Our Generation

When I started bouldering at the Lake I knew of three basic generations of boulderers. You had John Gill who gave us obvious classics like Flatiron and Tombstone. While not a major player, he's still someone you tend to think of when you bring up DL bouldering.

For a while things were a big dormant and quiet. That was, until Eric Zschieschie, Paul Jones and Eric Barnard came along. They brought along the first real generation of true bouldering at the lake. They plucked obvious lines like The Zipper, Perfect Medium and countless others along the East Bluff Trail. Pretty soon though they ventured off trail. Lines like Beautiful Soup and The Greatest Show On Earth were sent quickly and started to open peoples eyes to what was possible. Paul found The Reserve and Eric found Burma Road and pretty soon there was a pretty concentrated group of people searching out new boulders.

After some time people moved on with their lives and moved away from the area. This next change coincided with when I started climbing and I was lucky enough to nab one of the last copies of Eric's guide, Git On It.

Within a couple of years Todd Mei, Peter DeSalvo and Brian Sandona had started to pick up where the others left off. Todd contributed the mysterious sit start to Smooth Operator, Bud White, while Brian and Peter started scouring the West bluff for more new lines. Peter himself has said he was just a bit "ADD" at the time and saw more boulders than he knew what to do with.

He added the classic testpiece Alpine Club and just up the hill Brian added The Keymaker. They also added numerous other hard problems in the woods of the West Bluff, firmly planting themselves as the Third Generation of DL Boulderers.

Then there was nothing. Brian moved away. DeSalvo kept getting hurt and eventually moved away to Chicago. Todd moved off to England and the boulders were silent again.

Everyone knows what happened after that. I've said it time and time again. There was nothing, and then there was 08/09 and everything changed. A new generation stepped up to the plate.

The people in the pictures above are those people and I want to thank each and every one of you. Your excitement for the bouldering scene here has given me untold amounts of motivation and it makes me incredibly happy every single time I get to climb with you and call you my friends. It means a lot.

Two people in particular give me more support than necessary. My wife, Katie, who is amazing for obvious reasons and puts up with my obsessive jibber jabber of all things climbing. I really don't know how you do it. And secondly, RV. You're my best friend and I'm so glad that you share my giddy, stupid ass 8 year old excitement and immaturity.

It's been a year today since I started my awkward ramblings on this funny little site and I like to think that this has turned into something positive. I originally started it as a true climbing blog and it's morphed into a great local resource. I truly love that it's being used to make plans to go out, talk shit and discuss good booze. The comments are by far the best thing to come out of this site.

The thing about generations is that they end. Right now we're right in the middle of this thing. I don't know how long it will last, but I'm hoping it'll go on for a while. That said, this time next year the core group could be totally different. You just don't know.

So, enjoy this while it lasts. We're in the middle of the 4th generation right now and this next season is when we can really leave our mark. My psyche and excitement is overwhelming right now. You can't even imagine.