Showing posts with label bouldering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bouldering. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2012
Monday, May 23, 2011
Arizona Bouldering Remix
After watching this video, on ClimbingNarc.com last week I got inspired to get out for one more day of bouldering and filming and put together the Arizona Bouldering Remix.
I believe it is healthy for a person to have a song playing in their head that makes them feel like a badass at least 70 or 80 percent of the time. Any less than that and it's time to change the soundtrack, brother.
I hope this video puts a badass tune in your head.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Back To Basics
Although I've been enjoying sport climbing more and more, at heart I am still a boulderer. With some cool new areas to explore, I've been getting out on the blocs a little more lately. Here are some photos and a short video of some new stuff, with another video in the works. Sadly, none of it is well shot - mostly crappy attempts on a tripod, but I'm pretty psyched on the stuff I've been climbing, so I'm going to share anyways....
LIZARD BOULDERS
Sucka MCs
Futile Devices
Sweet Arete
The General
GANDALF'S GORGE
Monday, January 18, 2010
Down in the Basin
Friday found us enjoying a perfect January day at the boulders of Molino Basin. Dustin and I were joined by Pete (a strong sport climber trying to rebuild some strength after a few months off recovering from a broken foot) and Jonathan (an aspiring pro cyclist, here in Tucson for the winter for training). The weather was warm, 70 degrees, but absolutely perfect conditions in the shade of the canyon for gripping onto the water polished boulders of Molino.
It was nice having a few pads and spotters, as there a few problems here I've been wanting to get on, but have always put off climbing them without good protection. So after a few quick warmups, it was nice finally getting on Moonboard (v4, or v7ish from the low start) and Battle Tackle (v4). I had hoped to work a bit on Hammer of Hate (v8ish), but a headache slowly building up throughout the day cut my climbing a little short.
Molino is one of my favorite places on the mountain to boulder, with great rock, fun problems, and an idyllic setting. I only wish there were about 10 more good boulders down there. Here is a short video of some of the problems we did:
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Sixty Megaton F-Bomb
The City of Rocks, New Mexico sprouts up out of the desert like a gaggle of tumescent warts on an otherwise pristine cheek-- unexpected, disturbing and fascinating all at the same time. The volcanic bulges, pockmarked with huecos and pockets, are as pleasing to ogle and photograph as they are to climb. The rocks sing with a straining, tenuous energy that embodies the uncontrollable forces that made them burst out of the earth in the first place, millions of years ago, like some kind of terrestrial ejaculate.
Deming, New Mexico, twenty-five miles away and the jumping of point for exploring the City of Rocks houses a similarly seminal epicurean experience-- the green chile-salsa-smothered, tortilla-wrapped delights of Tacos Mirasol (309 East Pine St. Deming, NM) Located less than fifty miles from the green-chile capitol of the Free World, Hatch, New Mexico, the flat-grill artists at Tacos Mirasol miss no opportunity to bathe their wares in green fire. The tacos al carbon swim in chile, cilantro and lime in a kind of mystical goulash that will open doors in your mind to other, as-of-yet un-glimpsed dimensions. They are the perfect fuel for scaling the tumultuous blobs at the City of Rocks.
On our most recent trip, en-route to Deep East Texas for Christmas celebrations, Katie and I found ourselves dabbing green-chile salsa from our chins around four in the afternoon. We were aware of the existence of the City of Rocks but had never visited and it seemed an ideal spot to stop off for the evening. By five o'clock or so we were pulling into a campsite at the City of Rocks and with a few minutes were off exploring the boulders.
Wind and time have sculpted the thumbs of volcanic stone at the City of Rocks into rounded, bulbous nodes supported by thick columns. Many problems overhang slightly to a lot and in often times down-climbing a problem proves as cruxy as scaling it in the first place. Unimpressed with the sketchy down-climbs, Katie left me to dabble with the problems in the fading light and went off to shoot some beautiful sunset photos.
As night settled in I finished off a handful of problems-- just enough to whet my appetite for the place --and wandered back into camp where Katie waited with a bottle of wine and expectations of veggie chili. I was more than happy to oblige.
When we settled into the crashpad in front of the fire happily clutching our dinners and libations the first, cold stars had begun to pierce the fabric of night. The only sound other than the crackling of our fire came from a lonesome coyote somewhere out on the plain.
And then, from nowhere, a great, rumbling green behemoth lurched out of the darkness and into the campsite just adjacent to us. It smelled of fried potatoes, pot and patchouli and when it opened its maw it disgorged as ragged a bunch of hillbilly hippies as has been seen since Willie Nelson's last picnic in Lukenbach, TX. Their first move was to find the singular, dead oak tree up amongst the boulders and stomp it brutally to the ground before dragging it, in its entirety, back to their fire pit. They carried on loudly in a overly-gregarious way like people going through the motions of having a raucously good time for the benefit of outside observers. I recognized the paces because I have been through them before, myself.
The wine and the fire and pleasant warmth of Katie beside me on the crashpad as we gazed up at the stars kept the edge of irritation I might have felt from creeping to far up on me. The band of modern-day Merry Pranksters lit up their oak tree and produced a guitar and several drums and commenced to hammer out every David Allen Coe tune that the grizzled old bastard ever turned out. In a display, too perfectly apt for words everyone joined in on a rousing, howl-at-the-moon sing-a-long of "My Long Hair Just Can't Cover up My Redneck."
"Maybe we should wander over and introduce ourselves," I mused to Katie, but she remained unconvinced, sensing the slight undercurrent of discord that the wine had made me forget. A girl in the group whose voiced stood out amongst the din had popped up several times over the campfire bacchanal to snipe at one or another of the menagerie. They covered it well, but there lingered, like an aftertaste, the sense that life on the road might be unraveling a little bit.
We went to sleep, though, on the ground under the stars and the hippies quieted down to a low murmur of voices behind a wall of rocks from us. Falling stars scored the night's sky and we drifted off as a layer of frost began to descend on us.
When the girl began to yell she sounded like a fourteen-year-old boy-- quivering, voice cracking, and enraged.
"I hate this f@#$ing bulls#$@!" She screamed. "F@#% you! Just get me the F@#$ out of here!"
Owls hooted from the rocks when she yelled. Other owls answered from far away.
"Shut up you evil f@#$%@g c@#t! Get back in your bed!" The man had a voice like a hibernating bear being dragged from his cave by the balls.
They did their verbal sparring right there in front of the stars and coyotes and everyone. Sixty megaton F-bombs detonating in the atmosphere burned up all the oxygen even in that cold air and the only things left to breathe for those of us in the blast zone were hate and vitriol.
"You're an evil f@#$%#g bastard! I hate this f@&#$*g crap!" she wailed. There came a scuffling sound and then the man roared.
"Why would you do that? That's my f@#$%&g life! My f@#$%&g is in that backpack! You evil f@#$%&g b@#$h!"
Still interred in my mummy bag, like a blind grub searching for food, I lifted my torso and craned my neck to peer around the boulders that separated us. The man danced around their fire that was now burning with a strange color and intensity. His hand snaked out into the flames several times but came back empty until finally he snatched the flaming backpack from the fire. He stomped it out and, strangely, that seemed to be the end of it. He climbed back into the school bus where, presumably, the whole band huddled together for warmth.
The girl stayed outside weeping in the night. I settled back onto my sleeping pad and gazed up at the stars hoping for sleep to return. Then she began to puke-- long hard, retching horks that sounded like they rent her body completely apart. The splash of her guts on the rock was the last sound I heard that night.
In the morning, I made every effort to create as much racket as possible slamming doors, bouncing loudly in the bed of my truck. No one seemed to notice from the school bus, which in the daylight I could see had been painted green and from which hung all sorts of hippie adornments and bicycles. It had been converted to run on vegetable oil and painted above the windshield in black lettering it said: "The Green Team." I resisted the urge to walk over and a put a few pistol rounds through the engine block while they slept off all their David Allen Coe-inspired good cheer. It seemed a moot point, anyway, I didn't think the Green Team, in its current incarnation, would be rolling on too much longer.
Instead, I treated Katie to a grand-slam breakfast at Denny's with lots of extra coffee and bacon. And then I drove us to Texas.
Deming, New Mexico, twenty-five miles away and the jumping of point for exploring the City of Rocks houses a similarly seminal epicurean experience-- the green chile-salsa-smothered, tortilla-wrapped delights of Tacos Mirasol (309 East Pine St. Deming, NM) Located less than fifty miles from the green-chile capitol of the Free World, Hatch, New Mexico, the flat-grill artists at Tacos Mirasol miss no opportunity to bathe their wares in green fire. The tacos al carbon swim in chile, cilantro and lime in a kind of mystical goulash that will open doors in your mind to other, as-of-yet un-glimpsed dimensions. They are the perfect fuel for scaling the tumultuous blobs at the City of Rocks.
On our most recent trip, en-route to Deep East Texas for Christmas celebrations, Katie and I found ourselves dabbing green-chile salsa from our chins around four in the afternoon. We were aware of the existence of the City of Rocks but had never visited and it seemed an ideal spot to stop off for the evening. By five o'clock or so we were pulling into a campsite at the City of Rocks and with a few minutes were off exploring the boulders.
Wind and time have sculpted the thumbs of volcanic stone at the City of Rocks into rounded, bulbous nodes supported by thick columns. Many problems overhang slightly to a lot and in often times down-climbing a problem proves as cruxy as scaling it in the first place. Unimpressed with the sketchy down-climbs, Katie left me to dabble with the problems in the fading light and went off to shoot some beautiful sunset photos.
As night settled in I finished off a handful of problems-- just enough to whet my appetite for the place --and wandered back into camp where Katie waited with a bottle of wine and expectations of veggie chili. I was more than happy to oblige.
When we settled into the crashpad in front of the fire happily clutching our dinners and libations the first, cold stars had begun to pierce the fabric of night. The only sound other than the crackling of our fire came from a lonesome coyote somewhere out on the plain.
And then, from nowhere, a great, rumbling green behemoth lurched out of the darkness and into the campsite just adjacent to us. It smelled of fried potatoes, pot and patchouli and when it opened its maw it disgorged as ragged a bunch of hillbilly hippies as has been seen since Willie Nelson's last picnic in Lukenbach, TX. Their first move was to find the singular, dead oak tree up amongst the boulders and stomp it brutally to the ground before dragging it, in its entirety, back to their fire pit. They carried on loudly in a overly-gregarious way like people going through the motions of having a raucously good time for the benefit of outside observers. I recognized the paces because I have been through them before, myself.
The wine and the fire and pleasant warmth of Katie beside me on the crashpad as we gazed up at the stars kept the edge of irritation I might have felt from creeping to far up on me. The band of modern-day Merry Pranksters lit up their oak tree and produced a guitar and several drums and commenced to hammer out every David Allen Coe tune that the grizzled old bastard ever turned out. In a display, too perfectly apt for words everyone joined in on a rousing, howl-at-the-moon sing-a-long of "My Long Hair Just Can't Cover up My Redneck."
"Maybe we should wander over and introduce ourselves," I mused to Katie, but she remained unconvinced, sensing the slight undercurrent of discord that the wine had made me forget. A girl in the group whose voiced stood out amongst the din had popped up several times over the campfire bacchanal to snipe at one or another of the menagerie. They covered it well, but there lingered, like an aftertaste, the sense that life on the road might be unraveling a little bit.
We went to sleep, though, on the ground under the stars and the hippies quieted down to a low murmur of voices behind a wall of rocks from us. Falling stars scored the night's sky and we drifted off as a layer of frost began to descend on us.
When the girl began to yell she sounded like a fourteen-year-old boy-- quivering, voice cracking, and enraged.
"I hate this f@#$ing bulls#$@!" She screamed. "F@#% you! Just get me the F@#$ out of here!"
Owls hooted from the rocks when she yelled. Other owls answered from far away.
"Shut up you evil f@#$%@g c@#t! Get back in your bed!" The man had a voice like a hibernating bear being dragged from his cave by the balls.
They did their verbal sparring right there in front of the stars and coyotes and everyone. Sixty megaton F-bombs detonating in the atmosphere burned up all the oxygen even in that cold air and the only things left to breathe for those of us in the blast zone were hate and vitriol.
"You're an evil f@#$%#g bastard! I hate this f@&#$*g crap!" she wailed. There came a scuffling sound and then the man roared.
"Why would you do that? That's my f@#$%&g life! My f@#$%&g is in that backpack! You evil f@#$%&g b@#$h!"
Still interred in my mummy bag, like a blind grub searching for food, I lifted my torso and craned my neck to peer around the boulders that separated us. The man danced around their fire that was now burning with a strange color and intensity. His hand snaked out into the flames several times but came back empty until finally he snatched the flaming backpack from the fire. He stomped it out and, strangely, that seemed to be the end of it. He climbed back into the school bus where, presumably, the whole band huddled together for warmth.
The girl stayed outside weeping in the night. I settled back onto my sleeping pad and gazed up at the stars hoping for sleep to return. Then she began to puke-- long hard, retching horks that sounded like they rent her body completely apart. The splash of her guts on the rock was the last sound I heard that night.
In the morning, I made every effort to create as much racket as possible slamming doors, bouncing loudly in the bed of my truck. No one seemed to notice from the school bus, which in the daylight I could see had been painted green and from which hung all sorts of hippie adornments and bicycles. It had been converted to run on vegetable oil and painted above the windshield in black lettering it said: "The Green Team." I resisted the urge to walk over and a put a few pistol rounds through the engine block while they slept off all their David Allen Coe-inspired good cheer. It seemed a moot point, anyway, I didn't think the Green Team, in its current incarnation, would be rolling on too much longer.
Instead, I treated Katie to a grand-slam breakfast at Denny's with lots of extra coffee and bacon. And then I drove us to Texas.
The City of Rocks at Sunrise
The City of Rocks at Sunset
The campsite where F-Bombs cauterized our sleep synapses.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
First and Last Ascents
Two years ago, on this day, I was in southern China making my way east to Yangshuo for the last bit of climbing on a 4 month backpacking trip with my brother. Two weeks later I would be flying out of Hong Kong, headed to Hawaii and then back to Arizona. I had only started climbing during the semester before embarking on this trip, but still managed to find room for my first pair of climbing shoes in my 28 liter backpack (actually they were usually stashed on the side, in the bottle-holders). After about two months of traveling we arrived in Ton Sai, Thailand, and climbing became our main concentration. We purchased a rope and a rack of draws the second or third day, and climbed pretty much every day there for the next month. But before Thailand we spent most of our time reading, eating, and visiting temples if we felt like actually doing something, and we only managed to climb one day.
That one day was spent at 15,000+ feet, bouldering some of the thousands of rocks blanketing the slope of a mountain overlooking the Lhasa river valley in Tibet.
We took a ride in the back of a farmer's truck to get up on the foothills of the mountain, about a ten minute ride. Then we hiked through a six hundred-year-old maze of a monastery for around 30 minutes, the buildings getting older and less restored as we gained elevation.
The yellow square below is approximately what is shown above. And the Google image below is maybe 1/20th of what surrounds Lhasa.
Some of the boulders right above the monastery were over 40 feet tall. Unfortunately, rock around there are "sacred" so we hiked quite a bit higher, until the prayer flags thinned out.
I only climbed three short and easy lines out of potentially thousands. Grazing around us were hundreds of wild yaks, probably some of the corpses we saw later, skinned, decapitated and piled on the sidewalks during the evening. When we got up to where the above picture was taken the rocks shrunk a little smaller, along with the level of oxygen in the air. With spots in our eyes we decided to retreat back down to the monastery. We made it back at sunset, with bells ringing we assumed some sort of service was starting.
To get from the monastery down the hill to town, where we could take a taxi back to the hostel, we rode on the back of a Tibetan's motorcycle, one at a time. After getting up some speed, the man turned his bike off, including the lights, and coasted the winding road down the forested hillside at night, and I thought of Space-Mountain.
According to the last email I got from our embassy in China, foreign travel to Tibet has been stopped since September of this year. When we were there they only required a 40 dollar permit, which we managed to avoid getting. We also met a French dude who had been camping and hitchhiking throughout Tibet for three months without one. But needless to say, getting caught would be pretty unpleasant, and you'd be blacklisted from China. Hope for the autonomy of Tibet, the return of the Dalai Lama, is pretty much a dream, Lhasa is a military state, and I'm sure by now it is much worse than when we were there. It is beautiful though, and there is a ton of rock.
On a cheerier note:
I leave you with a crazy ass Japanese toilet, and implore you to enlarge the image and check out the options on the armrest.
That one day was spent at 15,000+ feet, bouldering some of the thousands of rocks blanketing the slope of a mountain overlooking the Lhasa river valley in Tibet.
Lhasa River
Lhasa
We took a ride in the back of a farmer's truck to get up on the foothills of the mountain, about a ten minute ride. Then we hiked through a six hundred-year-old maze of a monastery for around 30 minutes, the buildings getting older and less restored as we gained elevation.
Finally, we were rewarded with this:
The yellow square below is approximately what is shown above. And the Google image below is maybe 1/20th of what surrounds Lhasa.
Some of the boulders right above the monastery were over 40 feet tall. Unfortunately, rock around there are "sacred" so we hiked quite a bit higher, until the prayer flags thinned out.
I only climbed three short and easy lines out of potentially thousands. Grazing around us were hundreds of wild yaks, probably some of the corpses we saw later, skinned, decapitated and piled on the sidewalks during the evening. When we got up to where the above picture was taken the rocks shrunk a little smaller, along with the level of oxygen in the air. With spots in our eyes we decided to retreat back down to the monastery. We made it back at sunset, with bells ringing we assumed some sort of service was starting.
To get from the monastery down the hill to town, where we could take a taxi back to the hostel, we rode on the back of a Tibetan's motorcycle, one at a time. After getting up some speed, the man turned his bike off, including the lights, and coasted the winding road down the forested hillside at night, and I thought of Space-Mountain.
According to the last email I got from our embassy in China, foreign travel to Tibet has been stopped since September of this year. When we were there they only required a 40 dollar permit, which we managed to avoid getting. We also met a French dude who had been camping and hitchhiking throughout Tibet for three months without one. But needless to say, getting caught would be pretty unpleasant, and you'd be blacklisted from China. Hope for the autonomy of Tibet, the return of the Dalai Lama, is pretty much a dream, Lhasa is a military state, and I'm sure by now it is much worse than when we were there. It is beautiful though, and there is a ton of rock.
On a cheerier note:
From an artificial mountain in Beijing.
Japan, Rearry?
I leave you with a crazy ass Japanese toilet, and implore you to enlarge the image and check out the options on the armrest.
Friday, November 6, 2009
More From Panther
We opened up two good new lines today, and temporarily lost a great one. We also started to clean and work a short overhanging wall that will have at least six good problems.
Curious George (v3, FA MAtt Fowls) climbs the bulge of the right side of his mouth, topping out through his right eye. The problem is steeper than it looks, with your body at one point being dead horizontal. Some great moves and fun heel hooks on this problem.
A problem we started to work on Tuesday, in the cave below the finish of Righteous Beast, was dispatched pretty quickly, and is now Nautilus (v3, FA Chris Prewitt).
Nautilus from Joe Kreidel on Vimeo.
We then walked 100 feet downhill to the Monkey Skull:
Curious George (v3, FA MAtt Fowls) climbs the bulge of the right side of his mouth, topping out through his right eye. The problem is steeper than it looks, with your body at one point being dead horizontal. Some great moves and fun heel hooks on this problem.
Getting o work on a short overhang on the back side of the Pyramid:
And on Righteous Beast, the fantastic long roof I sent on Tuesday, we made the decision to clean of a large and important jug cobble. The cobble at first seemed super solid, but after repeated attempts on the problem, and lots of weight being put on it, it slowly started to flex more and more. Rather than risk this rugby ball-sized cobble breaking off in some ones face, and knowing it would eventually come out anyways, we decided to pry it off. The line is now more difficult for sure, but is even better than it was before. Instead of 20 feet of roof jugs to two hard moves, you now have twenty feet of jugs into a series of hard moves that could be considered a quality boulder problem unto itself. We worked out the beta, but no one could manage a send. This will be a proud and hard line, for sure.
Matt working out the beta on the lower sections of Righteous Beast:
When cleaning lines at this place (or anywhere), it is a thin and difficult line to walk when decided what stays, what goes, how best to clean, what to do about landings and vegetation, etc. It was a bit heartbreaking to see the large cobble go on Righteous Beast, as this was my proudest FA to date. And while it is not something I really like to see, and something I had wanted to avoid at this area, I have to admit I was quite tempted to reinforce the cobble with glue. But there is plenty of that already on Tucson's boulders, and really should be a practice of the past. So while it was hard to do, I went ahead and broke the cobble loose. The result is another stellar, proud FA up for grabs.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Silverbell Ringin'
It is hard to beat a Friday afternoon bouldering sesh. It doesn't matter much that the Silverbell Boulders leave my hands resembling the leftovers from a rabid heyena's midnight snack or that I always burn myself out on the lower boulders before getting to the hard stuff up top-- this place is great. On Friday Trevor-- a long-lost brother now living as an economic refugee in Utah --was back in town, temps were down in the low 80's or maybe even high 70's and the sun was out. One day, sooner or later, I'll get out to the Silverbell Boulders and crush all of my as-of-yet-unsent projects. Until then, though, the joy is in the process and (admittedly) in documenting the process. Stick around to the end of this video to see Dustin floating across The Rails, Silverbell's uber-classic V6-- beautiful stuff.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Big Bend Boulders
Just outside of Moab, UT, and sitting just a hundred yards from the Colorado River, the Big Bend Boulders are in a pretty sweet spot. Big chunks of Wingate sandstone that have fallen from the towering cliffs above, these boulders are just begging to be climbed. Aesthetic and very geometric -with perfect right angles, splitter cracks and parabolic scoops - these are some of the prettiest boulders I've ever climbed on. Consisting of maybe 10 good boulders, it isn't a huge area, but most every problem is real good, and there are some amazing classics.
Mushroom Boulder (juggy overhangs and fun traverses):
Big Block Boulder (great crimpy and technical problems):
Circus Trick v4/5 (cool dyno problem):
Chaos v8 (slopers into cool dihedral):
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