areas in order to be exposed to that variety of rock. That’s what it now takes to be operating on this top-tier level. The leisure class has always existed on both ends of the economic spectrum."

I agree with this description. To be able to perform at a level that is worthy of notice these days requires more than just commitment and desire. It requires a substantial amount of cold hard cash, cash that is not going to come from a steady job since you are perpetually on the road. In order to become world class, you will need unlimited amounts of free time, time that most employers in the real world would never grant you, especially in this country. The world of climbing never talks about that reality, referring instead to the "dirtbag" lifestyle, a cliché that is sounding just a bit too detached from the economic trauma this country is currently undergoing. If you have time to go off and climb rocks all over the world and not have to work all the time to support this habit, you are not a dirtbag. You are the 1% or damn close to it. And the demographics of the sport reflect this fact. Climbers are typically white, male, and typically have incomes in the upper five figures or higher. In other words the leisure class really only operates these days on one end of the spectrum, assuming the pretend climbing hoboes of yesteryear ever really belonged to the other.



I think it's a safe bet that nobody is going to make a commercial about climbing at Flagstaff Mountain, even though the rock is usually better than that found at the Fisher Towers. Frankly I like it that way. For my part, I will keep working on understanding and repairing the climbing areas in my backyard so to speak. There is a lot of work to be done up there. Few climbers I read about or hear about right now seem particularly concerned about where we are heading as a climbing community and the impacts we are having on our environments, natural and social. I feel if I talk about it, I just sound old and grouchy or out-of-touch. So be it. Reality is not going away just because the cameras are pointed in the other direction.

Is Climbing a Unique Sport?

At 8a.nu, Jens proposed a topic for discussion "The uniqueness of climbing" based on the following premises:

"Climbing is in comparison to other physical sports totally unique on the following parameters.
Gender: Some female almost at male top level
Age span: World class between 9-50 years
Specialization: Some equally good at 1 move boulders - 40m onsight - 500m Multi Pitches
Training: Most just climb without a programme
Comeback: 20 sessions after 1 year break makes you often equally good"

While much of the discussion degenerated into name-calling and back-and-forth examples, the question is an interesting one, not least because it assumes that there is a sport called climbing in the first place.

I think this is an important question to consider, that there is something called climbing, constant enough such that we can actually compare performances between individuals or across time. One of the critical steps towards commodifying the sport has been establishing grades, categories of climbing, even markers of quality. Currently it seems to me climbing sits in an ambiguous relation to other sports, with a relatively tenuous relationship to quantifiability (e.g. grading scales) or any widespread public understanding of what might make it difficult or not. The efforts of commercial interests (media and/or gear manufacturers) to endorse and broadcast markers of excellence such as higher grades of difficulty or times on a route seem to me only to diminish the multiple textures of the sport.

Currently climbing does seem to have at least some vestiges of the depth and complexities of its past, complexities that at least in part explain the phenomena that Jens pointed to. However, the professionalization of the activity at the elite level offers the prospect of an ironically flattened view of climbing, reducible to "objectively" assessed performances and rankings, even in the outdoors. That this should become the norm seems both unavoidable and irreconcilable with the origins of the sport, which seems to have been situated in an aesthetic and moral realm rather than an athletic one.

Curiosity, respect for the risks of climbing, a sense of discovery both of the self and of nature and a respect for the past, and the ways in which these emotions and ideas were conveyed formed the core of the climbing experience for many well into the 1990s. A new norm is emerging forming itself around socialization, corporate sponsorship, increasingly rapid and sophisticated media dissemination and quantification. While rewards of a kind are promised to those who excel in this environment, it is unclear to me how either the climber, and more importantly, the natural environment can benefit from this in the long term.

Which brings me to a final "uniqueness" of the sport, that it is able to co-exist, more or less, with its natural environs. I anticipate in the next few years a radical critique of climbing's effects on the environment. The effects of the sport's popularity and accompanying human presence on fragile niche ecosystems, going well beyond marquee species such as birds of prey, will be on some researcher's agenda in the coming decade with sobering results.

It seems to me that the ongoing emphasis on consumable phenomena such as news founded on gradable achievement, media broadcasting said news, and gear sold with the aid of both activities will encounter increased limits and even pushback from environmental groups and land managers Climbers who seek to make a living from this system should be encouraged to emphasize not just the metrics of achievement but also those subjective factors that make the sport unique.

The Alpine Bouldering Season Wrap-up

I think it is safe to say that the regular bouldering season is finished as of about 12 noon this last Tuesday. Currently most of the Front Range is under about 8 inches or more of snow. I made one last-ditch effort to try European Human Being on Monday afternoon but was unsuccessful, make that completely out of it altogether. Angie Payne, who was trying Freaks of the Industry, was also unsuccessful that evening. To top it off, just as I was at Bear Lake, having navigated every stretch of ice successfully on the way down so far, I slipped and fell on the tiniest little invisible patch. Chaos Canyon was obviously not done with me yet.

My highpoint on European was reached in mid-October


Anyway, it's been an uneven sort of year overall, it seems to me. Dave Graham and Carlo Traversi started things up with a splash at Endo Valley, especially the opening up of Flux for Life a V13 roof problem. The weather rapidly warmed up but high snow levels in the Park limited activity for much of June and into July. Even after the snow retreated, the summer at Chaos was marked by no particularly difficult first ascents or repeats. This may have been the first time in a long while that Jade saw no repeats and Daniel Woods' Hypnotized Minds from 2010 remains unrepeated as well.

There was a lot of activity at Lincoln Lake, especially from the Southern team of Jimmy Webb and Brion Voges. Nate Draughn and Brad Weaver also checked in with notable ascents on Mount Evans, Nate on the Big Worm V14 and Brad with a flash of No More Greener Grasses V12, both at Area A. The primary weakness of Lincoln Lake, its crumbly granite, was revealed once again with the altered holds of Evil Backwards which went from V14 to V12. Once again the Daniel Woods testpiece of the area, Warrior Up V15 remains unrepeated since last season as does the amazing Let the Right One In V14.

Dave Graham on The Ice Knife Cameron Maier Photo

Most impressive perhaps was Dave Graham's ascent of the Ice Knife V15 in Guanella Pass, near Georgetown, south of I-70. Done less than a week before Dave left for China and of course the massive recent snow, this was the latest in a long line of contributions Dave has made to Colorado bouldering. No doubt there are a few more projects still being considered in his fertile mind. But if it's alpine it will have to wait until next spring.

Here's a great little video of the indefatigable Ryan Silven in action in RMNP, again from Cameron Maier.



The publication of Jamie Emerson's alpine bouldering book, if the lack of crowds I encountered is any indication, did not prove to be the ruin of these special areas and I hope the publication of my own book on bouldering will encourage others to responsible and safely enjoy them as well.

For me it was a season of discovery as I finally began to understand more clearly what the task of bouldering hard at altitude is all about, especially with limited time and usually no companions. I have a clearer picture of what I want to do moving forward, especially in Lower Chaos. For now the lower elevations will have to do but I am definitely looking forward to next June (or earlier!)

Thoughts on the World Cup (or what happened after)

OK, I admit it. I have been putting off writing about climbing. Not because of the latest compliment/putdown by Andrew B. And it's not because I have been trying desperately to get in just one more decent session on European Human Being before the snow entombs it until next July, though that has been an issue. It could be apathy, could be laziness, it could be burnout. Whatever, as people used to say before whatever became, well, whatever.

Then the World Cup rolled into town last week and I began thinking a bit more about what this implies for climbing moving forward. Or to be more precise, what Ramon Julian Puigblanque's onsight of the Crew at Rifle, a few days after the event, implies. Comp-wise, Puigblanque placed 8th in the World Cup, primarily stymied, as was the similarly height-challenged Sean McColl, by a peculiarly long dyno move relatively low on the final route.

The event by the way was a blast to watch at home via a web feed that worked very well. Well done Jon Glassberg and the IFSC. Though the men's final looked as though a compass and GPS would have been handy for finding your away around, the comp went very well in my view, and the push for inclusion as an Olympic sport seems justified. But back to the Crew.

This ascent was rapidly spread about the Internet and with considerable justification. But there has not been much comment in US media on what it implies about the state of European climbing. First, the Crew has long been a rite of passage for Rifle climbers since its establishment by Chris Knuth, the hardest route there for ages, worked over weeks if not seasons for many. Furthermore it is a top route in a place that prides itself on hard grading. And furthermore again, it was the first onsight of the grade for Puigblanque. The ascent was made without kneepads or esoteric kneebar beta, both considered mandatory for the Crew. The question has to be asked. Is there any climber from America remotely capable of such a feat anywhere else in the world? And that is setting aside the myriad other hard routes Puigblanque onsighted in Rifle, including Living in Fear earlier in the day.

I am going to go ahead and say no. I am not going to pontificate on whether that's a good or bad thing. After all climbing is a lifestyle, not a sport, or something, which is what people would say when they left comments on this kind of thing before. But regardless, it is an ascent that should certainly leave American pro climbers wondering what's next. Olympics indeed.

Window Shopper V12?

I had recently been going through a drought of sorts in bouldering, focusing on unproductive projects that were draining my energy. A hint of things beginning to turn around popped up when I was able to start linking up European Human Being last week, actually falling off the last move from the start. A cool day last week but not much time meant a quick visit to Flagstaff Mountain where I haven't climbed in months.

Though it was bit warm at first, warming up felt OK and as the sun went down the conditions got better and better. I was hoping to finish up a long-long-long term project called Window Shopper, a problem first done by Will Lemaire in 2006 and unrepeated since, especially after various minor breakages. A few tries on various moves didn't promise much much, especially when I couldn't do a few of them! However after a brief rest, I could do everything and felt a potential link was on the horizon. I came very close after two tries, dryfiring off a poor left hand as I was establishing at the lip. Realizing this could go the next try, I waited for the air to get cooler and for good recovery from the last effort. The next attempt was successful, aided by a subtle change in foot placement.

 Here's the video:



After some thought, and considering that despite its proximity to the road, its being done by a boulder with a serious reputation, and its fairly high quality, the fact it has not been repeated in five years indicates a fairly high grade is in order. So I am suggesting V12 for this problem and believe that if it was in the Park, it would certainly earn that grade.

Speaking of the Park, a session last night saw me just missing the send on European Human Being. The weather (thanks to global warming/weirding?) is still too warm in October to try these problems much before 5 pm but I got my fingers on the last edge and couldn't stay on. Urgh. Hoping to finish this one off very soon. And then the next one. And so on...