Old Devil’s Lake Bouldering Photos: Jenga (V6 or 7?)

When we were moving last year, I was very psyched to stumble across a series of pictures from the spring of 2003 I didn’t remember taking.  Among the pile were several pictures of the bouldering in the talus at the base of Devil’s Lake’s West Bluff.  While the bouldering along the West Bluff is less popular when compared to other areas like the North Shore, Monolith, Tombstone and probably even the Reserve, it is home to several of the Lake’s harder lines.  The only drawback is that even finding some of the problems among the jumbled talus can be quite a chore.

Take the classic problem Jenga for example.  I tried to locate this boulder a couple of years ago and spent 3 hours hiking up and down the talus field to no avail.  It is a lot like hiking around the talus in RMNP on a much, much smaller scale.  

Given these difficulties, I was especially pleased to find that I had taken a few pictures of my friend Peter climbing Jenga back in 2003.  To me, Jenga is one of the few problems at the Lake that requires more power and less technique which is a good thing in my book.  

After starting matched in the corner, you work your right hand up the arete using marginal pinches and a hand foot match on the start hold

then you gain two crimps before lunging for better holds at the top of the boulder

After making a memorable desperation send I think I wanted to believe that Jenga was V7, but it is very possible it is more like V6 (or even easier).  Either way, it is a really fun problem that I highly recommend.  I plan on spending a fair amount of time in the talus this spring, and I will do my best to locate this problem so I can provide better directions.

Peter topping out the problem to the left of Alpine Club??