A few noteworthy pieces of bouldering news for you:
- It’s been about 2 months since Carlo Traversi and Jamie Emerson made the first repeats of Trice (V12) since it’s FA over 30 years ago. As expected, their efforts have made repeating Trice the hip thing to do and link-ups soon followed. Daniel Woods, Dave Graham and James Pearson are among those to quickly add their names to the list. Carlo also returned to add a few move traverse into Trice to create Epoch (V12). Not to be outdone, Daniel recently forged through poor conditions to link the full Reverse Undercling Traverse into Trice to create Epochalipse (V13).
Daniel Woods on Trice
Photo: Steve Woods
- It shouldn’t be surprising that Canada’s Sean McColl has had a very good trip to Bishop. If you remember he flashed Thanatopsis (5.14b) last year at the Red and has won several youth world championships. Basically, he is incredibly talented, motivated and strong. Despite pretty poor weather he recently added the Mandala SDS (V14) to his impressive 2 week tick list that includes 2 V14s, 2 V13s, 5 V12s and 10 V11s. It is also noteworthy that 4 of his ascents were FAs and he is close on another FA which would link Baburre (V12) with Direction (V13). He already linked Baburre with The Mystery (V12) to create The Oracle (V13).
- Update: on 1/18/08 Sean finished connecting Baburre with Direction to form True North (V13)
Sean McColl finishing up Goldfish Trombone (V14)
Photo: Terry McColl
- Matt Fultz is someone that I have followed for a while on 8a. He is a very strong climber yet climbing appears to only be something he does part time. Instead he chooses to focus on athletics at his High School where is apparently quite good at that as well. When he is not in season he seems to be able to get in peak climbing shape pretty quickly. Last winter he got in shape and made quick work of several hard problems at Swan Falls and Hueco and he still seems to maintain that Fred Nicole’s much repeated El Techo de los Tres B’s (originally V14) is soft for V13. Anyway, he is back in winter shape yet again, and on Wednesday he climbed two of his hardest problems to date at Swan Falls, ID. He established Maniac a soft V12 as well as Legend (V13) which is now probably the hardest problem in Idaho behind James Litz’s Warpath (V15??).
Jeff Smith on what would become The Legend (V13) back in 2001
Photo: ClimbIdaho
- The MVM Premium Area has a new video up with Kevin Jorgeson on two pretty incredible highball boulder problems at Hueco Tanks. Featured is Stick or Stones (V8) and The Duel (V10) which more aptly resembles a route face than a boulder. It is really incredible climbing although I have to say that anything that needs to have 17 pads underneath it has to have a potentially negative impact on the ground underneath it. Here is what Kevin had to say about the problem:
The climbing at the beginning is controlled with small moves between small edges. Half way up, with 20’ of air below your heels, you dig your fingers behind a ¼ pad edge, backstep with your left foot, look up at the pocket, and commit. Miss the pocket and you become a human pinball. Stick the pocket with only 2 fingers and you have a chance. Ideally, you get three fingers in this pocket made for two, grab a narrow pinch next to it, and cross to an Oreo sticking out of the wall. Actually, an Oreo would be thicker than this hold. It’s more like a Ritz cracker. Lock this off to the arête and you’re virtually home free.
Kevin Jorgeson’s “boulder problem” The Duel
Check out the MVM for the full video
To clarify, the pads were placed primarily on boulders, with a 3′ x 6′ patch of dirt (not plants) at the very bottom also covered. One bush, nestled in a chasm between a slab and a boulder, was covered by the weight of 1 pad for a total of no more than half an hour. None of the pads were ever landed on.
Considering that this is one of the few times that there will be pads under this problem, compared to say any other 4 star climb in Hueco, I’d consider the experience to have minimal impact on the surrounding area, save the chalk left on the rock.
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Thanks for the information Kevin, that makes a lot of sense. I am glad to hear that none of the pads were landed on…more for your safety than anything else!
I think that in general we as boulderers don’t pay enough attention to the damage done by the pads we rely on for our safety, but I didn’t mean to insinuate that was the case for you in this instance.
And you are probably right in that there probably won’t be any gangbang sessions on The Duel any time soon. Really impressive ascent and really cool insight that you shared with Mike Call. It must be interesting to be able to relive all of these harrowing ascents on film, no?
One also has to wonder how many people you must know down at Hueco in order to procure 17 pads!
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speaking of bad landings….we should get together for a lake trip some time this spring / summer. i have no idea where boulder problems are up there (apart from the reserve and that one random arete near the reserve that i climbed once upon a time) and it seems as though you do, so it’d be neat to get on some of them.
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