Climbing Narcissist » News

“You think it will be cool till it isn’t fun anymore”

Narc — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:14:51 +0000

The North Face catches up with their athlete Alex Honnold to find out a bit more about his and Tommy Caldwell’s big day in Yosemite, his plans to rope solo the same feat for his segment in the Reel Rock Tour and a casual mention of how he free soloed the West Face of El Cap. As to how the idea for the triple link-up came about:

You do one route and you have a lot of time left in the day and you think, “Oh maybe we should have done two.” And eventually you do two with time left over and you say, “maybe we could do three…” and we did three and we didn’t have any time left over so we said, “we’re over it.”

More detail and pictures from Kelly Cordes on the big day here as well.

“You think it will be cool till it isn’t fun anymore” from Climbing Narcissist

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Bad Girls Club (5.14d) Repeated By Jon Cardwell

Narc — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:03:25 +0000

According to his 8a scorecard, Jon Cardwell has repeated Bad Girls Club, a 5.14d in Rifle, CO first done last summer by Matty Hong.

Bad Girls Club (5.14d) Repeated By Jon Cardwell from Climbing Narcissist

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Regular Dude Climbs Just Do It (5.14c)

Narc — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:21:59 +0000

To borrow a phrase from the fine folks over at Rock & Ice, Ryan Palo is a pretty regular dude. He works for a living, he climbs, he gets injured, he recovers and he climbs some more. It’s just that when he climbs, he tends to climb 5.14. Not very regular dude of him. It was especially not very regular dude of him when over the weekend he became the first local and probably the first person with a “real” job to climb Just Do It (5.14c) on Smith Rock’s iconic Monkey Face.

Palo has a write-up on his blog about the effort it took to complete a route of this difficulty, and despite how it looks when 15-year-old French kids do it, climbing hard 5.14 isn’t always that much fun:

Some time ago I realized that striving to climb at your max actually isnt fun. In fact, it’s downright unpleasant. I can think of countless examples of friends beating themselves up on routes they can barely do. Where the period of frustration & setback eclipses the jubilation period. I was told these were the moments where we build character, stamina, willpower, etc. and that might be true. Im just not so sure it’s worth it.

DPM also caught up with Palo for this interview that is worth reading as well.

Regular Dude Climbs Just Do It (5.14c) from Climbing Narcissist

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What Did You Do This Weekend?

Narc — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:16:49 +0000

Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold spent Saturday romping up big walls in Yosemite. The pair free climbed Freerider on El Cap (6:45 climbing), the South Face of Mt. Watkins (2:40 climbing) and the Regular Northwest Face on Half Dome (5 climbing) in just over 21 hours. More at Climbing.com. So…how was your weekend??

What Did You Do This Weekend? from Climbing Narcissist

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Campus Training With Flannery Shay-Nemirow

Narc — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:40:05 +0000

Campus Training With Flannery Shay-Nemirow from Climbing Narcissist Get the ClimbingNarc iOS app in the App Store to enjoy all this site's content on your iPhone or iPad Related posts: Clear Blue Skies Repeated By Flannery Shay-Nemirow Interview With Flannery & Asher Shay-Nemirow ClimbingNarc For iOS Full Version Of Red River Gorge iPhone App Now [...]

Campus Training With Flannery Shay-Nemirow from Climbing Narcissist

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Mon Pote Assis (5.14a) By Heather Robinson

Narc — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:09:30 +0000

A little over a year after she did her first 5.13d, Heather Robinson fired her first 5.14a when she did Mon Pote Assis at Nevada’s Mt. Potosi. Commenting about the ascent on her 8a scorecard she had this to say:

Oh my goodness! This send was a dream come true. Thank you Chris for believing in me and the countless belays. Super power endurance route. First female ascent!

A very nicely done profile of Robinson, which includes footage of her on that 5.13d from last year, can be seen here. Footage of Steve Lapen climbing Mon Pote Assis can be seen here.

Mon Pote Assis (5.14a) By Heather Robinson from Climbing Narcissist

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When In Doubt Pack It Out

Narc — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:06:43 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I always try my best to climb close to an actual bathroom. In case you don’t, the Access Fund has a nice refresher on what to do when nature calls.

When In Doubt Pack It Out from Climbing Narcissist

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Gravelle Repeats Echale (V14)

Narc — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:06:11 +0000

I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that with training like this that Canadian Yves Gravelle was able to climb his first V14 in Daniel Woods’ Echale in Clear Creek Canyon according to his 8a scorecard.

Gravelle Repeats Echale (V14) from Climbing Narcissist

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2nd Ascent Of Mystic Stylez (V15) By Dave MacLeod

Narc — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:30:08 +0000

Scottish climber Dave MacLeod is well-known for his boldness, having repeated and established several terrifying trad and winter climbs in the UK. And while his bold feats have garnered him many deserved headlines over the years, he is also quite accomplished at sport climbing and bouldering having climbed 5.14 and bouldered up to V14 both at home in the UK as well as abroad in places like Spain.

Most of MacLeod’s success in the bouldering realm until recently, however, had been mostly on problems local to the UK. When a climber has success like that on more local, less well-known terrain it’s not uncommon for others to wonder how a person like MacLeod might do on problems in more well-known areas. Well, after his recent trip to Switzerland I think we have our answer.

MacLeod began his trip with a repeat of Conquistador Direct (V13/14) in Chironico which he followed up with a repeat of New Base Line (V14) in Magic Wood. So far so good, right? But MacLeod was not quite done.

After a prolonged battle that required him to extend his stay in Switzerland and session on the problem at the crack of dawn, MacLeod did the 2nd ascent of Daniel Woods’ sit start to Muttertag (V11), the V15 Mystic Stylez. As usual, MacLeod has a great write-up about his efforts on his blog, and I wanted to highlight the following passage because I think it pertains to any climber that sets their mind to a specific goal:

On one hand, the climb represented a target to focus my efforts. It’s just a bit of rock and it doesn’t matter to anyone whether I climb it or not. But completing it does make a difference in the mind of the climber. If you’ve really set yourself the target, and you’ve done enough work to know it’s possible, then giving in when the ‘extra mile’ to completion is there for the taking makes it difficult to move on with confidence to the next challenge…I knew I might not manage it, but I looked forward and visualised driving home to Scotland without the send. The failure on the climb wouldn’t be worth a second thought (because if you never have failures, you can’t be trying anything that’s actually hard). The only regret I’d have would be failing without first giving everything to the fight.

This juxtaposition of the fact that climbing any piece of rock is ultimately pointless with the reality that this is what drives many of us to continually try to improve ourselves is something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this spring. For a few different reasons I’ve never really projected anything long-term¹, but this spring I decided to focus my efforts on a specific route in the Red River Gorge. I knew that I probably wouldn’t send this spring and I was ok with the fact that I was going to be driving 1,000 miles round trip to fail work on it. I was ready to get invested in the process.

My recent ankle failure ended any opportunity I might have had to continue working on the route this spring, although it was unlikely I would have done the route anyway. In some sense this is better though as the route continues to be, as MacLeod puts it, a target for my efforts and gives me something to work toward as my ankle gets better. In the end that’s what this game is all about, isn’t it?

I think the most days I’ve ever spent on a route or boulder problem that I actually finished is 3 days. I have commitment issues. ↩

2nd Ascent Of Mystic Stylez (V15) By Dave MacLeod from Climbing Narcissist

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Another Hard 5.14 FA By Daniel Woods In Clear Creek Canyon

Narc — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:54:56 +0000

Back in March Daniel Woods announced his return to sport climbing with the FA of Mourning Glory, a hard 5.14 in Colorado’s Clear Creek Canyon. It was there again where Woods did the FA of the so-called “Mission Impossible Project” the other day dubbing the resulting line Mission Imposible¹ and suggesting a grade of hard 5.14 for the line which features multiple double-digit cruxes. The route was bolted last year by Jay Samuelson who posted this challenge on Mountain Project:

Your mission Mr Phelps, should you choose to accept it, is to ascend the sweeping gray, green, and orange face to the left of Interstellar Overdrive. This mission is wrought with dead-ends, danger, and misery for the few who dare attempt the Impossible. Your entry exam shall be slab climbing that is slightly overhung which will immediately deposit you into the crux; survive the mental and physical torture of the next two bolts and you might just breathe the rarefied air of the upper headwall. Don’t breathe too easy though, as traps and tricks are waiting to spit you back to the realm of mere mortals. Should you fail, we will disavow any knowledge of you and your mission.

In comments to Climbing.com Woods indicates that the route felt like his hardest yet—harder even than Jaws II—and he also commented on the breakdown of the route which is well worth reading if you’re into that sort of thing.

Footage of the send was captured by none other than Paul Robinson so look for that somewhere at some point.

Daniel Woods working what would become Mission Imposible (5.14+)

He initially called it Deathrow but subsequently changed it after CCC locals made their case for keeping a variant of the project name out of respect to the equipper ↩

Another Hard 5.14 FA By Daniel Woods In Clear Creek Canyon from Climbing Narcissist

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