Back in February or March John "Sweatpants" Freaney sent me blow by blow beta for Strong Men. I was very thankful and hoped to get on it soon after that. Well that never happened and for whatever reason we decided to get on it in the middle of summer instead.
We got about as lucky as could be and found it first try thanks to Katie's phenomenal sense of direction. Just look for the broken tree that looks like this:
First thing's first though, the problem is definitely cool and very worthwhile! Just maybe not during the summer and in no way does it rival Sandstone Violence in difficulty and quality. Nonetheless, a very cool and hard climb.
I tried to memorize John's beta as best I could and it all seemed there, but hard. I was able to figure out the move out left to the crimp relatively quickly, though. After adjusting my right heel a little bit I linked through a haze of mosquitoes into the next move before falling off. Summer temps were fighting hard.
One of my better goes
RV gave it some good tries before he abandoned my beta for his own bump beta up the arete. This seemed to work better for him and also seemed like the option for Katie too. I was, and still am, opposed to the bump as it hurts my baby soft hands a little too much. Boo hoo. They are apparently much tougher than I am.
I stood aside and took pictures as Katie and RV sieged the problem and tried to work it out. RV stuck the bump a couple times and Katie came close after insisting that she wouldn't get the first move.
RV, before he got all smart and stuff
I hopped back on but my skin didn't want to play nice. We all called it a night and started the drive back to Madison.
I tried the "All points off dyno back to the pads" technique but it didn't seem to work that well
Night sessions have become increasingly nice lately. They're so much better than going into the gym and it's seemingly always a surprise somehow. We ended up going out twice this past weekend and had maybe the best summer weather I've ever encountered at the lake on Saturday, but more on that later...
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The weather has been outrageous these past couple of months. Far from perfect but still very manageable.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to finally get out and see the problem depicted. Looks kinda cool based on a photo of one hold.
LOL on the comparison to Sandstone Violence. I assume you're referring to Travis's description on mountainproject. Apparently he and Steve (Dew)'s conversation went something like this after Travis sent.
ReplyDeleteTravis: Cool. I have no idea how hard it is.
Steve: Call it V8 or nobody will want to come try it.
Travis: Good idea, I'll also put that it rivals Sandstone Violence, people will come try it for sure then.
Pretty funny. ce
That's perfect!!! I love it! I don't think that either one of them realized that this is the midwest and no matter what people were going to want to try it.
ReplyDeleteI love the midwest.
It's about time you tried this... you should post the (what seemed like) 3 pages of beta I sent you(i get carried away with psych sometimes). Glad that some of it worked out for you. It should also be noted that you can print out the beta as to not have to memorize the whole thing or go a step into the modern century with a fancy phone and be able to pull up the email on there... I have had several occations that I have pulled out my storm and checked MP for clarification while trying to find something... ABC boulder comes to mind as one of those times.
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember fielding a phone call in the middle of a busy day at work from Sweaty: "Where is the ABC boulder?" And as I recall I stayed on the line while you traipsed through the pickers until you saw it and I believe your exact words were, "That's it???". LOL.
ReplyDeleteGood post Steve. This little area feels cool since you part outside the park, a clandestine destination. Did you try that "V4" next to it? I swear that thing was harder than the "V8"!!! ce
Oops I meant "park" outside the park. I guess it's park land. ce
ReplyDeletei believe that was my quote as I was expecting a boulder taller than 7 and a half feet. lol. I was slightly underwhelmed for sure... as I remember we both were when we finally found "stong men" I recall a whole bunch of awkward silence as we finally found this thing and then had similar comments to the ones I had for the 'abc' bloc. lol.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes i did stay on the phone with you until i found the illusive abc bloc but directly before that i tried to find it on my own by looking on MP. when that failed I utilized your guiding services. :-)
sweaty
Yeah sweaty, thanks again for the beta. mucho help. It was pretty funny reading through it though. Possibly the most thorough beta i've ever received.
ReplyDeleteI guess I've had better luck with finding things at dodge. we found ABC rather quickly.
I can definitely relate to the "that's it" reaction to many of the problems at dodge...
I like the "all points off dyno" move, classic.
ReplyDeleteYou guys will send this quickly when the temps are better.
Steinke Basin is sick!
Remo
The "that's it?" reaction to Strong Men for me was the landing and the height. Kept thinking of my ankle and how long it took me to walk normal after biffing from the top of Backbone Ridge last fall. And then after seeing Sweaty send I got this wierd super bad vibe about the problem and almost didn't try it again. Then the next time I tried it I fell off the first move but my heel was stuck on the heel hook, not pretty... Sweaty was gracious and patient in letting me work out my jitters fortunately, even though he was psyched to get over to Group B ASAP.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a lot of new postings about DL bouldering on mp, excited.
Love the "backwards dyno onto the pads" photo! ce
Yeah you were like super sketched after I took like 13 minutes to climb the last 7 feet on questionable rock on my send. Then you like randomly crushed it. lol. Yeah, I'm like super confused and antimidated by all that stuff that's been put up on MP. I have no clue of where shit is at the lake besides like the perfect medium area. I will surely have to go with someone when I come up there. I want to try that dyno project... and a lot of other shit too. but yeah kinda overwhelmed.
ReplyDeleteohh... and it also didnt help your confidence when i pitched off the middle and went thru the pads and bruised my heal.
ReplyDeletesweaty
Sweaty I found the dyno project and those problems over there pretty easily and you know me and my sense of direction... Would be psyched to get out there with you anytime-- Saturday? They are right off the trail, I'd walked like 10 feet from them around 40 times and never looked that way. But I would be psyched to check out really anything else there too.
ReplyDeleteYeah. Fear. Keeps it real I guess. ce
haha word. id be psyched. Going with the special lady friend and her fam down to Hilton Head S.C. for the week. leaving friday. i really do want to get out there with you at some point. itd be good to catch up. Any body have any suggestions on a bouldering stop to make along the way down 65?
ReplyDelete