The Devil's Dome

Wow, what a couple of days we've had. Katie and I took Friday off and went up to DL to try a couple of things. Katie was psyched about finishing up Anchorpoint so we went up there first. Katie warmed up and looked super solid as she figured out each of the moves again. Pretty soon she was linking into the last "hard" move and she started to move up and into the slab. After a flurry of confusion she was back on the pads with me and had a very confused look on her face.

"What do I do then??"

As we soon found out, her small stature made it increasingly difficult to top the stupid thing out. Each time that she linked into the last hard crimp she'd get to the topout and be too stretched out to do anything. On her last good go she hit the second good hold over the lip but her feet skated and she fell to the pads.

Devastating, to say the least. Neither of us could believe it. We figured out a couple things that might work for next time and packed up to move on in disbelief.

I'd been aching to try the Half Dome project ever since Remo put it up on Mountain Project and I couldn't wait to see it! We made our way up the talus field and eventually found the boulder. It looked even better than the pictures made it seem, although it was a good deal harder looking than I expected. All of the possible holds, save one jug up top, faced the wrong way and looked relatively unusable.

I moved the pads around the somewhat awkward landing and started chalking up possible holds. There are a couple of pinchy, sloperish crimps in the center of the lower face and they looked to be the best bet for the middle line. I chalked up a high right hand gaston and a couple feet and set to work.

It was all rather desperate for the first few minutes as I kept exploding off of the problem. It just seemed really far above me. I moved my feet, at Katie's suggestion, and then a couple tries later I stuck the first move! Both of us were surprised as it came relatively easily with the right body position.

The first move

I was just happy that it seemed to all be coming together!

I set to work on the true crux of the problem, the second move. Starting from the high right hand, the only solution I was able to figure out was a very high left foot, which left me sore for days, and a big lockoff on a bad gaston. There were two holds that looked holdable about a foot below the big jug on the face. I gave it maybe 30 attempts but could never get the momentum right. Every time that I'd get absurdly close my left foot would blow off of the shiny foothold. It seemed to be a very low percentage move.

Locking off for the crux

So close!!!

At the end of the session I started trying to weight the next move and had a hard time just doing that, although it may have been because I was pretty tired.

I am so excited about trying this project again this coming Wednesday. Katie and I are going to head up and I can't wait to give it some more effort. I really have no clue how hard it's going to be but it's for sure going to be a classic.

Oh so psyched on the West Bluff right now!!!

On top of everything that we tried on Friday, Katie and I made it up to the lake last night again. After running into Chris E. by chance at the parking lot and helping him put their canoe onto their car we took off for Anchorpoint.

Name of the game turned out to be devastation!!! I won't go into too much detail but I will say that Katie made it past the "crux" on Anchorpoint 3 more times and even got as far as getting her left foot on the topout slab before sliding down on her tummy in a pretty terrifying fall. I can't give her enough credit for trying so damn hard. It WILL go. Soon.

It was turning dark and I was waffling on whether I wanted to try Alpine Club or not. At Anchorpoint a small patch of cold air came in and I decided that I'd give it a go in the cool temps. Sadly those same temps were not at Alpine Club. I flailed around on it, feeling stronger than ever but still miles away from it. I'm really not sure what I have to do. I'm stumped. I've never had anything feel this close but still so far away. I have a feeling that with cooler temps it'll go, but I'm not sure.

It seems that Alpine Club and I have a Love/Hate thing going on. In the end, I will win. There is no doubt in my mind. It'll go.

And in maybe the most genius moment ever, Katie suggested that we make soup in the Jetboil while we waited for the Ferry. Fantastic! We poured the can into the stove and in about 3 minutes we had hot soup to eat while we rode across the ferry. There are very few products out there that I would buy at retail no matter what. Jetboil is one of them. I'm very happy to be able to represent such a cool, innovative company.

Birthday Challenge Part Two

I've refined my challenge a bit. I'm pretty happy with how it's coming together. I'm thinking that I'm just gonna avoid Dodge altogether now and just concentrate on DL. That could change though. I'm hoping to do a 26 problem circuit throughout the lake and then possibly some other challenge after that. RV has said that he's down for making up his own circuit and doing that too since his Birthday is 4 days away from mine.

Perfect!

Here's the list so far.

1 - Burma Warmup - V0
2 - Murder Slab - V2
3 - One other problem at Burma. Not sure which one yet.
4 - Big Bud Arete - V2
5 - Geise Dome - V2
6 - Slope of Dadaism - V3
7 - Shawn's Slab - V0
8 - Bark Biter - V4
9 - Venus Rising - V7
10 - Perfect Medium - V9
11 - The Zipper - V8
12 - The Flatiron - V4
13 - Alpine Club - V9
14 - Beautiful Soup - V8
15 - Anchorpoint - V7
16 - Corner Route - V3
17 - Recreational Vehicle - V4
18 - Trust Fund - V0
19 - Massive Vertigo - V8
20 - Jenga - V7

Now, as you can see, I've got 20 problems up. There are some in limbo right now. Here is the list of those!! Let me know what you think.

1 - Bulbous - V8 - RV and I tried it a bunch in 2007 and I haven't been back since. I got all the moves but one and really need to go back. I feel like I'm in better shape and in general fitter than when I tried it back then. It it goes, it'll probably be on the list. It's only logical.
2 - Greatest Show - V8? - It needs to be cleaned off really well and it might not be the best choice for the circuit. But it'd be cool. I haven't put much work into it right now but it's really one of the better lines at the lake.
3 - Half Dome Project - V? - It looks cool but I need to try it and get a feel for what it's actually like! Hopefully this weekend since I was sick last time. Would be a cool addition.
4 - Axiom of Arete Aesthetics - V7 - This thing hasn't gotten a repeat in I don't know how long. Probably the least traveled hard problem at the lake and I'm not sure why. It's a nice enough looking line but it's tall and blank looking.
5 - Roof Traverse Project - V? - Another problem that will sort of figure itself out this fall. I have no idea what this is gonna be like when it gets cleaned up and we get some chalk on it. Could be brutal, could be doable. Not sure.
6 - So Many Projects!!! There are really so many unknowns right now at the lake. The west bluff is so full of potential that I really have to wait for now to get a full list together. This fall should be big. I'm hoping.

Give me some suggestions!! I'm open. As of right now, this is over my head by a decent amount. I need to start training hard and this gives me a good goal for next year. I'm psyched to do it and curious how it's going to turn out.

I feel good right now. So many good things are coming together in life and I'm a very happy man. As all of us know life is an up and down sort of thing and I always feel pretty happy when I'm on an up swing. It always helps when you're with someone that makes you happy!!

I get to marry Katie in about 2 weeks. I'm feeling pretty damn lucky right about now. Life is very good!

I think this one will confuse everyone except for Katie...

Poor Max(ine)

RV left us a few weeks ago now and Katie and I have been saving this one up for a bit now. He made the grave mistake of leaving his shoes and, more importantly, Max in our custody.

Rookie move, Bambi. Rookie move.(I've been watching too much Scrubs lately)

We decided to play nice at first, but then we walked into Target last week and Katie ran over to the dollar section. Ohhh, the dollar section. We do love the dollar section. So many prime choices in such a concentrated area. It's very hard to pass up.

At first I was confused why Katie ran over there so quickly. Even after she grabbed what she was looking at and screamed at me I was still dumbfounded. Then it hit me. It was for Max!!


She found him a Tutu!! We'd only threatened, not expecting to actually find anything! And on top of that, it was a dollar!!!!! We couldn't pass it up.

We turned the corner and lo and behold, we found something even better!!


Yep, for two whole dollars we clothed Maxine with a new hot outfit. Now she's ready to go out on the town!

RV just might kill me this time. I'm sorry...ish.

Progressively Sneezier

Saturday morning started out fairly normal. After a bit of packing we made it up to the lake around 10 or so. We had possibly the best entry onto the ferry yet by pulling up and just driving right on. Perfect day. Perfect temps. Perfect Ferry ride.

Perfect. Almost.

The whole ride up I kept on getting more and more of a stuffed up nose. I thought nothing of it, really, and just sort of figured it was worse than normal allergies.

We parked and started the hike out to Anchorpoint so Katie could try it again. It'd been a while since she tried it last and she had no real idea how it was actually going to go. Since we'd been up there last Katie has gotten stronger and has found some new motivation so I was pretty optimistic. I figure she just had to try hard. Katie, on the other hand, thought it was going to be one of those projects that she'd come back to over and over and never send.

Obviously we had different expectations.

We laid out the pads, made a futile attempt to warm up and, as always, just gave up and started trying our respective projects. Katie hopped on Anchorpoint and started re-figuring the moves out. Pretty quickly she was back to where she was before and she started playing with different feet with varying degrees of success.

She sat down for a couple minutes, put on her Solutions and stuck the move! After slapping up left a couple times she jumped off with a surprised look on her face. She rested and gave it a couple more goes to remember the move but was having issues keeping her right foot. After putting on her V10's she absolutely HIKED the move over and over again. Eventually she found her way up to the good edge that signals the end of the hard climbing and jumped off.

Her tips were getting raw by then so we figured we'd pack up. By that point my little sniffle had turned into a nose dripping epic of sorts and we went into Baraboo to get allergy meds and food. After that brief detour we were trying to decide whether or not to go back to Alpine Club. The temps were as good as I could have asked for in August and that was hard to give up. On the other hand it was painfully clear that this wasn't allergies, but that I was gonna be laid up for a few days.

I made the call, with a bit of prodding from Katie, that we'd head back to try Alpine Club. We figured that at worst I'd be at the same spot I was before! I could do no harm!!

The hike in was quick and we avoided as much eye contact as possible which made it much more pleasant. We hadn't been up to the problem since we cleaned up the vines that were suffocating the area. I gotta say, it's WAY nicer than it ever has been. Good air flow, a little bit of sunlight and far fewer bugs at the problem. I encourage everyone to check it out.

Anyways, onto the problem. I pulled on for the first few times to warm up and felt really good on the first move, which has never been easy for me. I don't know how everyone calls it a V4 move. After a bit of a warm up I gave some pretty good burns at the crux. I felt relatively strong and Katie kept telling me that I looked stronger on it than she's ever seen, which was encouraging.

Pretty soon though I devolved into trying different beta and from there it was a downward spiral into sneezing, dynos and failure.

I gave one final all out effort solely because I needed to have at least one good go. It was by far my best effort on the problem and I came very close to doing the move. I think all I need is a bit more lockoff and better temps. This year for sure.

Sadly, Alpine Club decided to fight back and I got a bit of a split on one of my tips. Oh well. It was worth it.

Saturday marked my 10th day of working on it and it's getting to the point of being emotionally invested in the problem. I haven't been at that point with anything for a long time now and I'm excited to try and do it this fall. At the same time it's hard to keep going back to the same thing and make no progress on it. Katie is definitely a good influence on me, constantly reminding me that it's supposed to be fun, and she makes it far easier to work on the problem.

I haven't wanted to do something as badly as I did when I was working Sandstone Violence before Jason did it. I'm finding myself quietly training specifically for it, something that I very rarely do. I want it. Bad.

Sadly we didn't take any pictures while we were climbing. That said, I will have a GREAT post up tomorrow. Look for it. It's Rad. To the MAX...

New Psych

It seems that the end of summer is coming soon and Katie and I have started to get more and more excited as time goes on. We've started to train a bit harder and we're both coming out of relative lulls that we had going on during June and July.

We've been lucky enough this summer to have gotten out a fair amount and for most of that it's been relatively mild. We couldn't be more psyched for the fall though. So many good things happening that it's hard to comprehend!! What's funny is that with all the excitement that everyone is feeling right now, there has been relatively nothing going on locally! Hopefully there will be some activity soon.

Tomorrow is looking fantastic and Katie and I are heading out to the West Bluff. 71 and sunny!!! I want to try Alpine Club again, for about the millionth time, and Katie is going to get back on Anchorpoint. I think after that we're gonna look at some of the stuff that Remo found a while ago. Curious what it's all going to be like.

What the hell is everyone else working on?!?!? Out with it!!

The Flatiron, Part Duex

Last week ended on a very low motivation point for both of us and we hadn't really made any climbing plans for Saturday as a result. We got up and made a hasty decision to go up to the Flatiron before we had to drive down to Milwaukee for Katie's Nephews 4th Birthday Party at 3:00.

We got up to the East Bluff and laid the pads out, all the while remarking about how tired our legs were. Could not believe it!!! I felt like my legs were shaking each time I tried it. Kind of crazy.

We swapped attempts for a bit and I started trying out every single type of beta that I could think of in hopes of remembering what I'd done before. After that phase I tried Katie's high foot beta and it just sort of clicked and I went to the top. I was pleased to top it out again and was reminded how enjoyable the problem was. It's not every day that you get to do a Gill problem, let alone one with the historical value that the Flatiron has.

Katie was getting frustrated by not being able to stick the high left hand this time. Neither of us were sure why until she moved her right foot a little bit to the left and it made all the difference in the world. Sadly it was late in our session and we had to leave for the party. She gave it one last go and, just like last time, had the best effort of the day on her last attempt. She made it past the high left hand and accidentally put her right foot on the wrong hold. She couldn't reverse the move to readjust and ended up coming down.

One of Katie's last attempts...and a nice Organic bed of foam.

Coming down she was encouraged that she figured that out and now she should be able to focus on the somewhat scary last move. I have to say, if everyone had to do the last move like she does, it'd be a much less repeated boulder problem. It'll be a very proud effort when it goes.

With that, we went down to the party and had a good time seeing family and friends. I took a bunch of pictures and realized that kids do a lot of stupid stuff when their parents aren't around. Especially when there are enablers like Katie hanging out.

Katie "helping" Matty with the pinata.

Katie and Abby being Rad.

Abby can thank Katie for the Mickey Mouse ears and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles dagger.

Katie's B-day

It was Katie's Birthday yesterday and we decided to push ourselves. We wanted a challenge to rival anything we'd done before. We went to Noah's Ark and yes, we got very rad.

We crushed the Black Anaconda with ease and downgraded Time Warp. So soft!! We routinely destroyed both the wave pools and thought that the "Big Kahuna" was overrated choss. Go for the original and go for "The Wave". It's much radder.

The French Fries were no match for our hungry bellies and neither was the lemonade. Soft Pretzels tried to put up a fight but we were back in the pool 5 minutes after eating them. Yeah, we're that hardcore.

I don't even want to talk about how badly the Endless Lazy River is hurting right now. It's not so tough. A little chilly? Yeah, but I've seen worse.

After yesterday the Ark is gonna need at least a year to recuperate from our visit. It was shaken and scared when we left. It didn't even know what hit it. Bitch.

The sun, however, did put quite the hurt on my pasty white skin. It's a nice hue of red right now. Very becoming, if I must say so. Thank you, Sun, for without you I might have gotten a full nights sleep. I didn't need those hours of sleep anyway.

Alright now, on to bidness. Nic was supposed to come down from the cities tonight but couldn't for some reason. Punk. Now I'm car-less and want to climb at the lake. Anyone want to go tonight after work? I want to climb real rocks. Don't make me go to the gymnasium.

That Was Easyish

Self Portrait after finding Massive Vertigo.  So Hot.  So Sweaty.

Well, I found Massive Vertigo yesterday. Big ol' thanks to Huston who pointed me in the right direction! It was definitely not ideal conditions being 95, humid and rainy, but I'm glad I ended up making it there. I'll have full directions up later today for those interested.

The problem itself was a little different than I remembered and in real rough shape. It's for sure a Spring/Fall boulder as it was soaked through and damp. It's in another one of those spots that gets sort of socked in with all the trees and foliage around. Looking forward to going back up this fall.

The one prevailing thing that I kept on thinking though was just how underdeveloped this part of the lake actually is. Loads of potential for new problems and area. Things that will take lots of time and energy to clean up but could be amazing once they're done! The talus is bigger and a little steeper than the south end but should yield some really cool problems.

Massive Vertigo is a prime example. It's kind of an unassuming problem at first glance. Climbing out of a pit on small crimps, it's definitely not the most beautiful line in the park, but it's worthy of some attempts. I give Peter a lot of credit for finding and seeing the line.

I saw lots of big blocks that need to be searched out and played around on. This Fall should be interesting.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of what I saw.

Here are three shots of a VERY cool looking roof.  I'm not sure if anything is doable out of it or not.  It was infested with bugs and dripping with water so I couldn't check it out too closely.  The landing is gonna need some serious work and the pillar of talus in the middle will have to go but there might be a really cool and hard traverse just under the lip.  The whole thing is maybe 15-20 feet wide.

This is Massive Vertigo.  It starts down in the bottom center of the picture in the small corner, I believe.  It goes up and left on small crimps over a landing that you should pay attention to.  Mike Simon went for a ride down the hill on one of his falls.

This was a pretty cool compression boulder just up from the tumbled rocks trail.  Seemed like the talus could be moved around a bit to make it a couple moves longer.

Great Days Ahead

This one's for you RV

Katie and I had the day off yesterday and we took the opportunity to get on one of the most classic climbs at Devil's Lake. Gills' Flatiron.


We got to the lake around 10 or so, after catching the ferry perfectly, and had a quick hike up the CCC trail. It was actually the most pleasant hike up the CCC that I've ever had. For what reason I'm not sure, but I'll take it anyways. We dropped our pads in front of the Flatiron and took a quick look around the area to check out some of the other problems that I'd heard of, but never actually been in front of.

We checked out the Zipper quickly but didn't try it. It definitely looks "all there" and the last hard move looks spicy! Would like to try it with a crew of spotters and pads. All of the problems up and to the right of the Flatiron look cool and fun. Capitans Traverse does look brutal and a little height dependent. Oh well. I'm hoping to have a Wisconsin Bouldering post up soon about all that stuff.

On another note, people need to bury their shit. On the far right side of that wall someone had taken a poop and there was TP everywhere. Disgusting.

Back to the Flatiron though! A quick bit of history first for everyone who's not familiar with the problem. Flatiron sits atop one of the most travelled trails at Devil's Lake and is passed by thousands of climbers each year. John Gill first did the problem in 1958 or 1959 and named it after the Flatirons in Colorado. It's one of the most famous Gill problems for no other reason other than it's the ONLY problem that he ever chipped. He's talked freely of it many times and regrets what he did but it still stands today as one of the few chipped problems at the lake.

Oddly enough I actually don't know which hold is chipped on the thing. I think it's the last right hand hold but I'm definitely not sure.

The problem itself is a classic line and is a climb that every V4 or stronger boulderer at the lake should take the time to do. Its movement is phenomenal and the problem is striking to everyone that sees it. If you're only going to do one problem at Devil's Lake do this one.

Even with its classic status it's rarely done! By no means is this a gimmie of a problem. You gotta try hard!

With that, we booted up and started trying it. I'd done it a couple years ago and had some issues figuring out which feet I'd used! There are so many!! Katie and I traded turns back and forth for a while and I tried to take some pictures in the heinous lighting to no avail. Pissed that my flash had no batteries i resigned to trying the problem again.

Katie on one of her earlier attempts

I eventually had to call it quits as my skin started acting up again. I'm not sure what's happening this summer but my skin is pissed! Boo!

Katie was making pretty good progress on it but was still having troubles reaching the high left sidepull. She pulled on again and moved into a really high left foot, stood up and latched it! After setting her foot on a good hold she was about an inch from the first hold in the right crack. Eventually she jumped off wondering what to do next.

After a quick bout of utter confusion she figured it out again but heat and repeated goes were taking its toll. We had to leave at 12:45 to go taste cakes (which was AWESOME by the way!!) and at 12:40 she decided to go for one last ditch effort. She made it to her highpoint with relative ease and used a higher right foot to get the high right hand. After reaching up and realizing that she was about 3 inches too short for the normal beta she got an insecure high step and popped off before she could even try the move! And that was it. Done.

She felt really good about the progress made, especially considering she made it further than most people do after a few days. Next time it should go down no problem and I'm actually really excited to try her beta. She made it look easy.

Such a good day up there and I'd forgotten how much fun that problem was! Again, just so excited to be at the lake right now!!

On a separate and funnier note, someone commented over on Wisconsin Bouldering about having some old topos to some of the areas at the lake. I was really curious and finally got to see them today. Turns out that they were my old topos that I'd drawn up a couple years ago!! I can't really believe it. I drew some really crude topos and put them up at Boulders for people to have and never really thought of them again. I kinda can't believe that people actually used them!!

Very funny when things like that come full circle.

Spring/Summer Review

I've been wanting to to a wrap up of the Spring/Summer season for a while now. I finally got around to it and want to point out a couple of cool/notable things that have happened so far. It's always fun to look back on the past season.

Early in the season Travis Melin seemed to be on a mission to find a new "Campsite B" at Dodge. It seemed that a new area popped up weekly. While none of them turned out to be huge, a couple of them were noteworthy and definitely worth visiting. Maybe the most visited was Steve's ZZ boulders. They held the hardest new line at Dodge since the summer of 2008. Travis tagged it at V8 with a bit of sarcasm and humor tossed in for good measure. It received a couple of quick repeats from Sweaty and Mr. Eggbert who both commented on how terrifying the topout was. Remo and Dobbe followed suit and consensus on the line has come to about V7 right now. A nice, worthy addition.

We had some great spring weather for climbing a lots of people took advantage of it. On one random day at Group Camp B we saw maybe 20-30 people out at the boulders and the parking lot was full. Kind of cool to see and something that I definitely wasn't used to in Wisco.

Towards the end of April Nic and I started to talk about climbing up at the lake together. I'd been working on getting him down here for a while now and we finally met up in the beginning of May. Remo and Brian joined us at the Alpine Club and Beautiful Soup boulders. For a few weeks prior I'd been getting more and more tired of Dodge. The day that the 4 of us went out seemed to mark the start of a new life for Devil's Lake bouldering. Nic eventually sent both of the problems later that week for their first ascents since 2004, and seemingly everyone got psyched on the lake again.

Bouldering at the lake had long been somewhat defunct and I'm not sure if I ever saw anyone else at the boulders. With the help of a few instrumental people(Remo, RV, Mr. Eggbert, Rhoads and myself) life was all of a sudden shocked back into the scene. New areas started popping up on Mountain Project in the same fashion that they had last summer at Governor Dodge.

Alpine Club got an astonishing amount of attempts in the months of May and June and the Monolith area as a whole got more traffic in a few weeks than it had gotten in years. Brian was even able to coax Mr. Jamie Emerson into coming through town. While he was here he made a quick repeat of Beautiful Soup and noted that he'd like to come back at some point.

Rhoads went on a mission of taking pictures and firming up route info for as many areas as he could. At the same time he went and "re-discovered" Steinke Basin and made public the amount of bouldering potential the area held.

RV went on some sort of mission to go up to the Monolith Boulders more than anyone ever had and FINALLY repeated Venus Rising properly. The Anchorpoint boulders were put on the map again and the namesake boulder received numerous ascents. That area alone seemed to open many peoples minds into what still might be out there awaiting in the talus fields.

Other areas await even more potential and I'm so happy to see people out there enjoying the problems again. I'm only hoping it grows more throughout the year.

While there were lots of other notable sends and stories from this season there's one person I have to give credit to. Mr. Rhoads. As much as I don't like to give him credit cause it's just gonna go to his head, I kind of have to. He's been doing a phenomenal job of seeking out as many out of the way areas as possible and getting the info onto Mountain Project. He's also done some very impressive leads this year and I'm sure we can look forward to more of the same in the future.

It also works out well that in the wake of his searching, there's been a number of very cool potential boulders and one or two pretty cool routes he's found. Very well done Rhoads.

Here are a couple of fall predictions for you guys to chew on. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Alpine Club will be climbed 2 more times before year end.

Beautiful Soup will be climbed 3 more times before year end.

Keymaker will get its second and third ascent.

Perfect Medium will get sent twice by year end.

The Greatest Show On Earth will get done at least once.

I will finally RE-find Massive Vertigo.

RV and I will finally fucking do Sandstone Violence and get that shit behind us.

I think that's it for now. Let me know what you guys think about all of this. It's been a good year so far!!

Farewell Old Friend

RV left town on Saturday for India. He'll be there for about a month and a half and then will fly back just in time to be best man in our wedding. I couldn't be happier that he's making the trip back.

We've climbed a bunch this spring and summer and RV has been a pretty good subject to take pictures of. At the same time he tends to lend himself to punishment. I've just been lucky to catch that through my lenses. I'm blown away by how many bad pictures that man can be in. It's almost mind numbing!

Here's my homage to RV for the first part of this year. I think I'm going to make this a twice yearly type of thing. What do you think?