Sicky Gnar Gnar

Weekend

2012-01-30T19:08:00.009-06:00

Nic came down for the weekend to hang out and compete at Quick on the Draw. I met him up at DL to go look around and search for some new boulders.

While I was waiting I went to the zoo to kill time.

After meeting up with Nic at the North Shore we started out on the railroad tracks that skirt the East Bluff. We had grand plans to explore a bit more of the bluff but ended up accidentally finding Tipping Point. From there we hopped up to the top of the bluff and walked around for a bit.

The hiking was actually substantially easier than we thought it'd be but it was still rough. Talus is bad enough. Snow covered talus is simply frightening. I made Nic go first so it was safer for me!

We found a handful of cool things including the base of some old cemented together shelter. Most of all though it reignited our interest in solidifying the potential on the East Bluff. For the few moments were were hiking along the top of the bluff we saw a staggering amount of rock.

This short jaunt gave us a very brief glimpse into what the lake may give us this next season. I really do hope that people will focus on that rather than just doing the same established problems for the umpteenth time. Even with how good last year was, I still didn't see the sheer amount of exploration that we saw in the breakout season of 2009. Hope that happens this year.

Here's a few pics.

Then we climbed on the Moon Wall, got Nic slightly drunk at Coopers, and he lost at the comp. Not only did he lose at winning but he couldn't even be the best loser. He got third place. Not even first loser.

Sad.

It was fun seeing him though and in the words of Katie "He didn't even piss me off. Not once!". I enjoy climbing and hanging out with Nic and wish that he lived down here. Come on Molly. Do it!

Maybe it'll work if we steal his dog!!

That's all I got.

OR Recap

2012-01-24T22:08:00.003-06:00

Many things could be said about Outdoor Retailer this time around. I could talk about the new Petzl headlamp that auto adjusts. Or maybe I could talk about Sportiva's new "ugly as hell but still the exact same as every other Gore Tex fabric on the market" jackets. Maybe the new "Dry Down" from Sierra Designs is teh coolest. Or Maybe TNF's new base layer is the most badass ever.

Who knows what the next 'big thing' will be. Either way about it, there will be a whole new set of products next year to show off and talk about.

I don't want to come across as disenfranchised or jaded with the industry. I'm not. I truly love what I do and I love the people and customers I work with. I feel incredibly fortunate that I'm able to do what I do to make a living. The industry that I'm lucky enough to work with each and every day is absolutely incredible.

My friends and coworkers make the environment what it is.

Four and a half years ago Scott Backes talked to me for a few minutes about OR. I was disappointed that I wasn't going that summer and he told me that in time things would happen and everything would even out. What stuck with me was that he told me "OR is fun and exciting the first couple times around, but after 20 of them they get less exciting". At the time I vowed to not let that happen, but as time went on he proved more than right.

The first few times you're running around trying to see all the new products and shiny new toys. Then the excitement wears off and you're left realizing that with each passing season every company debuts the new "Next Thing" that will change the industry. Inevitably, very few new products change the way we do business.

My favorite part about all this though, is that through all the rotating new products. All of the reps switching lines and people getting new jobs. Through the changes, adjustments and new opportunities it truly feels like the one constant is the people you meet. The people you call your friends.

Pete and I have each had large scale changes to our lives in the last few months and I can't speak enough to how happy people were for the both of us. Whether it was Tres, Hunter, Bill and Annalee from the Southeast. Tim from the Northeast and Jeff from Texas. Emily from the Rockies and Gabe, Jamie and Brock from the Northwest and any number of countless people who came up to us and gave us their congratulations. There were truly too many to count. It was overwhelming.

Former sales managers, colleagues and customer service reps were all amazingly happy for the both of us. I can truly say that I've never experienced anything like it and it made for one of the most enjoyable trade shows I've ever experienced.

When I came into this industry it was largely about the product. It was about the companies and the cool things they had in their catalogs. What I didn't expect was for it to change so drastically to the people behind the products. I never expected to have friends like this and it makes me so happy to think about it. I'm not sure I've ever smiled so much at a tradeshow.

But don't you worry. The product is still there. I think Sportiva has really stumbled onto something here, making a full line of apparel out of materials people have been using for decades. Revolutionary. Funny enough, it seems to be straight out of Arc'teryx's playbook.

Nothing but smiles over here!

OR dos

2012-01-20T22:53:00.001-06:00

Didn't see a whole lot of cool things today but got another mug so that's cool.

After the show we went to the brick fire pizza place nearby. Brought back memories of shows past when josh n I went there for lunch one day. My favorite part of this show has been seeing friends from past work lives around every corner.

In the end things tend to come full circle and with all the changes in my life over the past few months my friends have been nothing but happy for me. It's been one of my favorite shows as a result.

Only people I seem to have missed are josh and Nic. Next time guys.

After dinner tonight we met up with a Columbia rep named jonny o. He's been in the business for years and is retiring after this season. Where'd they take him?? To a place with a kings chair and a pope's head on a lazy Susan. Fantastic. Hope all is good and snowy in the middle west.

OR

2012-01-19T23:45:00.001-06:00

First day done and I think the coolest thing I've seen is the NAO headlamp from petzl. I can say that type of stuff since I don't work for em anymore.

It auto adjusts depending on the light output you need and has a range of 7 to 355 lumens. To get that for a sub 200 price is crazy.

Otherwise it's been pretty quiet for me. I played in the hockey tournament today and we beat arcteryx in the first game. Kaboom. Lost the second though but both went to shoot outs. I'm fucking worked.

Wanna know how intense the floor hockey was?? Dude from Canada goose got checked by dude from primaloft and broke his collarbone. Yeah.

Floor hockey.

Floor hockey at a trade show.

Floor hockey at a trade show for CHARITY.

People are insane.

Em, you and jake should go to Squatters. Good beers and good foods.

Also, I got new shoes today. They're shiny. I also got two beer glasses. One of em is steel!

SLC

2012-01-18T23:39:00.001-06:00

First time at OR with Columbia and definitely a different experience this time around. Change can be a good thing though and that holds true today.

How's everyone doing out there? The snow has seemed to have kicked back up recently and it seems like we may actually get a bit of winter now. After such a mild season so far I'm curious how long that'll actually last.

Thats all I got from salt lake. I'll let you all know If I see anything cool out here. I kinda wonder how the sportiva apparel is gonna go over.

The pretzel, btw, was amazing.

The Mug Game

2012-01-16T14:05:00.009-06:00

Katie and I play a little game with each other during Birthdays and Christmas. Instead of going to town and getting each other a ton of presents that we'd just buy anyways, we always get each other a new mug. Like I said, not a big thing, but something I look forward to.

Just as with the game of scrabble, I rarely win.

It all started with a couple of Penguin mugs.

I won this round. My one and only victory with the mug on the right.

Then we had Polka Dot V. Cake.

Katie won with her cake mug obviously.

Next up to battle was the landslide decision of Big Cheese V. Oh Snap.

Katie's gift mug of Oh Snap was, at the time, the most lopsided victory ever recorded in the history of mug battles. Oh Snap still stands as perfection in the mug world and is the standard by which all other mugs are graded. That mug was the greatest mug, of all the mugs.

Then came a bit of a closer decision of Bodum Green and Red Grippy V. Penguin Thumbcatch.

While at first glance Katie seems to have won by a pretty decent amount with Penguin Thumbcatch. Of note though is that I brought two mugs to the table with both a Green Grippy AND a Red Grippy(not pictured). In the end though, Penguin Thumbcatch won as it has a Penguin shaped thumbcatch and you can't argue with that.

Then in the most recent battle I got fed up. I was determined to win. I got Katie this mug. Green Flowery Marshmallow Tin Hot Cocoa.

Not only was the mug kinda cool with flowers and bird looking things on it, it came with a tin of marshmallows and a bag of hot cocoa. I thought it was a shoo in. She couldn't win. Mine came with trinkets!!! TRINKETS!!!!!!!

I lost.

Not only were these a limited run. They were all handmade from Josh's brother Mike and are all completely unique. They're signed on the bottom and have Josh's 'Friends' graphic along the side. The handle is huge and the mug can hold almost two full cups of coffee.

Not only was my best effort put to shame during Green Flowery Marshmallow Tin Hot Cocoa V. Organic Friends Handmade By Josh's Brother Mike, I don't think I can ever beat it. It even put 'Oh Snap' to shame.

As much as it pains me to say, Katie is the Mug Giving Champion Of The World. Well played.

Predictions Recap

2012-01-13T10:00:00.000-06:00

Well, even if I didn't climb much this past year I kinda nailed the predictions.

1 - Alpine Club - Said it'd be done 3 times. It got done 5 times if I'm remembering everybody. Ian, Martin, Peter, Katie and Jeremy. If I'm missing anybody I apologize but this was done much more than I thought it would and that's including Aaron coming agonizingly close on it as well. I feel pretty strongly that he would have done it had he invested more time in it.

For all that went on this year with Alpine Club, it continues to endure as THE line on the boulder. If I learned one thing, it was that the good problems float to the top of the heap and the bad problems sink to the bottom.

Alpine Club will always be Alpine Club, no matter how many other problems show up on the boulder. I could go on for a long time about this subject but I'll leave it at that.

2 - Beautiful Soup - Said 5 times. If I'm remembering right, this one was done 4 times with Brian, Tony, Eggy and Peter finishing it up. How this problem was done less than Alpine Club is beyond me. Maybe I'm missing something but I feel like this is a must do for the grade at the lake.

I understand that it's sharp, but other than that it's pretty amazing. I'd encourage anyone who's even trying some of the DL 7's to hop on this a bit. It has an obvious start, dynamic moves, a manageable but slightly exciting landing and an engaging final couple of moves.

Still one of my all time favorites at the lake.

3 - Keymaker - Said it'd be done twice. Chris and Peter finished this up for a beginning and an end of season send, respectively. I'm really glad that each was able to finish it and I look forward to hopping back on it again this spring.

Seeing the renewed interest in the line this year was really enjoyable. Multiple people hopped on a rope to check it out and see what the upper crimps were all about. I remember Katie telling me about one day that she was up at Anchorpoint and looked to her left only to see Runnells on a rope, on Keymaker. That made me really happy.

4 - Moj - I said it'd be done 2 times. If I remember right it was done 4 times, including an impressive flash by Ian. Chris, Jeremy and Peter also did the problem and I may have forgotten someone.

I was personally really happy to see it get so much traffic this year. It's a problem that's close to my heart and I'm always glad when it gets done.

I also thought it was interesting that in the fall it received the honor of being the only problem that Ian has ever downgraded in his entire life. Just messing with you Ian! Moj is interesting in that it seems to get noticeably easier once you've done it and figured out the momentum. RV notably did it multiple times the day he first climbed it and I've been able to repeat the crux moves a number of times since the FA.

Any way about it, it's a great problem on fun holds. I just hope the juglet doesn't break.

5 - Greatest Show - 1 time. It was nice knowing you Mr. Pebble, we hardly knew ye.

Still can't believe that fucker broke.

6 - Tunder Tighs - Twice. Well. Lets see if I can remember who all did this thing. I'll try it in order but please let me know if I missed anyone. Ian, Remo, Aaron, Esser, Myself, Eggy, Runnells, Tony, Peter and Pat. I think that's everyone as far as I know. I'm sure others may have done it as well and I just don't know.

I think it's safe to say that this problem surprised most everyone and turned into something of a neo-classic. Powerful, big moves on comfy holds that goes up one of the more imposing boulders in the park seemed to be a recipe for popularity. Who knew? In fact I can't think of one person that didn't love the problem after climbing on it, the moves are that fun and the holds are that unique.

While the landing is less than ideal, it's miles better than what it was and is extremely manageable at the moment. To have a problem go from being unrepeated to getting done 10 plus times in a matter of months speaks volumes for its quality.

7 - Sandstone Violence - Said it'd get done 4 times. Wrong on this one, same as greatest show. Only one time, not including Eggy's 23 laps per year. Maybe someday Esser's footage will make it out there. It's pretty great.

8-10 - I'm gonna leave these alone. All I want to say is that I think it's great that there's a new group of people out there establishing new problems. I hope that the bug hits you guys harder this year and you venture a bit out of your comfort zone in search of new areas. Development can so much more than finding some sick project that'll get you another double digit tick.

I think the area that Peter found, Loompa Land, is a perfect example of this. I would absolutely love to see more areas like that pop up this year.

As for the lady goals....the ladies just didn't quite step up to the plate like the boys did.

Jenga - Said 3 times. Done once.
Moj - Said it'd get its FFA. No dice.
Moostache - Said 4 times. Done once. Nice work Sarah!
Magnum - Said 4 times. Done once. Sarah and Ellen both came staggeringly close to finishing it though. Proud efforts.
Massive Vertigo - Said 3 times. Done once.
Anchorpoint - Said 2 times. If I count Katie's re-send after the hold broke then we got it thanks to Sam's late season ascent. Good work ladies.
Alpine Club - Said once. Done once. Still proud of Katie for this one.
Venus Rising - Said once. Done Once. Katie came out of nowhere for this. I had my money on Ellen.
Put up a V4 or harder - Done. Wrestling the Bear - Good work Katie.
Found a new area - Doneish. We can kinda count the area below Perfect Medium as a new area since nothing had really been put up there. I think there's still some things over that way left to be found.

So that's that. Here's to another hopefully great season. As always, I really hope no one takes anything I say seriously, at all.

Snow

2012-01-12T15:09:00.003-06:00

Despite what you may think, the Days Inn - Eagle River is not as much fun as the family on the key card may make you think. I got snowed in today so I get to experience all the wonder of Eagle River. As you may imagine, there just aren't enough hours in the day.

So instead I'll post up a great video that Jeremy put together. It's awesome to see more high quality videos coming out of the lake and this is a first in what I'll assume will be many nice videos to come out this year.

While I can only take so much of Peter and Jeremy's "Bro-ness" it's great to see them and Ian getting out so early in the year.

A number of things have kept Katie and I from being excited and I think we've both needed a break honestly. Last season was very much a disappointment for me as I didn't climb as well as I wanted to in the spring and then my injury all but took me out of commission for the rest of the year. I still feel bits and pieces of the Bursitis, which sucks, but I can start to feel some of the excitement coming back to me.

Katie on the other hand had a banner year, climbed an absurd amount of projects and got outside over 100 days. Curious to see what she'll do this year.

How've you all been? It's really amazing how much you get to think to yourself when hours of your week are devoted to driving. Expect some good things here as a result.

More Goodness

2012-01-11T18:37:00.008-06:00

I totally got upgraded last night at the Munising Holiday Inn. Booked a street view, got a lake view at no extra charge. No Big Deal.

Woke up to this today.

Then, after I took that picture I got to eat from this.

I had two. No Big Deal.

I wish I had one of these though.

Maybe with her.

Or mr. creepers over there.

That's all.

I Love People

2012-01-10T18:18:00.004-06:00

Happy Tuesday from beautiful Escanaba, MI.

I thought this was a proper way to come back to this site. I really need to remember to bring my camera on work trips. Too many good photos were left behind today, relegated to my failing memory. Next time.

Out Of Africa

2011-12-20T10:48:00.002-06:00

I thought this was just great. Awesome soundtrack. AMAZING punt on Black Shadow. I usually dislike videos like this but for whatever reason I really liked this one.

History Lesson

2011-12-16T12:53:00.002-06:00

When I was a younger climber I used to collect guidebooks. I enjoyed the possibility of going to a new area and each time I'd open a new book I'd instinctively flip to the history section.

One of the things that continues to draw me towards climbing is how diverse each area can be. Whether that's a different type of rock or a new set of ethics and style, no one place is the same as the next.

Looking at Devil's Lake in particular, it's incredible the rich history we get to see every time we drive over the last hill or around the next corner and the water comes into view. I'm always struck by the landscape when we bring a person that hasn't been to the area before. Inevitably they're taken aback by how cool of an area it is.

Our climbing history is filled with a similar, awe inspiring nature. Weissner, Zschiesche, Cleveland, Bechler, Groth, Gill. It's amazing when you really start to think about it.

About 5-6 years ago I was working in Fontana and was ringing some dude out. Forgot long ago what he was buying but as I grabbed his card to swipe it I spied the name. Rich Bechler.

I paused for a few seconds before asking him if he was the climber, which he was. We chatted about Huston's recent lead of Acid Rock for a few minutes, before grabbed his bag and walked out the door.

All I remember was being in some sort of awe that I'd actually just met a DL legend.

A year or so later a buddy of mine got a summer job with a t-shirt printing company, I think. A few days into it he went into his bosses office for some reason and saw a climbing picture on the wall that he hadn't noticed before. They struck up a conversation about it and after a few minutes he found out his bosses last name.

Bechler.

A few days ago Katie and I had a nice little night at the gym. It was great. Quiet. Low energy. Good People. We climbed some things, fell off of others. One of the better nights at the gym recently.

About 3/4 of the way through the night a friend of mine walked up and sat down. I hadn't seen him in years and it took me a second to recognize him. We chatted for a while about boulders, hidden areas that he'd long forgotten about and other randomness.

He's a classic, old school dude. Total hippy and it's great. I really enjoyed seeing him again and we made each other promise to climb together next season. I told him we'd show him all the new stuff that's gone up and he seemed psyched.

The whole time we were talking, Pat and Ellen milled around us. Adam, Sam and Blake were all working on various problems. I think Jeremy was at the desk and little Luke may have been around somewhere too. I'm sure none of them knew who I was talking to, nor did anyone realize that he's largely responsible for much of the bouldering at Devil's Lake.

My friend was someone that no one in the gym would have given pause to. I guess that's one of the other reasons I love our history here. It's totally unassuming.

As he got up, said goodbye and got ready to head home for the night Katie looked at me and asked, "Who was that?".

"Oh that was Paul...He found the Reserve."

5

2011-12-12T20:14:00.005-06:00

5 Years Ago:

Perfect Medium was a V9 and hadn't been repeated in 7-8 years. It was considered to be classic and a testpiece for the area. One of the best at the lake.

Keymaker was an unrepeated enigma and no one knew where the holds were above the break. It was rated V11 and intimidated anyone and everyone who looked at it.

Alpine Club had been done 4-5 times at most, and the words "Bump" and "Heel Hook" weren't even considered.

The Reserve was still a very secretive area and directions were best given by saying "Just look for the orange dots on the trees".

Nobody knew where Jenga was. Sadly I was lumped into a sorry group that went to the boulder 3 times without ever seeing Super Slab or Moj. We dismissed the area as "Too far out of the way to be worth anything".

Sandstone Violence was still unrepeated and Group Camp B was the sole bouldering area at Governor Dodge, aside from the Godfather Boulder.

Eliminates were seen as a necessity since the Lake was "Climbed Out".

This was posted on Mountain Project when a new boulder went up in 2006: "I think realistically finding a truly new route near all the climbs on the West, let alone a whole boulder, is incredibly unlikely."

Fast forward to today:

Perfect Medium is an 8 now and has been done about 10 times in 2-3 years time. It's considered a mediocre problem at best and an entire area has been discovered below it, holding one of the hardest projects in the park.

Keymaker has been done 4 times now and rests at "V10.1" according to Nic. The holds are continually chalked and the intimidation factor has dropped considerably. Jeff Sillcox called it "World Class" on his first day at the lake.

Alpine Club has now been done 8 times in the last three years. Twice via the traditional method, three times via the bump and three times in the past month and a half with the new found heel hook. On top of that it's been done twice by women.

Secret areas are rarely an issue any longer and information is freely distributed among nearly all of the boulderers at the lake. Mountain Project has become an immense resource for the newer climber and I love that it's turned into something so useful.

Directions seem to be ever evolving and Jenga, in particular, has turned into a premier area at the lake. There seems to be no limit to what people will hike to solely for the prospect of a new boulder and exploration, while a bit slower this year, is still my sole motivation and the driving force of future potential at the lake.

Governor Dodge went from having roughly 50 boulder problems at a couple of areas to having close to 250 problems at a number of areas. Sweaty, Dobbe, Remo, Travis and Eggy were largely responsible for this and none of them get the credit they deserve for this. It was a huge effort and Dodge seems to fall behind Devil's Lake in many respects. We should all feel incredibly lucky to have an area like that so close to home.

Eliminates and variations are currently a thing of the past and pretty much everyone that boulders at the lake looks for the prime lines that abound throughout the park. The sheer amount of rock seems to lend itself to beautiful, solitary lines with obvious moves. Oddly enough, people seem to see the potential for slight variations of classic boulders, but instead of going for it they decide that their time would be better spent looking for a new boulder.

Some things never change I guess. HAH!

In all honesty, I feel privileged to have been a small part of the renaissance that we've experienced over the past 2-3 years. There isn't a single person who's responsible for what's happened around here, but the fact that it's been driven by a core group of excited people has made it so much better.

5 years ago very few people were bouldering at the lake. There were just over 100 problems established, many of which were eliminates. As it stands we have over 400 problems posted on Mountain Project. Granted, there are lots of variations and a handful of eliminates posted but I can guarantee that there are well over 300 high quality boulder problems established at the lake at the moment.

On top of that, much of the East Bluff has yet to be developed and the Fire Road is still one of the few areas at the lake that holds immense potential. As time goes on people will change and faces will come and go. I hope that the one constant is continual development of high quality problems.

I wrote a post back in September that I intended to be my last. I was fed up with a number of things and tired of the drama that seemed to always creep up. I didn't finish it but it was always in the back of my mind. Then, when the drama popped up again last month I finished the post, planning on posting it once the season was done.

I told Katie and had her read it. In turn she told Vera, Chris and Sarah. All of them were visibly mad that I'd stop the blog and it made me feel like some people still care what I write about.

After an anonymous commenter brought up the "clique", I was so happy with the support that came from so many different voices. It was unexpected and made me feel great.

I do want to apologize if I've ever made anyone feel unwelcome here. I started this site a few years ago with the hope of growing the community and creating some excitement for the amazing bouldering at Devil's Lake. I feel like I've succeeded in that.

All that said, I have friends that I enjoy climbing with and there are people that I don't enjoy climbing with. As my climbing days continue to dwindle I feel less and less compelled to climb with anyone but my closest of friends.

I guess I'll leave it up to everyone that reads as to how long I keep the gnar updated and going. Not sure how long it will last but we'll see, right? I'll leave you with the last little bit of that other post. Thanks for another great season at the lake.

If I had to leave with one thought for everyone at the lake out there it'd be this.

Don't settle.

There are incredible, amazing lines being found each year. Dog Walk, Muffin Top and Tipping Point are perfect examples. All three were 50 yards from established classics AND trails. Two of those were found by complete accident. Walk around that final corner. Go up the bluff you know in your gut has already been explored. Turn over every rock and find the PRIME lines. Don't settle for something that isn't amazing.

Devil's Lake is host to some incredible, undone boulder problems. It's just a matter of finding them!

All.I.Can.

2011-12-01T22:13:00.002-06:00

So I bought "A Fine Line" the other day. I'd watched it at Nic's and liked it enough to download a copy too. It's a good flick and I can honestly say it's one of the better climbing videos I've seen.

That said, it still left me without something. Don't get me wrong, the cinematography was amazing and the composition of many of the shots was absolutely beautiful. On top of that, my expectations may have been a bit bloated because it's received an incredible amount of press for being a step better than anything else out there, past or present.

At its core though, it's still just a climbing video. It still follows that same script that we all know. Boy finds a friend. Friends climb very hard. Friends go on trip. Friends climb very hard on trip. Friends get homesick and come back home. Friends find new area. Chick climbs for a bit. Friends climb amazing looking, perfect line. Roll credits.

How they ended the movie was PERFECT. Beyond perfect, really. Peter Beal was great and was a perfect voice to lay over everything else. Jimmy and Brion came across on video wonderfully and I absolutely loved the scenery and setting shots.

What I did like about it was that it was more than just another video. There were set shots that were perfectly composed. All of the textures in the film came out amazingly and I really enjoyed the extra clips that made it stand out among its peers.

More than anything, it has "re-watch" value.

At its core though, climbing is years behind other sports in terms of the quality of our videos/movies/films.

I don't like skiing. I don't like to watch it. I don't like to do it. It's just always seemed clunky to me and I haven't been on ski's in 15 years. I've gravitated towards snowboarding ever since I tried it years ago and it's always seemed more "fluid". More natural. I enjoy watching and doing it more than I ever enjoyed skiing Personal preference.

This morning though, Huston posted an absolutely amazing clip from a ski film called All.I.Can.

Words won't come close to giving it the justice it deserves so I won't speak to the clip too much. Click the little HD button. Let it load. Watch it on full screen. In my eyes the Ueli segment from the Eiger is the only thing that even comes remotely close to this in terms of quality, and that one is a long ways off from this.

I hope climbing can produce this type of quality at some point in the future.

Stunning.

JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.) from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

Climb X

2011-11-30T16:04:00.003-06:00

For as much as I don't like Mad Rock shoes, this made me happy:

Santa Fe Springs, CA November 29, 2011: To avoid the trouble and costs of a long trial, Nelson Sports and Climb X have reached an agreement. As with any settlement, comprises were made, but prior untrue statements of the Defendants, for the most part have been exposed and the public can now understand that Climb X and its products were never affiliated in any way with Mad Rock or Nelson Sports. To cover the highlights of the agreement, both parties have agreed to the following terms:

- Defendants Garland, Climb X Gear, and Climb X have paid a total sum of $150,000 as a Settlement Payment.
- Defendants are prohibited from using Nelson’s Trade Marks.
- Defendants are prohibited from representing in any manner or by any method
Whatsoever that Climb X products are sponsored, approved, authorized by
Nelson/Mad Rock
- Defendants are prohibited from representing in any manner that Defendants are in any way affiliated, owned, or owned by, Nelson/Mad Rock.
- Defendants shall implement changes in advertisement and future print media regarding product names that have been copied.
- Both parties agree not to disparage the other party.
- Defendants must publish for 6 months, under the heading “About Us” on the Climb X website the following:

A) Garland was never an officer, shareholder or director of Nelson Sports
B) Climb X, a Nevada Corporation, nor Climb X Gear, LLC has never been affiliated in any way to Nelson or Mad Rock
C) Young Chu was the primary designer of the products
D) Garland has never been to the “Mad Rock” factory and has no knowledge of any problems relating to the factory.
E) No “Climb X” branded product won any awards prior to Jan, 2010.

We are still in the process of working with our legal team to update the “About Us” page on the Climb X website. Please be aware that these prohibitions and restrictions are only for products, advertisements, etc. in the United States of America. Be on alert for advertisers and distributors that do not adhere to these restrictions outside the United States.

Firsts

2011-11-29T18:44:00.012-06:00

I enjoy looking back on "firsts" and "lasts", a lot. I like the odd significance of them and find them really interesting. I took my last picture with the D70 yesterday. Here it is:

I thought it was appropriate.

And then today, after getting a couple of memory cards, I took my first picture with the D7000.

The D70 has been with me since 2004 and I'm actually having a tough time giving it up. It took some amazing pictures over the years and opened me up to a whole new world of knowledge and opportunities. Cracks, dents and all.

That said, the D7000 is kind of amazing. I'm planning on having a ton of fun with that thing.

I hope you enjoy some of the last pictures I took with the D70.

Updates

2011-11-22T10:46:00.004-06:00

Couple of nice updates around here.

1 - Sam finally did Anchorpoint. So did Blake. Well done you two, it was only slightly terrifying that you both topped out direct instead of traversing left on jugs at the break. I'm glad we made it up there to see it.

2 - Peter did Beautiful Soup and Soupmaker. While I'm not totally sure why, he did Soupmaker instead of just trying Keymaker and then couldn't do Keymaker. Either way, he'll do it next time I'm sure.

3 - Ian did the Ivory Face and Purple Dragon. For those that don't know, Ivory is a very pretty wall up by Fat Pants. While it's a cool looking face, and obviously hard, it has a striking similarity to the dead vertical crimping nightmare, Ice. Curious to see if this will see any repeats.

Purple Dragon is a midpoint start of the Corner Project and while the true prize still awaits, I think it is absolutely fantastic that Ian is finally working on hard, independent lines. It's something that Nic, Remo and I were hoping for when Ian moved to town and it's nice to see his efforts focused on this.

I remember showing Ian the Corner Project a handful of times and each time he was very unimpressed. I'm not sure what changed but I'm happy he's up there trying it. That's one of the big disappointments for me this year, that I haven't been able to work on that particular wall a bit more.

Aaron and Dobbe - It seems they had a great day up at the lake on Sunday and spent time falling off of nearly everything in the park. Jenga, Moj, Alpine Club and I'm sure many more. I believe numbed out hands may have been responsible for the failure on Super Slab.

Quote of the day: "Our hands were so cold that on the bump move on Jenga, our brains couldn't work fast enough to open our fingers up. We just kept punching the hold!"

Nice work boys.

As for me, Katie and I had a great afternoon up on the East Bluff. It was nice to have a bit of solitude and calm. I always enjoy the days that I get out with Katie and this was no exception. The time we're able to spend together means the world to me and while my job is taking me a bit further from climbing than I'd like, it's nice to know that I can have a nice, quiet day of climbing with my wife.

We went up to Fat Pants on the East Bluff so I could try it out. After a lackluster flash attempt I figured out the moves on my second or third try and then spent the next hour or so puttering around on it. Eventually after a prolonged effort that included stupid beta, machine gun efforts and numb fingers, I was able to finish it up nicely.

I can honestly say that this is among the top three new problems that has gone up this year and it was a good effort to put it together. I can also say that I'm extremely glad that none of the detached blocks are on, as they would have made a surefire classic into something much less.

Fat Pants joins Muffin Top and Tipping Point in the quality over quantity category. I'm glad it's here and people should go do it.

Now, adressing Peter. A couple weeks ago you made a comment about how there haven't been any pictures. You know what happens when you complain here? I hold out even longer. Instead of getting good pictures, you get this:

I'll post pictures when and where I want. Until then:

Alpine Club

2011-11-17T08:00:00.002-06:00

RV
Eggnuts
Remo
Vince Evans
Brian Runnells
Jeremy Hemberger
Steve Day
Kelsen Alexander
Brenden Hefty
Jason Houston
Jeff Sillcox
Chaz Warren
Chris Esser
Aaron Kaetterhenry
John Dobbe
Jamie Emerson
Myself
Countless others

Last night Katie took her name off the list of people that have tried Alpine Club but haven't climbed it.

Nice work Katie!

Made Up Drama

2011-11-14T08:33:00.003-06:00

I'm not going to say much about what's been going on lately other than it makes me, and others I've spoken to, incredibly sad. The main reason for the existence of this site has been to create a community and I feel like up until very recently we had a damn fine one. Everyone was nice, everyone cared about the lake and things were super positive.

It seems something has changed this fall and we now have a fractured and divided community. It's petty, stupid and childish. Honestly, it makes me want to climb with only my closest friends, just to stay out of it all.

I've worked very hard over the years to build up a community like the one we've had in the past and to see it go this way is frustrating, to say the least. At this point I'd love to see everyone leave their personal differences out of it and grow the hell up. I think we'd all like to see that.

Five Ten

2011-11-03T10:11:00.002-05:00

Yep, here's my obligatory "five ten just got bought by some German bitches" post. As most of you already know I'm sure, Brian is on the ball with the big news and is letting everyone know that Five Ten was bought by Adidas.

I'm always enamored with news like this. Always. I find this side of the industry super interesting. What I love the most about it is the guaranteed reaction from everyone in the climbing industry:

"lame...no more 5.10s for me"
"Sell outs!!!!"
"Booooo! The 1% strikes again!"
"I love my 5 10s, this is horrendous. I wont wear anything made by Adidas!"
"the consolidation of the industry continues. long live the small independent brands!"
"Before you know it, we'll be seeing 5.10 in Walmart similar to when The North Face was bought by a publicly traded company. It is now all about the bottom line for 5.10, which will most likely (unfortunately) lead to it's downfall. Baaaad move, guys."
"obviously they don't understand the customer. nike will take over lasportiva next then it will be LA sportiva."

All of the above quotes were taken off of deadpoints bookface wall. It happens whenever any company is bought by another, in any industry. It happened to Gregory/BD in the exact same way.

And what's the takeaway from Gregory/BD nearly two years after the fact? All the Gregory reps are still Gregory Reps. The offices moved to Salt Lake. Both companies are posting record growth and are putting out some of their most innovative and useful product in years.

That said, my first thought was similar to the sentiments above. It's always worrysome so see your favorite company go from being small, family owned and independent, to being owned by a multi billion dollar conglomerate.

I hope that in the end things will work out and nothing major will change. I hope that this will allow 5.10 to have better processes and better sourcing abilities. Above all, I hope this allows them to have more innovative product at a wider range of sizes.

And yes Brian, they should bring back the original V10.

Oregon

2011-10-28T09:30:00.002-05:00

I'm out in Oregon right now on sales meeting day 5 of 8. I'm exhausted at the moment but figure that I haven't put up a new post in a while so thought I'd give everyone a couple updates.

1 - Esser did Tipping Point Stand a week and a half ago now. It's amazing. Go do it.

2 - Peter figured out really good beta for the terrifying bump move and it's much less scary now. Very little chance that you'll circumsize your finger now.

3 - Just as I was really starting to feel decent again I go on an 8 day non climbing binge.

I think that's it really. It's incredibly exciting to be starting a new segment of my life. I don't even care that I haven't been able to climb. New beginnings are an amazing thing and my luck is insane right now. Just crazy.

I hope everyone is getting out. I'll try and post some pictures next week from Tipping Point.

Pemba Serves

2011-10-18T09:00:00.001-05:00

All Photos - David Sweeney

For the past 4 years and 8 months I've come to Pemba Serves each day and worked at a job that I love. The people that I've met and the relationships I've been lucky enough to form have changed my life and molded me as a person. It was a job that I sought after for a good 6-8 months before actually getting a real offer.

Many of you don't really know what I do, so maybe I should start there. Pemba Serves is a sales rep agency that specializes in high end outdoor, camping and climbing lines. We represent companies like Petzl, Mountain Hardwear and Atlas Snowshoes, among others. In short, I sell really cool gear to shops like Fontana Sports, Erehwon Mountain Outfitters and Midwest Mountaineering.

I will always count myself as a lucky person to be able to do the things I do to make a living. It's a job I wanted ever since I received my first Marmot clinic 11 years ago from Mark Giacomino. I count myself as incredibly lucky that I met my boss, Brad Werntz, and was given an opportunity that very few actually get. He took a chance on me and it's something I will always be grateful for.

In this industry, with this job, it's so much more about knowing the right person at the right time and having just the right skill set. I was that person in January of 2007. Very lucky.

What's funny is that one of my fondest memories about my first day was when Pete passed me a lime green Hirundos while I was in the middle of learning about our database and completely overwhelmed. I was astounded at how light it was and the simple act of playing with a harness calmed me down and made me feel welcome. I'm 90% sure that Brad had Pete bring that harness up from the warehouse solely for that reason. God knows that Pete doesn't care about harnesses.

It's those types of gestures though that make the outdoor industry so great. It's that type of kindness that makes it incredibly hard to say that today is my last day at Pemba Serves.

What's also great about the outdoor industry is that once you're in, there's a really good chance that you'll get to stay in. Starting tomorrow I'll be the sales rep for Columbia Footwear and Sorel Boots in Wisconsin, Northern Illinois and the Upper Peninsula.

I'll always look back on the years that I've spent at Pemba and think good things. It's a place that I've grown into and I truly enjoyed what I did. The people I've met and the coworkers I've had the pleasure to work with have been incredible. There are so many moments throughout the years that I'll look back on fondly.

In particular I'm going to have a tough time not working with Janice and Pete. Over the course of 4 years the three of us grew a friendship that was completely unexpected, but is something that I'll miss dearly.

Times change though, the opportunity was incredible and the offer I was given was something I simply couldn't turn my back on. It's something that was completely unexpected and is a job description that I couldn't have written better if I tried. Most importantly though, it's going to give me the opportunity to grow once again.

In climbing we constantly look for new challenges. New projects. New boulders. New areas. Having something new is clutch. It's something all of us rely on. I'm incredibly psyched for a whole set of new everything.

The Tipping Point

2011-10-17T10:01:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was everything that I love about climbing packed into a one day. I needed yesterday pretty badly and the timing couldn't have been better.

We started things off at North Shore and messed around on a bunch of the warmups over there. It's been forever since we'd climbed there and all of us had a great time and climbed a number of classics in the hour or so we were there.

Shortly after that we headed up to Venus Rising so Katie could give it a few tries. She'd apparently gotten really close the prior day but hadn't quite gotten the sloper.

After a couple tries she got agonizingly close but still ended up on the pads. Resolving to only give it 3 goes, she ponied the hell up on her next try and pulled out the clutch send with confidence. Honestly it was almost anti climactic as she just hiked it and made it look super casual.

This is more than likely the FFA of Venus and a landmark for Katie. Venus is her anti style and she'd made relatively little progress on it until this year when she all of a sudden got psyched for it. Even this spring she wasn't even thinking about doing it so it's great to see a nice little moment of progression.

Personally, it was great to see her finish a project as it's something I've missed this year. I've become accustomed to always being around when she finishes things but my year just hasn't allowed for much time outside so far. I was very happy to be there for this one.

After that Chris and I packed up to go down the hill to the roof and everyone else walked over to Fat Pants.

In short, Chris and I fixed the landing on the roof and figured out all the moves on the stand start project. Most importantly we did so without the aid of the detached boulder it sits on. It's something both of us felt very strongly about and we're very glad the moves go without it.

Towards the end of the day Chris started talking about how absurd it would be to use the boulder and proceeded to get a double no handed kneebar rest without either of his shoes on. I'm ecstatic that the moves go 100% on the roof.

In long form, we had an awesome day and spent a good 2 hours fixing the landing. It's a process that we relish for many reasons and it always makes us proud to know that we spent the time and put out the effort to make future climbing experiences enjoyable. Very few people have the same mindset and it makes me happy to have a friend in Chris that shares the same values as I do in that regard. We truly love the entire process of putting up new boulders and Sunday was an awesome day for both of us as we got to touch on everything we love about establishing new lines.

As for the climbing itself, it's incredible. Once we're done there will be two lines, a stand and a low. The stand is going to start on the undercling crimp for your right and your left hand will be on the main hold on the roof. It's obvious and extremely logical. I was able to do the first move, Chris was able to do the bump move and we were each able to do all the other moves. I think that either Chris or myself will do it next time we go. We'll see.

Now, the low start. Woah. It should start on the far left side of the roof and will go through a couple of incredibly hard moves that eventually links into the stand start position more perfectly than we could have planned. Chris was able to imagine the body positions and hold weight just enough to think it'll go. It will be incredibly hard when it goes but will climb through the entire roof. When done it will be one of the best in the midwest for sure.

I want to take a minute and thank Ian, Peter and Remo. All three of you have said something to us about not trying the roof until both Chris and I have had a chance to play on it a bit. I can't tell you how much it means to both of us and we truly appreciate it. Things like this are what make the Madison community so great. This has never been a closed project and never will be, but the fact that you guys have held off, knowing what it means to Chris and I, is incredibly nice.

That's enough of that.

I'm currently very psyched about pretty much everything. Life. Work. Climbing. Everything is pretty awesome right now. I haven't felt this good, physically and mentally, since I did Moj two years ago. It's a great place to be in and Sunday was a prime example of the best days that we get. Don't take them for granted.

Alpine Club

2011-10-14T14:18:00.002-05:00

So not a whole lot to report at the moment. We're set up for a busy weekend once more and there are two weddings happening on Saturday. First off, congrats to Dobbe and Amelia! Gettin hitched. And Kelly and James will also be hitchin it up.

I'm particularly excited cause Kelly and James will be having a Tex Tubbs Teeny Tiny Taco's Burrito Bar and I plan on eating way, way too much food. We had Tex Tubbs at our wedding too and they did a crazy good job.

Climbing wise, Bonamici did Alpine Club last night. Nice work! He used a hand heel match for the first couple moves and then kept the heel for the crux. I know others had done the problem in pieces that way but as far as I know he's the first to link it using that method. Really psyched you did it Peter, as it cleans up the Alpine Club goal. Boom.

Sunday it sounds like we're giving Adam and Peter a tour of the East Bluff so that'll be good. Should be a fun day and I'm psyched to show those guys some of the new stuff.

What's everyone else up to?????

Exploring

2011-10-11T09:51:00.010-05:00

Katie and I had another nice couple days out this past weekend. Fall is completely in swing and the lake was two scoops of crazy on Saturday. So busy and so many people there that it was incredibly hard to get around. Especially with a pad.

Ian was apparently guiding which sounded like the worst possible thing to be doing that day. Can't even imagine.

We met up with Peter and Blake at a newish area in between Anchorpoint and the 500 Ft. Field. I'm not sure if it should be a new area officially but it sits in kind of a grey area currently. If you stand in the right spot you can see Recreational Vehicle and Half Dome at the same time.

I ended up posting most of the problems under Anchorpoint but found out later that Remo had done a couple this spring and posted them in the 500 Ft. Field.

Either way, it's a very very cool little area with a handful of fun, safe moderates with good landings and interesting holds. The stand outs are for sure Empty Space and Loompa Land. Loompa Land is a classic, tricky V3 with really cool movement and Empty Space is a great V2 over a nice landing.

Empty Space, also great.

Loompa Land is probably the best in the field.

We also did a couple new ones, the Duke and Dutchess, just up the hill from the other problems. On top of that there is a very hard open project on the opposite side of the Empty Space boulder. I forgot to get a picture of that but I'll post it up sometime soon.

Duke goes up the right face and Dutchess the left.

Eagle Eye goes up the center of the face and Pine Needle arete starts where Katie is.

The chunk of rock that Peter broke. Fatty.

I think my favorite part of this new little field is that it connects one of the last bits of unknown on the South end of the West Bluff. As it stands right now you could have an absolutely killer circuit day starting at Anchorpoint and walking all the way over and down to Dog Walk and Pete's Pebble. You'd never be more than 50 feet from the next problem and nearly all of them have good landings.

Katie hitting Peter....God knows why.

That day in 2005 that Peter, Rhoads and I found Dumpster Diving we walked past a staggering amount of rock and I am BLOWN AWAY that we missed so many boulders. In all we walked within 50-100 feet of these problems:

Empty Space
Loompa Land
Crimp Toehook Proj
Duke
Dutchess
Eagle Eye
Pine Needle arete
Half Dome Proj
Snake Dike
Flower Power
Black Sheep
Can We Cane Em?
Moo Stache
P.Stachio
Magnum PI
Railroad Spike
Pete's Pebble
Storm Troopers/Right
A View To Kill
Headstone

Plus, many others that I just didn't list here. It's kind of absurd now that I write that all out. Christ.

On Sunday we went out to Dodge and met up with Sam and Aaron. Sam finished up Split Personality rather quickly but was kind enough to have one last breathtaking dryfire on that last left hand crimp before the lip. After that I did Irrationality after a protracted effort that included far too much bitching and whining. Fun movement on that thing but damn it hurts.

Suck it Jugs.

After Camp B we drove over to Strong Men and went down in the wrong spot. I'll be honest and say that there are some Dr. Seuss style pricker bushes over there. Fucking terrifying. Katie found the correct approach on the way out and it was much less death defying, btw.

Katie made awesome progress on it and figured out some great beta for the rig. I'm expecting she'll do it next trip out there, once things cool off a bit. We finished up at Grounded For Life and called it a day.

I noticed something about Grounded that I hadn't thought about before. It's had start hold creep over the years. Originally it started on the flat crimps in this picture and it's gradually moved down a bit. I'm sure it's part natural progression and possibly also some erosion that's made that a bit more possible. Interesting nonetheless.

See the original start hold towards the left side of this pic

Also, it looks like another flake broke off the start of Out Past Curfew. Here's a video of Sam being awesome.

Changing Over

2011-10-06T09:13:00.002-05:00

I'm gonna keep this one short but just wanna say that I'm really happy to see people getting out and climbing as fall approaches. Sounds like Sweaty, Sam, Remo, Ian and Katie had a great day up on the East Bluff yesterday. Katie was able to finish off Fat Pants, which looks really incredible, and Sweaty was able to do Rail Gun.

Sweaty also climbs until he is bleeding it seems. Katie said that he was bleeding on all four fingers and "still looking for other stuff to try". Amazing. I'm glad you were able to get out bud. Sad I couldn't be up there with you though.

On a more personal note, I have made a rather big change personally that I'll be able to reveal officially in the near future. Sorry for the tease but suffice it to say that describing me as happy right now would be a massive understatement. More to come on that.

In the mean time here's a video from our day out at Governor Dodge last Sunday. We had an unexpectedly great time doing moderates none of us had ever tried. It was great.

The Greatest Pebble On Earth

2011-10-03T10:43:00.001-05:00

Before I start any other conversation I want to say how incredibly cool it was that we got to see the crux move on Greatest Show done 4 times on Saturday. It was an impressive showing by a motivated group of individuals and I'm happy for all three of the guys that stuck it. In particular, Aaron and Chris who have spent many days on the line. It was so nice seeing their hard work rewarded. This is not to say that Jeremy's stick wasn't impressive, it was, but it was great seeing those guys stick the move for many reasons.

I'm incredibly happy for Chris as he was the only one to do the line. He worked hard for it and I'm happy he stuck to his guns and did the direct exit.

Watch the video below please, before commenting any further:

1 - Aaron. What a punt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!! One of the most heartbreaking things I've seen, given what happened 10 minutes later. I truly hope you don't turn into an alcoholic.

2 - The Pebble. Wow.

I think we all knew in the back of our minds that it was gonna break someday but I honestly didn't think it would happen on Saturday. Earlier in the day I insisted, to Jeremy of all people, that it wouldn't break for a long time. I was dead wrong.

Immediately after the pebble broke the conversation came up of whether or not to glue it back in. As of right now Chris has the pebble in his possession and no decision has been made. I want to preface this with the request that we stay as drama free as possible here, if anyone comments at all. I've brought up a number of topics throughout the years and have always appreciated the respectful discussions we've had. The Alpine Club post was a perfect example of having a nice talk with many voices and opinions whether that be Remo, Ian, Runnells, CE, RV and whoever else.

Gluing holds is always a tricky debate and is something that we've largely stayed away from here in the midwest for a number of reasons. Namely that our rock is either too hard(quartzite) or too soft(dodge) to warrant any need. Greatest show is an odd example since it was a quartzite pebble that stuck out of a relatively soft layer of sandstone.

It's a hold that many thought would probably break and this increases the difficulty at the very least 1-2 number grades, which is a substantial jump. Not only was it a key handhold, it was a very key foothold.

On my front, I'm 100% neutral in this. I'm not invested enough in the problem to want to throw anything out there. We have many other local climbers that are much more invested in Greatest Show that should have a greater voice in this than I. That's not to say that I don't have an opinion about glue, but I'm leaving this up to others.

It's easy to come up with a knee jerk, blanket reaction, much like I did on Saturday. I spoke at length with Katie about it on the trip back and I can honestly say that I don't know how I'd feel if a hold broke on a problem that I cared about deeply. Say, Moj. If the right hand juglet broke off I would be pretty crushed and incredibly sad. I can't say what my opinion would be but it's safe to say that I'd be conflicted. That problem means so much to me on a deeper level than anyone will ever know, which would only make the decision harder.

The scary part to me is that it's actually a potential on that problem. Rock directly below that hold has broken twice now and there's a crack in the back of it. Water seeps through there and I can see that happening at some point in the future.

On a lighter note, here are a couple of my favorite quotes from the afternoon:

- "Where's the good hold?!?!?" - Aaron, after sticking the crux a second time, looking for the jug undercling around the corner.

- "You better do it now!!!!!!!!" - Pat, laughing hysterically, after Jeremy stuck the crux and broke the pebble.

- "Too many donuts...." - Jeremy, after breaking the pebble.

- "He's like a Barrel!!!!!" - Katie, after watching Aaron rocket to the ground shortly after exclaiming, "I'm losing it".

- "Keep spotting guys...." - Chris, on the mossy, wet slab after the crux, listening to everyone screaming happily that he'd done the problem. About ten minutes earlier I'd faceplanted on the topout while on rope when my foot slipped on an otherwise dry hunk of rock.

I'm gonna leave this with one thing. Please be courteous to everyone's opinions. There is no right answer and there is no wrong answer.

New Boulders

2011-09-26T10:56:00.007-05:00

Can't write too much but I feel like we're all starting to get excited for the fall again. Katie and I talked about it a bit and we both think the East Bluff is gonna hold the next series of new areas. I was stunned at what we found just 20-30 feet below Perfect Medium and Sex and Chocolate.

On the updates front, Katie did a FA on Saturday, naming it Wrestling the Bear. Apparently that's a reference to spotting me. Chris did that after a couple tries as well and Aaron did Brototype 1.0 fairly quickly earlier in the day. As for me, I got close on Storm Troopers but had to wait for another day as energy and daylight ran out on me. Peter also epic'd his way up to Moj on Friday, calling me from the right edge of the Slant Field, completely lost. He eventually found his way up there and put it to bed very quickly, in a bout 15 minutes. Really glad you found it!!

Ian has also been busy putting up a bunch of cool looking new lines in the east bluff talus near flatiron. It's incredibly cool to see new development going on in so many different areas of the park and I'm psyched to check out the new problems on the other side of the bluff! They look fun and Katie assures me they're good.

Here are some pictures to enjoy.

Katie on Bark Biter

Sam on Bark Biter

Katie's new problem, Wrestling The Bear, on the right arete

This boulder is directly below Perfect Medium

The new roof that Chris found

This thing is actually impressive and has holds on it!

Starting about 4 moves in

This is the roof from below and behind it

Another really cool boulder directly below the roof. You can actually walk through the tunnel on the left to get into the roof.

We had a great, long day on Saturday and ended up staying well past when we thought we would and walked out in the dark.

I want to say congrats to Remo and Kate for getting married this past weekend and it goes without saying that everyone is psyched for you both!!!

Here's a little vid from Saturday.

Brototype 1.0

2011-09-23T10:19:00.008-05:00

Late afternoons and early evenings at the lake are ALWAYS so nice. I've yet to have a bad one up there. Turns out that they're even better on the East Bluff.

Katie and I went up around 4 or so last night and had a nice little session at one of the talus fields underneath Monolith. We had a few things in mind but mainly it was the Australia Slab and Brototype 1.0. During a random session at Sex and Chocolate this past summer, my injured self wandered off and figured out where the boulders were.

I'd walked for maybe 15-20 minutes through really big, unstable talus before finding them and I wondered how far off the trail I was. As I started walking up I spotted the trail a mere 20 feet above Brototype. Super easy access guys.

We started out on the slabs and I did both aretes. I think I had too many expectations and was hoping they'd be like Super Slab. Unfortunately neither was very good and the face itself, while being one of the most amazing and beautiful walls in the park, is covered in an odd patina that's kinda chossy. It's definitely not as solid as much of the other rock in the area so it dampered my enthusiasm a bit.

The Slab

We moved up to Brototype shortly after that. Without going into all the details, Katie quickly found yet another problem at the lake that's at full extension for her. A bit funny and yet very sad.

Katie, in her element....extended

I was able to piece together the moves fairly fast and did the problem after a half hour or so of off and on attempts.

Brototype 1.0

The problem itself is really cool. The movement is great and the landing isn't terrible. That said, it's kinda dabby and the left start jug destroys your palm pretty badly. It's definitely worth spending some time on if you're up there. Also, if you're looking for a project in the 5 or 6 range, this is a great option.

Does it look like I'm dabbing????? I did...

I'm impressed those guys did it in the middle of summer as I'm sure the slopers felt like complete shit. I had great conditions last night and used slightly different beta I think.

This area has a bit of potential left in it too. I spent 10 minutes crawling around the caves around there and the walls have some features on them. I even found a pretty cool little problem that climbs out of a pit. Very psyched to head back up that way tomorrow.

On a more personal note, yesterday marked something kinda special for me.

1 - I didn't think about my shoulder once while I was climbing. Not a single time. This is the first time that's happened since I got injured. Go team!

2 - It was also the first time in a very long time that I've felt "good". I felt light, snappy, quick. It's something I haven't really felt since I did Moj. I'd forgotten how nice it feels.

3 - Katie has also caught the absurd "take a picture of yourself" bug. Awesome. Also, thank you Katie for taking a bunch of pictures. Here's your reward.

CONTEST FOR A FREE ORGANIC BEANIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-09-22T12:39:00.003-05:00

First person who can tell me which Midwestern climber texted this picture to their sponsor on their sponsors birthday gets a free Organic Beanie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photo taken down to save little kiddies eyes. Thanks for the fun times Nic.

Life

2011-09-21T17:00:00.000-05:00

It's very fair to say that my zest for both climbing and writing about climbing has been lacking lately. I make no excuses other than I've been blown away with just how much my injury has taken my head out of many different facets of my life. I freely admit that I haven't been myself this summer.

When I got hurt back in May I genuinely thought I'd be back at it in a month or so. A month passed and with each day I thought that I'd wake up the next and be fine. As it turned out I was out for roughly 3 months, almost to the day actually. I kept telling myself, and others, that I would schedule time at the doctors but each time I'd go to do it I'd find some reason not to. Whether that was pure laziness or for fear of finding out it was worse than I imagined, I don't know.

During this summer I kind of delved into a hole of myself. Without climbing in my life I spent a majority of my time either at work or alone, at home. I saw my wife less than I needed to and didn't spend enough time around my closest friends.

It was, in short, unexpected and surprising.

We all talk about how much climbing means to us over and over. I know I've talked about it many times before and will do so again in the future. It's often talked about as a lifestyle rather than a sport and many times I've shy'd away from using that term as I don't feel it applies to me.

I've thought a lot about this recently and more and more I realize that I can't actually put a word on what climbing is to me. The strongest way that I can put it is that I've built my life around climbing. This past summer was a stark reminder of the good and the bad that comes along with that.

I felt completely lost without it in my life. What surprised me the most though was that I didn't miss the simple act of climbing as much as I missed my friends. I missed hanging out at the boulders, talking shit and trying hard. I dearly missed the ferry rides, ice cream, and the satisfaction/sheer exhaustion that comes with a full day at the lake.

Most importantly, I missed the daily interactions with the people I care about the most. It all comes down to the people you spend your life with. I missed my wife. I missed my friends. And that took a much bigger toll on me mentally than I expected.

If there was one saving grace for me, it was running. Somehow I got into running. For those that don't know, endurance has never been a pursuit of mine but it was all I had, so I stuck with it. Eventually it started to suck less and then it all clicked and I actually enjoyed it a bit.

Vera asked me to do a trail race with her in the middle of the injury. I agreed without hesitation, not knowing when my shoulder would allow me to climb.

Well, that race was this past Saturday and even though I was dreading it in the week leading up, I had an unexpectedly great time. I had an awesome run, Katie came with, Vera accidentally took a wrong turn, cut a couple miles off the course and forced Adam to sprint out of the Port-O-Potty to make the exchange.

Just awesome.

Coming back to climbing this time feels different. It feels good. I've lost some weight and feel like I'm starting to get back to some amount of normalcy. I also feel very calm about knowing what climbing has given me in my life. I feel incredibly fortunate to live the life I do. More so now than ever before.

It's absolutely stunning how quickly life can get in the way, isn't it? I often look back on the 2009 season as a perfect example of when everything lined up for the best. If you look at that same crew now, it's easy to see just how much things have changed.

Eggnuts - Second kid and just turned 40
Remo - Getting married next weekend
Nic - Married this past summer - Will never climb 8B
Dobbe - Getting married in October
RV - Moved away
Chris N Sarah - Bought a house, just got engaged
Aaron - In a committed relationship now
Runnells - Injured, again
Gabe - Got hitched
Sweaty - Got hitched AND addicted to tri's

Over the past few years this site has given me so much. I really appreciate that people come here to read what I have to say. I'd be lying to you if I said that I've never thought about stopping this ship though. I've thought about it multiple times just over the last couple of weeks. This site will end at some point but I don't think that time is now.

Every now and then I go back and read some of my favorite posts. There are a few that stand out but one in particular makes me smile. It's this one.

I'll leave you with my favorite part:

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.

Newness

2011-09-16T13:09:00.005-05:00

Always a good day when I get one of these packages. Thanks bud!

And Katie on Storm Troopers from this past Tuesday.

Katie also texted me that Ian just did the second ascent of Sex and Chocolate With A Cherry On Top which is fantastic. Nicely done! That one has been waiting for a year and a half now for someone to step up. I'm glad Ian did it and I'm glad he was smart about it and dropped a rope on it to suss out the moves. No reason to get hurt over a problem like that.

Also sounds like Remo finished up Hungry Hippos and Eggert repeated Jenga yesterday. I think Jenga is like a V13 for Eggert. Just my take.

The first move on Storm Troopers continues to stymie me which is just mind boggling but once I get a handle on that hopefully I can finish it up. It's really nice to see fall coming into focus. The shoulder is feeling better, new problems need to get done and I can say definitively that I'm more excited about doing new problems than ever.

East Bluff needs to get established this fall for sure.

Dodge Comp

2011-09-13T09:19:00.007-05:00

First off, huge thanks to Dobbe, Andrea and Fuzzy who put in a ton of work to create one of the cooler events thats happened in the midwest. They did it off of unexpected short notice with a great layout and organization. Everything went super smooth from what I could tell and I'm glad I was able to be there for at least a little while.

I think in total about 30-40 people showed up at some point in the day and multiple people showed from Minneapolis and Chicago. Nice work and congrats go out to Peter for climbing a shitload of problems and winning. Well done.

What kind of shocked me was how few people showed up from Madison. The split was about half and half between people that came in from out of town versus people from Madison. Sure the normal crew was out there but really??? By my count, about 15 people showed up to the comp from 45 minutes away. At least 4 others drove from Chicago and at least 6 others drove from Minneapolis. Then there were another 5-10 people that I didn't know but came from out of town as well.

I understand that there are things happening and life gets in the way sometimes but I was a little disappointed at the Wisconsin turnout. I mean, come on. At least 10 people showed up and paid 30 bucks to become members of the Wisconsin Climbers Association.

This is a group of people that is already working towards opening areas for the betterment of our climbing community. All of the proceeds go towards their efforts and a lot of hard work and thought went into bringing the midwest its first outdoor climbing competition. It's something that's totally unique, was extremely well run and super fun.

Alright. Rant over.

I encourage anyone who reads this to stop in at Boulders, talk to Dobbe and donate $30 to become a member of this organization. You can trust me when I say that it'll be worth it.

Here are a few pictures from the day.

Here's a video of Storm Troopers and A View To Kill. Enjoy.

Fun Update

2011-09-08T20:29:00.002-05:00

So it's not often that we get to update a bunch of stuff here but since I didn't do one earlier this week, here you go.

1 - Storm Troopers is a pretty fun little boulder problem. The right exit looks nice too. Tons of different beta on this one should allow for a lot of different options for most heights. FYI, that thing BAKES in the morning, as Katie and I found out this morning. So greasy.

2 - Jeremy did the longstanding "First Cube/Undercling Project". While only a 1 move wonder currently it's a cool problem and a worthy addition to the 500 Ft. field. Even better, he did it second try and Ian did it right after that.

I already posted the good pictures to Mountain Project so you get these...

3 - Wanted to wait till one of them posted it to Mountain Project but both Ian and Katie did Battle of the Bulge at Dodge in really impressive fashion. For those that don't know Battle is an old line from a few years back that Dobbe put up. It's only been done a handful of times and both Ian and Katie did it very quickly. I think Ian only spent a day on it and Katie spent VERY limited time on it two years ago. If I remember right she only tried it a handful of times on an extremely cold day.

Even better, she got the first Female Ascent of the rig.

That problem is damn hard and damn sharp on very small, unfriendly holds. It's a proud effort on both their parts.

4 - Katie can haul some pads.

And finally.......Thanks for this gem Peter...

Riddles Of Relativity

2011-09-06T12:20:00.005-05:00

Forgoing the normal we went climbing here, punted over here and ate Ice Cream over here type of post that traditionally follows a climbing weekend, I'm going to talk a bit about Dodge. I feel like with the Comp coming up this Saturday(Come rock climb here. There will be good prizes and Beer), some time devoted to Dodge is worthwhile.

Eggbert also said something about this past Saturday that hit home with me:

"Was nice to be up there, just like 4 1/2 years ago when I moved here, alone with the birds. Surprising nobody else was out. There was a car from Iowa parked at the Barrel Ridge area, but didn't see anyone."

I think most everyone here is familiar with much of Dodge's history but there is a story I wanted to tell that I've never really told anyone in full. I'll be honest and tell you all that I've been secretly holding back on this story hoping to write it after I eventually did Sandstone Violence. SV is somewhat of an Enigma for me. I've never been closer to a problem without doing it. I was inches away from a totally different story.

In the Fall of 2006 there was a completely different crew in Madison. No one was bouldering at Devil's Lake except for RV, Kelsen and myself and Huston was on a legendary tear of scary first leads that has yet to be even touched, let alone equaled. I'd done some hard problems in short order earlier that fall and was feeling extremely fit at the time. Steve Day and I had a homewall that overhung a good 14 feet and RV, Steve and I had sessions on it every few days.

It was a very good time in my life that I have fond memories of. Looking back on it now is something I do often and many good things happened around then. I met my future wife that fall, most importantly, and that would change my life forever soon enough. I had an easy, low stress job that allowed me to climb basically at will and I had an entire park to myself.

Dodge hadn't even hit the radar yet. I remember going to Dodge a couple of times to check out the park and see if there was any potential. I obviously didn't even think about checking out Group Camp B but I drove past the Godfather once or twice. With most everything I saw being fairly chossy (Some things never change...HAH!) I wrote the place off.

It wasn't until JJ Schlick posted Camp B on Mountain Project that we took notice. What made me pause the most were the projects that JJ was posting. He did a fine job of motivating us by putting giant numbers on them. The Relativity project piqued our interest the most as he had put a big ol' V12 on it.

JJ's original picture of the Relativity Boulder

Kelsen and I, wanting to prove ourselves, were out there the next weekend. Instantly we saw the plumb line. Perfect start jug, small, well spaced holds. It looked possible, but incredibly hard.

We immediately warmed up on the problem to its right, Vitamin VLess, which was a terrifying experience and a terrible problem. Looking back on that now, I'm blown away we didn't get hurt right there. After a lap each, we said screw it and started working on the project.

That first day we each figured out the move going to the left pinch with our right and then rolling up to the sharp crimp. We did the move once and couldn't repeat it. What's great is that this is now the 'go to' tall beta, skipping the right pinch entirely.

Mike Gasch trying the project with the original beta

Over the next few days trying it I kept getting one move further, each time figuring out a new piece of beta on this perfect wall. First came the double pinch beta and next came the high left foot to reach the sharp crimp. Eventually, after a terrible bit of beta when we were told that the upper right crimp was only on for the 'right exit' (unnamed dude just lied to my face), we started grabbing the pistol grip pinch out right, putting a left heel on the rail and started gunning for the upper break.

Each time we went out I'd get closer to the break before plummeting back to the pads. The whole experience was one of the most exciting times of my climbing life. Each day was an adventure and we genuinely had no idea if the project would go at all. It was my first real experience with doing a new, hard boulder problem at my limit and I loved it. The height added to the spice on each attempt and every fall felt especially jarring with only a pad or two under us.

Then in early December Jason decided to come out with me on a perfect day. It was sunny, 40 degrees and couldn't have been better conditions.

He did Secret Agent Man first try that day and we promptly packed up and headed out to Camp B. Just like all the other days I spent out there that fall we showed up to no cars in the lot and the place to ourselves. Jason, like a true friend, let me try that day until I had no skin left. He saw the work I'd put into it and the amount of time I'd spent on it and genuinely wanted me to do it first. Nevermind that the two of us had already spent a day on it a week or so prior, or that he really didn't have to do that.

He's just a nice guy who wanted me to have the FA cause he knew how much it meant to me.

Only after I'd split a tip, come within an inch of hitting the jug at the break and despondently muttered "I'm done", did he shoe up. It's something that I still appreciate to this day. It's something that's shaped my view of First Ascents and just a general view on ethics. It was a stand up thing to do.

After about a half hour of progressively better tries he got to the heel hook, put it on and threw for the break. When his left hand hit the jug he immediately double clutched as both his feet flew off the wall.

It's really incredible how some images stick in your head, right? I can remember how the light felt that day. It was late in the afternoon and felt almost perfectly golden and the entire wall bathed in it. All around us the trees were bare and the red, yellow and orange leaves covered the ground. I can remember standing on a small boulder that moved a bit under my feet whenever I'd shift my weight. I remember my bright, yellow and black Marmot puffy and Jason's ripped to shit Columbia puffy. I remember just how cold it was that day and how badly we needed those jackets.

And Jason above me as I looked up. I remember seeing his black silhouette frozen mid-flight with the deep blue, cloudless sky surrounding him. Just to the left of him, motionless in mid-air, is the block. The entire reason for the boulder problems name. The jug that he had just tried to double clutch, and the hold that I'd been eyeing up ever since the first day we spent on the Relativity Project.

That was somehow in the air as well.

It's an image I see often. Every single time it pops into my head, it's as clear as the day we were there. So vivid and so real that it's a one of a kind image for me. It changed so much about how I climb and how I think about things that I couldn't get it out of my head if I tried.

As Jason came crashing back to the pads it's all a flash for me. Maybe he has a better recollection of it than I do. All I do remember is that I body checked him back on the pads as hard as I could. We talked about it later and both came to the conclusion that if I hadn't he would have landed a good 4-5 feet behind the pads, more than likely on top of me. In turn, I landed back in the leaves by the old tree stump.

As soon as everything stopped we looked at each other and almost in unison yelled at each other to see if we were alright. I was worried about Jason as he'd just taken a 20 foot winger and I wasn't sure if he even hit the pads. He was concerned because he knew what had broken off of the problem.

I had no clue that anything had happened at the moment other than a pain in my shoulder. He grabbed the block and asked where it hit me, and being awesome like I am, I just looked at him all puzzled like.

The chunk of sandstone was about 3 inches tall and maybe 6 inches long. We weighed it afterwards and it came in at about 8 pounds.

What messes with me the most is this. An inch or two left and nothing happens. We laugh. Joke around. Take a picture with the hunk of rock and get on with it. As it was, I was alright and just had a bruised shoulder. An inch or two to the right though, and I'm in the hospital or worse with a head wound. And that's what gets in my head. That's what messes with me, even if it shouldn't.

Jason stepped up and did the problem next try.

On the ride back to Madison we were chatting about names and stuff. He was going to name it Riddles Of Relativity, an homage to JJ's first name for the boulder and to the work that went into figuring out the beta.

Just as we got into Madison he paused for a second and said, "Why don't we call it Sandstone Violence?".

Old Man Nuts

2011-09-02T09:32:00.003-05:00

So I think it was Eggnuts's birthday yesterday. Dude's 40 now. Old as time itself. Yet he'll still do Sandstone Violence since it's his birthday so he wins. Fucker.

I was looking through some old comments yesterday and came across one last fall where Nic compared Eggheads balls to old, wrinkly raisins. Thought that was especially poignant today.

I'm going climbing this weekend. What is everyone doing and where you gonna be???

Horse Rampart

2011-08-29T11:59:00.003-05:00

So Horse Ramparts has been an area I've wanted to develop in ever since RV and I hiked through it a year ago. I'm glad that we're finally making our way back through there. We spent another great day up at the upper area and I finally played around on Bunker Arete which is an amazing problem and worth the trip in and of itself.

Katie and I played on that for a bit till Chris and Sarah came up to join us. Chris quickly climbed Bunker and soon after we moved down to the Jewel. I'd tried it the previous week but in my weak as shit fitness I couldn't do it and took a bad fall to end the day. History repeated itself and I took a terrible fall and almost knocked Chris down the talus field. Luckily I turned into a spotter and saved his ass before anything bad happened.

Chris eventually did the FA of the main traverse and happily named it Muffin Top. That's all I cared about and I'm glad he was able to get the FA on it.

One note about the current landing is that even with 4-5 pads it's a very intimidating line and can end poorly if you're not careful. Within the first two moves you're already a good 12-15 feet above the pit and the problem has a very committing and exposed feel. Be careful and have a spotter for your spotter.

Chris and Sarah had to pack up and as they were leaving Erin, Sam and Ben came up through the talus to join in the fun. Perfect timing. While they started working on Bunker, Katie and I walked down through the talus to check out the potential and we're both pretty excited about this one. While nothing super hard or especially amazing yet, we've seen a ton of cool looking moderates and I've got a feeling this area could be one of the better moderate talus fields once we're done with it.

And to end the day on a terrifying note, some kids came through the talus field and started climbing up one of the exposed slabs underneath bunker and before Erin could get a hand on him he took a really bad fall into the talus. Unbelievably he was unhurt other than a bruise, but it's a fall that I would have been nervous taking with pads, let alone without. Everything turned out alright but it struck us how dangerous the talus can be.

The fall brought back memories of a long thread on Mountain Project discussing news reports and climbing accidents. In the thread the consensus was that a news station could report things as a climbing accident if the person had technical climbing gear on. Both of these kids had harnesses and shoes on and had there been an accident it would have been reported as a climbing accident. Now, had those kids been going through the talus without harnesses and with street shoes, would it have not been a climbing accident, even if the exact same thing happened? Katie and I found it an interesting example of classification.

Finishing up, here's a video of a couple problems at Horse Rampart. I'm looking forward to many more days but if you go up there, be forewarned that the place BAKES in the sun. Bring lots of water.

Also, it's nice to see guys like Ian and Peter B going through and cleaning up things that Remo and I saw in 2009 but were too distracted to do. I remember seeing both First Cube/Undercling Proj and Storm Troopers for the first time the day that Remo and I first did Pete's Pebble and tried what would become Moj. I feel like we were both too A.D.D. that summer to put any extra effort into those lines but it's been funny seeing those same lines unknowingly resurrected with new efforts. Storm Troopers seems pretty cool and I'm psyched to try it once I get back into it.

Organic Retro Book Bag

2011-08-23T11:29:00.004-05:00

I'm not shy about the fact that I really love Organic Climbing products. The pads, chalk pots, chalk bags and packs are the best on the market, bar none. I like to think that through my constant praise and spray I've convinced at least a few of you to buy a pad. It helps out Josh and you get the best possible product there is.

I was starkly reminded of this when we went up to the lake on Sunday and I was forced to carry my old Revolution 12 Gauge cause Bonamici had my Organic Big Pad. I was blown away with how poorly the first generation Revolution carried and I kept on wishing I had my own cake pad with me instead. Then when we got to the boulders I remembered that the carpet tore years ago and the foam was exposed along one entire side.

Don't get me wrong. I love Revolution and if Josh wasn't doing what he does I'd be climbing on Revolution without a doubt. They've improved vastly over the past 7 years and have a quality lineup of pads currently. Organic is just the best. Even if Josh makes next to nothing on pads.

The reason for today's post is not about pads, but rather something that Josh can hopefully make a little bit of money on. It's about his new Retro Book Bag. I saw this for the first time last summer at OR and wanted one immediately. I don't tend to carry a bunch of shit when I go climbing and the Retro was a perfect size. Josh was nice enough to send me one this spring when he had his first production run and I've been using it since.

Sizewise it's ideal for me as I can carry 3 pair of shoes, chalk pot, chalk bag and water in the main pouch and all the little stuff in the smaller front pocket. It's small enough that it slides into pads easily and takes up very little space while still keeping everything nice and organized.

I know a lot of people (Jeff) use it as an extra bag to go along with the crag pack cause it isn't quite big enough, but it's perfect to pack full of food and water when you have a bigger day planned. Katie is a pack rat just like Jeff it seems and fills her crag pack to the top each and every trip.

No it doesn't have a laptop sleeve. It doesn't have a billion pockets on the inside. It doesn't have a 3 pen holders or a place for business cards. It doesn't have 18 water bottle pockets, nor does it have a special pocket with a hidden unicorn inside. It might not even help you find a new girlfriend.

It is however TOTALLY bombproof and built like a quality pack should be. It has metal buckles on the shoulder straps and a little key clip on the inside. It's clean, simple and burly.

And for a limited time, while he has stock left, he'll be selling it for $40 in the colors you see up top. Buy one. Help out a dude that used to live in the midwest and get yourself a sweet little pack.

For all my fanboys out there, I have the yellow and black one. It looks just like the bee that stung me last week.

Send a note to josh@organicclimbing.com if you want one. You do.

So This Happened...

2011-08-22T20:48:00.006-05:00

Getting Back Into It

2011-08-18T20:07:00.003-05:00

So I think i'm better at running right now than I am at climbing. Ugh.

Not a whole lot going on over here right now. Katie, Ian and Cory met up with Zach from the Twin Cities the last couple days and showed him around the lake a bit. He seems to like it, specifically our bouldering community, which I think is pretty cool. A few years ago it was most definitely not like this and it's nice to get a new perspective from an out of town climber.

So thanks Zach.

It seems they've found a couple new boulders in the East Bluff talus and Zach at least did Rampart Roof which sounded somewhat terrifying, according to Katie. Not sure what else went down but it sounded like a good day. Now someone in that crew just needs to post the new boulders to MP.

On a separate note Dobbe is organizing a really cool event on September 10th at Governor Dodge. He'll be throwing together a Triple Crown style bouldering competition at Group Camp B, Barrel Ridge and the Lonely Boulders. At least I think those are the areas. As far as I know all the proceeds are going to the newly formed Wisconsin Climbers Association which will be actively working towards securing access in Wisconsin.

This is something that I know Dobbe and company have put a lot of work into and it's something that was needed around here. The cost is only $30 for a membership so plan on going to this and having a good time.

Here are the details:

Registration 10-11
Climbing 11-5
Awards and Drinks at 6

The format will be cumulative, as in count up your points as you go. No 10 problem minimum or anything like that, just do as many problems as you can. Should be nice and simple.

You're also encouraged to bring a bike to ride around from area to area. It sounds like the plan is to have pads already at many of the boulder problems and I think thats a really cool way to go about it all. So take a close look at the poster above, plan on being in Dodgeville and get ready for what should be an awesome time.

I know already some people from Minneapolis are planning on coming out which is awesome!

Boom.

Guess What?

2011-08-15T11:02:00.002-05:00

I went rock climbing yesterday. The shoulder wasn't great but it was workable and it felt really great to be outside again. Aaron, Katie and I set up a few topropes at the lake which was super fun. My excitement for the topropes at the lake is pretty high right now and I'm looking forward to doing more as we get into fall. I always seem to forget how good the routes are at the lake.

Honestly it was just nice to climb a bit and take it easy. Plus we got to see Aarons yearly dose of technique and pretty climbing on Gill's Nose before he promptly lost it again on Dog Fucker.

And in the best news department we heard that Chris and Sarah got engaged. It's safe to say that this was a long time coming and everyone is obviously very happy for them. I can say that, personally, I'm glad they're going to be around Madison for at least a little while.

Congrats guys.

The Inaugural Running Of The First Annual National Badminton World Championships Of The Universe

2011-08-08T11:12:00.005-05:00

The view from the toilet for those that were wondering

Words can't explain how successful the Badminton was this past weekend. It surpassed all expectations and will be followed by many many more championships.

My win came at quite the cost though. I'm stupidly sore a full two days after my illustrious victory and I can only imagine the soreness dying off sometime around November. I badminton'd that hard.

I'll let the video do the rest of the talking...

Predictions Recap - Spring Season

2011-08-04T21:17:00.004-05:00

So Spring is over and the year has officially stepped over the hill. Here's a recap of where the predictions stand. Doing better this year...

1 - Alpine club will be done 3 times - 2/3 so far. Nic said it'll be done twice. I'm still holding true to the three. I think Aaron will do it and someone else. Jeremy was close as well.

2 - Beautiful Soup will be done 5 times - 3/5 so far. Nic said two times. Suck it. I think we'll hit this rather easily this year. Dobbe??

3 - Keymaker will be done 2 times - 1/2 so far. Nic said one time Suck it again. Chris came through HUGE and it was a personal highlight of the season to have been able to work it with him. Runnells, wants to do it and if he stays injury free he will. Dudes strong enough. And assuming I get healthy I'd love to finish it as well. Plus if Jeff every comes back through.

4 - Moj will be done 2 times - KABOOM Done 3 times. Nic was way off saying it'd be done once. Glad this one got worked over this spring.

5 - Greatest Show will be done 4 times - 0/4 Not sure that we'll see this one actually. So much psyche has been concentrated on the West Bluff that this one has been kind of ignored. Chris, Aaron??? I know you're both psyched on it. Nic said 1 or 2 times and I think he's right on that one.

6 - Tunder Tighs will be done 2 times - Um....we were all way off. This was done 7 times and turned into a classic of the lake. Plus the landing is much better now.

7 - Sandstone Violence will be done 4 times - 1/4 as far as I know with Esser getting the only one so far. Curious where this will end up.

8 - 10 new problems V6 or harder will be put up - So this is where Ian gunked the system up a bit. Ian, no offense but I'm only counting a select few of your problems here as too many are just slight variations of otherwise established lines. My count is the following:

Night Grinder
Velvet Hammer
So Dope/Direct - Counting them as one
Hungry Hippos/Hungry Hungry Hippos - Counting them as one
Public Enemy

Am I missing any biggies??? Of note is Martin's FA of Two Women which really does look fantastic but falls in at V5.

9 - Of those 10 problems 4 will be V8 or harder - I think 2-3 of the above fall into this category that will actually hold their grade. On top of that there are many other projects that will fall into this category. Seam, Corner, Half Dome, Kerplunk(once we move the boulder), Smooth Operator Roof, etc. Go get em. They're all prime, independent lines that will be awesome truly hard problems when they get done.

10 - At least 1 new problem will be DOUBLE DIGIT(said in a monster truck announcer echoing voice.) - While Ian rated a few problems V10 I'm not convinced they'll hold their grades. No offense but I'm gonna say this one is still undone.

What does everyone think. Pretty damn good season so far...Minnesota, where you at?????

Also! LADY GOALS!!!

1 - Jenga will be done 3 times - 1/3 so far. I think this one has potential.

2 - Moj will get its FFA - Not yet but I got faith.

3 - MooStache will be done 4 times - 1/4 right now thanks to Sarah! I was super excited to hear this go for her and it was well deserved and long awaited. It's always good when there are some punts involved. Ladies????? Time to step up.

4 - Magnum PI will be done 4 times - 1/4 currently. I think this will be close.

5 - Massive Vertigo will be done 3 times - 1/3. For sure. Gonna happen no problem.

6 - Anchorpoint will be done 2 times - 1/2. I think Sarah will step up to the plate. Counting Katie's efforts on it cause it broke.

7 - Alpine Club will be done 1 time - Not sure. I guess we'll see.

8 - Venus Rising will be done 1 time - Ellen????????? You know you want to.

9 - A lady will finally put up a problem harder than V4 - Again, I think this will happen.

10 - A lady will find a brand new area - Not sure but Katie's been off exploring a few times this year. Keep the faith.

Overall it's been an awesome spring and I'm hoping for an equally great fall. There are some things brewing that should re-up the psyche around these parts and I can only hope they all fall into place.

On a more personal note I just want to re-emphasize what this spring meant to me. I can't count the number of days and nights where we had people at 4-5 different areas on the West Bluff all working on separate problems and projects. One of the reasons that my favorite moment from this spring was seeing Chris do Keymaker was that when he did it there were 15-20 people up there watching, supporting and spotting him. This was a complete departure from the second ascent when it was Remo, Nic and myself up there.

The single good thing that's come out of this site has been the community that has surrounded us all. It's such a shift for the local scene and I'm looking forward to more good things as the years pass.

A Review - Midwest Unknown.

2011-08-03T11:27:00.003-05:00

So I don't do many reviews anymore cause, really, I normally don't care enough. A couple of you asked me to do this one and Ian was nice enough to give me a copy so here's my honest take. I want Ian's videos to be even better going forward so this is my true take on the video.

Bottom Line - If you're from the Midwest, go here and buy of copy of Midwest Unknown. It's well worth the 10 bucks you'll spend and you can glean lots of beta from a bunch of different problems encompassing Devil's Lake, Rattlesnake Mound, Taylors Falls and Governor Dodge. You also get the added bonus of seeing climbers you know climbing on problems you want to do.

The Good - My favorite parts of the video were by far seeing local climbers on the true classic problems at the lake. In no particular order:

Aaron on Smooth Operator - AWESOME. Love seeing someone who can climb 8's with relative ease have to try hard on a classic old school V4 with a terrifying problem. One of my personal favorites and a great moment from the spring.

Katie on Anchorpoint 2.0 - Knowing the history of that problem with Katie and knowing that it broke, making the topout even harder and reachier for her made this one fun personally.

Chris on Keymaker - I was truly heartbroken when I realized that my camera hadn't worked when Chris did Keymaker so it was especially nice to see that one on here. Chris had, in my eyes, the highlight of the year so far for doing The Keymaker and it was great seeing it and reliving it once more. Personally I wish that this was the ending problem of the video as it meant a lot to Chris that he finished it off this spring.

Remo on Sex And Chocolate - Just awesome. Whenever anyone thinks of this problem they'll think of Remo even if they decide not to go to the top. It's really, truly his problem.

Nic on Alpine Club - Really nice seeing this on video as Nic demystified this problem for a lot of people when he came through and did it in a couple days quite easily. I also enjoy seeing this wall with only one line on it and being reminded of what attracted me to the problem initially.

Ian on Tunder Tighs - Very glad to see this one on there as its turned into a neo-classic and is a must do for the grade. Absolute classic.

Remo on Slope of Dadaism - HE DOES THE CRAWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How can you not love that?????

Cory on The Godfather - Cool seeing one of the lesser known climbers get that one done.

Ian on Perfect Medium - Nice to see this one on video. In reality it really is a cool line with mostly nice holds and one of the coolest slopers at the lake.

Katie on Hangman - I was really sad that I missed out on seeing her do this problem in person. I've been up there with her maybe 10-15 times over the last two years and the one time I can't go she does it. That's one of the things I've missed the most this summer is seeing her work and finish off projects.

Ian on Chaos - A sick problem and I was glad to see it in the video. Even if he does take a left exit on it. Looks like it may be a more logical/easier exit too. I know I sure didn't see it when I was working it and fell of MANY times bumping to the final edge in the crack. Sweaty?

Ian on Flatiron - Just a cool classic problem and one that needed to be on there.

The Not So Good - So reviews that are glowing and never say anything negative always kinda tear at me. Nothing is perfect so get over it and offer some constructive criticisms. Ian, don't hate me.

1 - The Up-rates - I know ratings don't matter that much and that we need to find our inner peace to truly find out why we do what we do but I HAVE to give Ian shit for upgrading problems.

Bulbous, Massive Vertigo, Perfect Medium, So Dope, Like A Boss, Battleship, Tunder Tighs and Chaos all either got an added rating, slash grade or a friendly little '+' after them. Don't get me wrong, I actually like slash grades. Plusses not so much but whatever. The funny part about a couple of these is that they got uprated from their already confirmed grades.

Bulbous cracked me up the most. I think it's the first time i've ever seen a 9 placed on it and Huston has repeatedly called it a 6. It's always tough, especially with new problems like Battleship and Like a Boss which have each had new beta figured out that significantly changed their difficulty. But with the more classic, standard problems it made me laugh a bit.

2 - The Editing - I think we need to have an intervention with Ian. Who's in? Ian....you gotta tone down the editing. The overall feel of the video was just too chopped up for my taste and it seemed like different edits were thrown in at random. Use fades on the music to transition things a bit better and pull back on the fast forward button. I watched it for a second time yesterday and was fast forwarding through a bit and when I pushed play again I had to click the button 4-5 times before I realized that the video was just edited that way and was moving faster than normal.

Another thing is the moving camera deal and as a result the Super Slab bit is annoyingly unwatchable. Instead of moving the camera around a bunch find a few other angles to show the problem and movement a bit better. It'll allow you to not use the fast forward as much and will also give the viewer a better feel for the problem.

I'll be very honest and say that I don't watch climbing videos for the ground breaking edits. I watch them for the climbing and that should be the sole focus.

3 - Problem Selection - I think a big majority of the movie was awesome. The problems were great and there were local climbers used whenever possible. That's awesome. Loved those parts. There were however some problems that just didn't fit in. It made me sad that problems like Jenga, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Beautiful Soup, Bark Biter and Group Leader weren't in there while others like So Dope Direct, Battleship, Like A Boss and The Rapture were all included. Knowing that there are so many classic lines that were left out kind of took away from the video for me.

That's about it. Aside from the magical outfits that Sam and Katie were wearing in the Battleship clip(each one of them switched tops multiple times....they're so talented!) the video was really good and as I said above, well worth the ten bucks that he's charging. In reality it's a couple of cups of coffee that will support a local climber putting out videos. Do your duty and download it. If nothing else it'll keep the psych going during the middle of summer.

I look forward to more videos in the future.

Photos

2011-08-01T15:55:00.000-05:00

I bought my D70 back in late 2004 while I was living in Mammoth. With it I got two kit lenses, four filters (two were identical), a cheap bag and a 1MB memory card. The strap on the bag broke within a week.

This was the first picture I ever took....

And this was the second...I'm still proud of this one...

Since then I've managed to use and abuse that camera to the best of my ability. I've dropped it in piles of snow, left it outside overnight, and in my brightest moment I dropped it (inside its bag) 20 feet off of a boulder in the West Bluff Talus. It now has two cracks running up the right side and another on the base. Those could possibly be from the hundreds of times I've bashed it accidentally on some random boulder at the lake. No guarantees though.

The memory card reader randomly decides not to work and I've lost hundreds of photos because of it. I've since figured out that I can treat my formerly $700 camera body like a Nintendo by blowing into the reader. It works most times.

About 4 years ago I bought a wireless remote and the first time I used it my camera shut off and an error message came up on the screen. I had to send it back to Nikon to get serviced. Cost me about $300 and I still have no idea why. The remote cost 10 bucks or something. Money well spent and I've been terrified to use it since. It's still sitting in my bag, collecting dust.

Then, a couple years ago the built in flash stopped working while I was using it with an off camera flash. I've made due since then and have been far too lazy to take it somewhere to get looked at. Despite finding detailed instructions on the internet to fix the issue I've yet to try and go 'under the hood'. Obviously I'm afraid of breaking my poor camera even more.

Through all of this my camera has treated me abnormally well. Really, truly, oddly well.

I've been lucky to get a few nice photos over the years. I've been even luckier to do that without photoshop or any sort of editing software. Frankly, I'm far too lazy to spend any amount of time "processing" my photos, though I do appreciate the effort people go through while spending hours editing their pictures. Everything I've learned is self taught and there are MANY reasons I'll never throw a watermark or signature on my photos.

What you see is what you get, imperfections and all. I find that charming to a certain extent as photos are rarely perfect and if they are, chances are they've been photoshopped a fair amount. All too often they're edited to the point of not resembling the original in the slightest. I like putting pictures out there that are true, natural moments. Whether the light was shitty or the sun wasn't sparkling just right, they're real snapshots of time. I enjoy pictures that aren't perfect in every imaginable way.

When it comes down to it, I'm a V3 photographer and I like it that way. It keeps things fun, light and Katie and I get to have the enjoyment of going home after a day of bouldering and uploading the photos onto my etch-a-sketch of a computer. I love that that's the extent of my "photo processing".

So here you go, a few of my favorites of the last 6 years. I'm very proud to say that there isn't a bit of editing in the bunch.

On a totally unrelated subject, this is my 300th post. It's incredibly mind blowing to me that this site has lasted as long as it has through the past 2 and a half years. We've seen huge, incredible changes in the landscape of midwestern bouldering and I'm happy to know that everyone here has been a large part of that.

I do want to thank the 'regulars' that have been showing up since the start. Sweaty, Eggnuts, RV, Remo, Nic, Runnells. I would have stopped this piece long ago if it weren't for you and I love that I can always count on you guys to carry on conversations in the comments.

One thing that constantly blows me away though is the random readership. I'm always surprised anyone outside of the people I just mentioned reads anything I write. I want everyone to know that I really appreciate it though. Whether it's someone from Texas that checks in every now and then or if it's people like McB and Em that comment once or twice. I really appreciate it and want to thank everyone for that.

When we were up at Nic's wedding Jeff said something about injuries making for funny blog posts and it stuck with me. I really had no clue that he read this collection of absurdity and I was caught off guard. I still find it so odd that people outside of the midwest read what has very much turned into a 'local blog' as Runnells puts it. I'm glad that this site is entertaining though.

Finally, the support that everyone showed me last week was incredibly nice and made me smile. Thanks for that pick me up.

And just so we don't end on a lovey lovey note, RV........you suck.

Aunt Bonnie

2011-07-25T13:57:00.003-05:00

Be forewarned, this post has nothing to do with climbing.

This summer. What can I say. Personally, professionally, it hasn't been all that great. Workwise its been one of the most stressful, high intensity times of my life and while that can be good at times, it has instead been overly chaotic without much to show for it.

While the shoulder has been less than ideal my need for climbing has been slowly replaced by a vague enjoyment of running, something that I never enjoyed previous to this summer. It has been frustrating to feel the shoulder at 90% for 3 weeks now. So frustrating that I'll be going back to the doc later this week.

Big, positive changes happened with Katie and her working environment which were awesome and she's already doing good things at the gym. A known result of the change though was that I'd be seeing less of my wife throughout the first bit. Knowing it doesn't make it suck less though. I like seeing my wife and when that changes a bit it's tough to deal with.

Another side effect of the extremely serious case of "Bitch-itis" has been seeing my friends less than I'd like to. Not wanting to be "that guy" that awkwardly comes into the gym, plops down on a couch and just "hangs out" I've been at the gym maybe once a month. It's really staggering how much I miss being around my friends and how much of my time is normally spent climbing. It's really surprised me even if it shouldn't have.

None of that matters though. We're all healthy. The shoulder will heal up. I'll start climbing again. I'll see my wife more often and work will slow down. It's all fixable. There are things that aren't fixable though and those are the real issues in life.

A couple weeks ago on the 13th I found out that my Aunt Bonnie had liver cancer. The type of cancer she had was particularly devastating and not many make it through. The doctors gave her 3-4 weeks to live at the time. She passed away 5 days later and was only 50 years old.

When I found out, Bonnie had known for roughly a year. She didn't want people to think of her and remember her as "Bonnie with cancer", but rather just as Aunt Bonnie. She kept it from all but her closest friends and didn't want to burden her family, whatever that really means.

The speed with which it all happened was absolutely shocking and I'll be honest in saying that I've never experienced a loss like this before. So unexpected and sudden with no warning or chance to come to terms with it. Katie and I went to the memorial last Friday and it was obvious the impact she made on everyone who came into her life.

It's absolutely agonizing to think that Bonnie won't be at Christmas this year. The simple fact that I'll never get a chance to see her again destroys me.

Sadly there aren't any lessons learned or a neatly packaged silver lining in this story. I lost a family member that I care for deeply and I won't get her back. Instead everyone should just go home and hug someone they care about. Life can change so incredibly fast.

NIC O WILL NEVER CLIMB 8B!!!!!!! ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BOMB.COM!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-07-17T18:37:00.005-05:00

Katie and I went to Nic's wedding yesterday. Molly didn't even stand him up. Congrats dude.

I learned a few things though.

1 - Nic will never climb 8B. He's gonna pop out a fleet of kids within the a year(I'm predicting triplets) and he'll be done climbing. I'm guessing he'll pick up professional putt putt golf instead.

2 - Nic gets ripped on ALL THE TIME. Seriously. Every speech was focused on his downfalls. Molly's sister even called him "The older brother I never really wanted". Awesome.

3 - Josh wiped his mouth with his tie and didn't even know it. So good.

4 - Kelly is the nicest person ever. Even when she's being mean.

5 - It was so hot out that Josh had to change shirts between the ceremony and the reception.

6 - Nic tried to off Kelly and Katie. We're sure of it. There were Almonds in everything and dishes of peanuts all over the place.

7 - The Koreans LOVE my videos. Who knew??

8 - We got pulled over on the way back home and somehow Katie got out of it. I think she racked up some sort of record and got 5 warnings. 5! Speeding, burned out taillight, burned out headlight, no proof of insurance and expired tags. Insane. Who gets 5 warnings?!?

9 - Kelly grabbed both of Katie's boobs. Hot.

10 - My Bursitis is now known as 'Bitchitis".

11 - Josh actually eats these when I give them to him. Who knew??

Seriously though, it was a really nice wedding and I'm happy for both of them. Molly will be really good for Nic. Also it was good catching up with Jeff, Kelly, Josh, Liz and the whole Minnie crew. Apparently their summer has been hellish up there.

Product Launches

2011-07-13T08:59:00.003-05:00

Launching a new product is an odd thing sometimes. It seems the Outdoor Industry has backed away from attempting to keep everything a secret until the day it actually hits the shelves. Now there is an absurd amount of buzz coming out of OR every year and people already know what's going to be new a full 6 months before it even makes it out of the factory.

On top of that some companies are doing an even earlier launch to beat out some of their competitors and to make sure there aren't any leaks. It's honestly kinda nice to see and now it's really only a matter of time before someone launches a new product and then ships it a month or two later. I'm excited to see that it's the direction many companies are making.

Last year Petzl did a large early launch with the GriGri 2. It was hugely successful and at the OR trade show the Petzl booth was absolutely going OFF! It was incredible to see everyone trying to pile into the booth to play with the new toy.

One of the reasons Petzl did such an early launch was the Friedrichshafen tradeshow in Germany. It's the first show for many companies and after that, a lot of the info is already out so it was a nice way to beat that by a little bit. The put the info up literally the day before that show started.

Fast forward to yesterday and I saw a note on Mountain Project that Black Diamond had a "Major New Climbing Product Announcement". They said they'd tell everyone on the 13th, coincidentally, the day before the Friedrichshafen show starts.

And they posted this earlier today:

I'll be honest and say that, personally, I was a little let down. See I figured they bought someone, had an autolocking belay device or had some sort of crazy new product that would change climbing as we know it. Instead we get two new lockers.

Even if reactions are decidedly mixed currently they're getting a lot of buzz and getting people psyched. So that's good.

Milk

2011-07-08T18:52:00.002-05:00

Aaron tells me I need to drink more milk and then my shoulder will be better. How bout Vodka? Will that make it better??? I think so.

Not much to say but a couple of cool things I saw today.

1 - Nic is finally doing more of his Pad posts. I'm glad. It's actually really interesting and I think we can all look back at our pads and remember a few stories. Good idea Nic. Go here.

2 - NICROS HAS A NEW WEBSITE. IT'S ACTUALLY PRETTY SICK AND WAY WAY BETTER THAN THE OLD ONE. THEY DID A KICKASS JOB WITH ALL THE PICTURES AND IT'S PRETTY COOL. IT'S SUCH A GOOD SITE THAT I WROTE THIS BIT IN ALL CAPS JUST FOR NIC. HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY.

3 - RV has been in India for like an hour and dudes already gained 5 pounds. Fatty.

4 - I'm drinking right now.

5 - Saw this video profile of Andy Raether that I thought was super cool. Nice to see Andy getting a bit of play after voluntarily walking away from the spotlight. One of the strong midwest dudes that I'm happy to have met and hung out with a couple years ago at OR.

www.iclimb.com

I'm always inspired by people that train their asses off and Andy is one of those dudes.

That's all

Aaron's Chops

2011-07-05T21:00:00.003-05:00

Aaron........You'd better get yourself some facial hair. The people want it. Badly. They want two of em.

Two Mutton Chops for Aaron!!!! One for each side!!!!!!!!!!!!

Personally I'm a bit sad that the single side chop didn't get more momentum. I really figured people would got for it in Mullet fashion. Bizness on the right, Partay on the left. Oh well.

Katie and I set up the Badminton battlefield this weekend. OMG I'MGOINGPRO!!!! So good it hurts.

I think Eggballs is back in town. Don't know though. I also think Aaron and company went out climbing yesterday. Not totally sure though. Katie and Ian have climbed a few things but I have no clue what. Gotta say, not climbing is really hampering my ability to make fun of you fools and downgrade your problems without even doing them.

Instead we'll just make fun of Nic. The countdown to him getting left at the altar is a mere 11 days away!!!!!

Shoe Dork

2011-06-30T14:28:00.003-05:00

So being the shoe dork that I am I saw this thread on Mountain Project and thought "Oh, cool. Sportiva fixed the Solutions heel cup.". Then I looked closer...

And saw that it looks like a velcro version of the speedster. Note the forefoot rubber toe cap that was mostly cut out of the shot and it's got the Speedster heel cup. Some people will be very psyched about this....some will not. Who knows though. Maybe they have some other cool shoes too. We'll know soon enough.

Also, I'm glad to see people are all for Aaron having Mutton Chops. Nice to see some votes for the single side Mutton Chop too. Pulling for that one!!!!

Katie Told Me A Good Title But I Forgot What It Was

2011-06-28T16:44:00.003-05:00

So Katie came up with this great title for a blog post last night but I forgot what it was. Just like she said I would.

We had another nice day up at the lake last Saturday. I'm still out of commission so I made this:

Long I know, but I've been bored so deal with it. I've personally been running more lately which has actually been surprisingly fun. Found some nice trails near our house and I'm pretty psyched about it. Hopefully I'll be back climbing soon though as this summer has been full of oddly good conditions. It hasn't been crazy hot so far and Katie has been able to get out a ton this year.

A few weeks back I made this:

Awesome, I know. I'm psyched that I'll be winning all the Emmy's this year. Prolly a few Tony's too.

And if anyone is in Chicago you need to go to this place. I don't care what Sweaty says. It's amazing. They freeze the ice cream IN FRONT OF YOU!!!! WITH MAGIC SMOKE!!!!!! For real. Go there. Way mo better than Frozen Yogurt of some crap like that.

Finally, here's the question of the week - Should Aaron grow Mutton Chops? Isobel is out of the country at the moment and I really think it'd kinda badass. Go!

Smooth Moves With The Gentleman - Milk Your Mustache

2011-06-21T11:43:00.003-05:00

With things being slow round these parts and summer officially setting in I thought I'd dig out the next volume of Smooth Moves With The Gentleman. So sit back, grab a bottle of bourbon and enjoy the drop of knowledge.

So homeboy from out of town broke his leg at the gym a couple months ago. I was there. It was gross. I almost threw up in my mouth. For real. I thought it was a hold snapping. Turned out it was a tibia. Every one ran away. When I saw it, I wanted to tell homeboy, “hey, legs aren’t supposed to look like that”, but he was all sweaty and in shock and then I was on the phone with 911 and Bucky was splinting his leg and all, so, you know, I’m telling him now. Dude. Don’t break your leg at my gym again.

People want to blame bouldering, saying it’s dangerous. Psshhhffttt on that. Bro needs more milk, it’s got calcium, that shit is good for bones.

This isn’t the first time this happened. One time, a girl fell in the cave and busted her elbow. Straight up not cool. I really don’t want to go the gym, expecting a nice, low key night and then have to look at you, all broken up, freaking out, waiting for a paramedic and ambulance. You know what? If you drank more milk none of this would’ve happened.

Another time, I wasn’t even there and this dude apparently blew his leg up while bouldering and tried to have his friend carry him out to his car because he was too cheap for ambulance or didn’t have health insurance or something. Dude. You don’t need insurance if you have milk bro. So stop being cheap and go buy some. I’d recommend Whole Milk with Vitamin D.

That’s what I blame all the people that hurt themselves at our gym on, not enough milk. Definitely wasn’t the fact that no one ever asks for a spot and people fall like a drink down a flight of stair.

Don’t get me started on the time that that girl in Mrs. Gnar’s beginner climbing class had her foot come off.…..

Milk probably wouldn’t have helped that. Probably.

HAH!

2011-06-16T08:49:00.002-05:00

Egghead wanted something posted.

1 - He finally did Jenga. Bout freaking time too. Think it took him less time on Sandstone Violence and B Soup. Though it sounds like it was a pretty clutch send so that's cool.

2 - Katie snagged the FFA of Hungry Hippos and has her eyes on the sit now.

I'm still up in the mini apple and Katie's gonna head up here tomorrow afternoon. She wants to try and finish off the cave trav after doing all the moves a few weeks back. I'm still out so no climbing for me unfortunately.

Nic, she doesn't get here till later tomorrow night. You should take me out to eat some foods.

Weekend Updates

2011-06-13T18:37:00.002-05:00

Two updates from the weekend.

1 - Jeremy had a great day and did Jenga in two tries and Hungry Hungry Hippos in a total of about 4 tries I think. That includes him doing the stand. Then he went down the hill and did Moj in maybe 30-45 minutes. Very nice work and I think it's safe to say we're all happy for him. Days like that are rare and should be cherished.

2 - Ellen and Pat both did Whiskey A Go-Go it seems. At least according to the bookface and Mr. Narcs pics. As far as I know this is its FFA and I'm supremely impressed with Ellens work on it. I had no clue she was even working it but that some proud effort for sure. I was surprised and psyched when I saw the pics today.

Well done Ellen and Pat. Also, Pat, do you seriously skip the right hand gaston?!?!?!? Christ...Lanky bastard.

Sounds like Eggnuts is up at the lake with Katie and company. Hoping Katie does Hungry Hippos. She's very close on it.

Thanks Hurty

2011-06-10T21:19:00.002-05:00

Since Brian decided to crash our party and send a bunch of peeps this way I figured I'd post the video of him on Tunder Tighs. It's only fitting.

Thanks for the shout out Brian!!!

So many dry fires...

Group Leader

2011-06-08T18:05:00.002-05:00

It's funny how injuries line up sometimes. My last major time off lined up with the first snows of 2009 just as work was getting crazy as Janice was out on Maternity Leave. This time around my time off has lined up with the first 90 degree days just as work is getting crazy and Janice is out on Maternity Leave. Not sure how I feel about it all.

I've been slammed and haven't really had time to come up for air here. Then two things happened.

1 - I looked at my site stats today and somehow there's been 2,000 visits in the past month.

2 - Katie sent me a picture while she was out climbing wondering if I'd seen a certain prow she just climbed. I had. It was Group Leader.

As far as number 1 goes, I think it's rather cool. I know Brian probably gets that many visits every 5 minutes but for this little site I think it's pretty nice to know that you guys have felt compelled enough to visit this place more than 2,000 times recently. 100% of the credit goes towards the renewed energy at the lake.

That makes me happy.

I'll be honest and say that I feel totally out of touch right now. I'm not ever up at the lake and I'm barely at Boulders anymore. Work has taken over lately and as much fun as my job can be times like this tend to be somewhat trying. I try to live through my friends that still get to climb but when it comes down to it what I miss most is the 'hanging out'. I miss being able to go to boulders and just joke around.

It makes me happy to know that we've got friends that aren't JUST climbing partners. It makes Madison a much cooler place.

And for Group Leader, well, that was just a fun coincidence. And really unexpected. Group Leader was something that wasn't exactly super memorable in my eyes, just something kind of cool that I did in 90 degree heat, alone with one pad. Just by myself for a day.

I don't even think I mentioned it here anywhere.

But apparently it's a fun problem. And about a V4. And kind of classic. Thinking back on it, it always seemed like a cool little boulder problem. I'm glad someone else finally did it.

Sweaty, Katie got you a gift. Get psyched.

Punt Of The Month - May

2011-06-08T16:17:00.002-05:00

And there we have it. It's official, Sweaty's a punter. A no good dirty punter.

He got hurt playing soccer.

He's done multiple triathalons and wants to do more. (WTF?)

He no longer climbs and is a pro air hockey player or something like that. Not even sure anymore. Maybe it's Foosball?

Sweaty, I'll get your prizes out asap. Dobbe's even using his! Nic, you using your neck strengthener yet???

Punt Of The Month - May - Community Decision

2011-06-06T13:38:00.003-05:00

I'll be honest, I was all set to let Katie write something up for punt of the month. I'd had a couple people tell me that I'd won no doubt but then Sweaty came into play and reminded me he had quite the month too.

As he said, he doesn't climb anymore, he did a triathalon(for a second time, god knows why) and he hurt himself playing soccer. All valid points.

As for me, I was able to get a cup out of our cupboard yesterday for the first time in weeks so that was pretty cool. Shoulder is doing a bit better but still angry. On top of that I really have no clue what actually hurt it. The climbing or the riding of the bicycles. Either way it was stupid.

So you decide. Poll on the right. I'll leave it up for a couple days. I'm beginning to like polls.

Also, Katie and I saw this over the weekend. Totally random. We were in a park and turned around to find some incredibly large dudes rolling tractor tires around. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

http://www.fordsgym.com/sminfo.htm

So that was cool...

When Good Climbers Go Bad

2011-06-02T20:24:00.003-05:00

I really only have Egghead to thank for this little gem. Oh Sweaty...at least you're not throwing a dinner plate around...Number 3 is my favorite.

Stress is starting to set in. Guess that means it's time to sell clothes.

Updates All Round

2011-06-01T21:11:00.002-05:00

Well, Katie is coming back from another successful day at the lake. Last Saturday a hold on the topout of Anchorpoint broke off upping the difficulty/commitment a touch. I haven't personally seen it but it sounds like it added a bit of challenge to it.

It sounds like both Katie and Ian have done it now without the hold but I'm not sure if it upped the anty any with the grade. Who cares really? I'm honestly glad to hear that it still goes. I've got fond memories of shutting Kelsen down on that thing and that's all that matters, right?

Sam is apparently close on that and she's working on Jenga. It's cool to have seen her get so strong recently.

What has everyone else been up to? My shoulder is doing better but still angry. Dobbe did Grimace down south apparently but I haven't chatted with him yet.

Go. Entertain me.

Yo

2011-05-26T00:46:00.002-05:00

Here's my obligatory "Im at a meeting and don't know what else to say" post. Not much to say here actually, I'm kinda exhausted. I ran this morning, which was actually rather cool. Didn't even feel like total hell.

The product looks good. Really good. Ueli helped design a whole new category for Hardwear and they basically gave him full access and only changed a couple minor things to make it a bit more palatable to consumers.

On a bright side for me I've got a new climbing pant/short. I'd talked to the designer last summer and made a case for a lightweight, simple pant with a ton of stretch and it made it into the line this year so I'm psyched about that. Really nice couple of pieces. Super simple and actually under featured which is ideal. Curious to see how they do. Either way it's nice to be associated with a company that takes direct feedback so well.

What have ya'll been up to? Nic, someone saw your toe on my bookface and thought it was mine. Had fun telling that story.

Updates All Around

2011-05-20T16:02:00.004-05:00

Most importantly, Martin T did Alpine Club last weekend and Brian Runnells did Tunder Tighs yesterday. While I don't know much about Martin's ascent it's obviously proud and he did it rather fast.

Runnells was proud in his own way doing Tunder solo with minimal pads and wet holds. Christ man. Good effort.

On top of both of those proud works Sarah did Moostache!! Really psyched for her to have finished that up as she'd put a number of days on the line and punted off the top enough times for it to start turning into a bit of an epic. For as much traffic as that problem has gotten this is only its second lady send and this one stands out in a season full of really impressive sends. Good work Sarah, you earned that one.

As for my shoulder, looks like I have Bursitis. Not bad. Some rest will do me good and hopefully it'll go away soon. There are bigger issues out there and my shoulder is of limited importance. I like how the world has a way of putting things in perspective just at the right time. It happened to me today and I'm thankful for it.

Alright, enough with that. On a totally different side of things there are two interesting conversations taking place right now related to climbing access/open information.

Go here and read the comments thread.

Go here and read both the post and the insane amounts of comments.

I have my own thoughts on all this and have made a strong attempt to stay out of most any forum out there. I just couldn't help myself on the first link.

Boulders Shoulder

2011-05-17T07:28:00.002-05:00

I've been REALLY lucky as far as serious injuries go, only having one knee injury years ago. The rest have been minor tweaks and things that can heal up in a week or at most a month.

I don't want that to change.

Last night I went to Boulder's, rode my bicycle home and sat around until Katie came home. I even edited this video:

Devil's Lake Bouldering - Fixie, Tunder Tighs from Steve Schultz on Vimeo.

Wonderful, right?

Out of nowhere I sat up in bed and couldn't lift my left arm. My shoulder just wouldn't allow it. This morning it feels pretty much the same, if not a touch worse. I'm really hoping it starts to feel better as the day goes on. Nothing felt off last night at the gym and nothing was up on my ride home so I have no clue. For now I'll blame it on Moose.

On another note, Katie is up at the lake with Sam right now. I hope Sam does Massive. After much speculation, waiting, anticipation and a good portion of the season already gone, here are the Lady Goals. Forgive me for being late Sarah...

1 - Jenga will be done 3 times.

2 - Moj will get its FFA.

3 - MooStache will be done 4 times.

4 - Magnum PI will be done 4 times.

5 - Massive Vertigo will be done 3 times.

6 - Anchorpoint will be done 2 times.

7 - Alpine Club will be done 1 time.

8 - Venus Rising will be done 1 time.

9 - A lady will finally put up a problem harder than V4

10 - A lady will find a brand new area.

And boom goes teh dynamite.

Alpine Club

2011-05-09T17:02:00.003-05:00

So the initial post was deleted by Blogger cause of some reason I don't know. In it we lost the wonderful comments we had going. I've still got em in my e-mail and thats all that really matters. So here it is, same as before.

It's been some 8 years since I first saw Alpine Club. I've spent 34 days and countless hours beneath the problem. I've gone through all the phases and currently reside in the "act like you don't care but deep down care so much it hurts" phase. Not really. But something like that.

When I first saw the problem it was a pinnacle. It was a testpiece. Something to aspire to.

In my eyes there was something beautiful, kind of perfect about it. You've got this obvious jug to start on, a few holds that lead directly off of said jug and an obvious topout. It has a perfect landing, engaging moves, a beautiful approach and has a certain simplicity to it all. On top of that it's a great little spot with a wonderful view of the lake and a nice little place to hang out.

In my head it was as close to perfection as I thought possible.

As a result I've been particularly protective of it over the years. I remember one such moment while I was trying it in early 2009 where I didn't want to try just jumping to the lip for fear of it 'ruining' the boulder problem. Little did I know that Mike Simon did it that way years ago, but nonetheless, I was actually afraid of finding a new sequence for fear of destroying a beautiful boulder problem.

I didn't merely want to 'get up' the boulder problem, I wanted to do it under my own terms. Possibly to my detriment, but alas, that's how I wanted to do it.

RV recently said something that struck home.

"Somehow there has been so much shit with AC that I feel that the problem has been kinda bastardized."

Over the past couple years new beta has been unlocked, variations have been put up, chalk has become ever present and the landing has eroded. Much of this has been my own doing and it's something I battle with more than I'd like to acknowledge. As much as I try to encourage people to check out other areas, Alpine Club is an obvious choice for many people for all the reasons I listed above.

For the first time in a very long time I stood in front of Alpine Club this past weekend and felt uninspired. I felt unmotivated to pull on the holds for the first time in 34 days of being up there and I wasn't sure why until RV wrote those words.

I can say two things definitively:

1 - I don't like the bump beta.

2 - I don't like the potential super sit.

And before I make everyone mad, read this. I'm not writing all this to piss people off. If anything this site has served a space for me to work out issues in my head and this just happens to be one of those times.

The bump beta makes me sad the same way I would have been sad that lone night in 2009 if I'd figured out that going to the lip was a substantially easier way of doing the problem(bump way is in fact still quite hard, btw). It's inane, stupid and petty of me. It serves no logical reason in my mind other than I idolized that move. I put it up on a pedestal. So much so that I still remember Peter talking about it years ago, pantomiming the beta along with him and Kelsen. Imagining myself one day doing the move.

I loved the problem the way he talked about it so much that I didn't want to see it "desecrated". So if/when the three of you who did it the bump way read this, it's not meant as a personal attack. It just made me sad to see that there was a different method and that it, in fact, wasn't perfect. I don't care if it's harder/easier/whatever but it just kind of took something away from the problem for me.

As for the super sit, once more nothing personal against you Ian, but it just kinda takes something away from the boulder for me. Again, it's 100% personal but when I heard about it the remaining crust of a memory of what was once Alpine Club crumbled away.

At the heart of it I think it makes Alpine Club less special. Maybe that's what it was for me. In an area full of eliminates, drop offs, sharp crimps and vague starts there was this one gem. I don't care if you give it 1 star(Paul) or 4 stars(2009 Steve) if any of us were to walk up to an identical boulder with no chalk on it there's no doubt to what we'd try. We'd grab the jug and go straight up. And that's what I loved about it. It was the obvious line in the middle of an area with no obvious lines.

I've been trying to figure out why I'm writing all of this. I think a good part of it is me just coming to terms with what Alpine Club really is. Letting go of my former thoughts of the problem and instead just thinking of it as a cool couple of moves.

Alpine Club will always be more than just another problem to me. That's just how it is. There is no doubt though that much of the luster it used to have is gone. That isn't always a bad thing.

Tunder And Litening.

2011-05-09T16:58:00.001-05:00

For once we actually had kind of a quiet weekend at the lake. Might be a first for this season. Chris and Sarah were out on Saturday and from the sounds of it had a fine day. Even if Sarah decided to punt off the topout of MooStache. Good to know she's not leaving Sweaty unchallenged for Punt of the Month. Chris attempted to move a big boulder to no avail.

I did get a great text from him though: "Just got a 2 ton hydraulic jack :)"

Awesome.

Katie and I went out on Sunday and from the sounds of it Dobbe/Aaron and crew were up on ropes. We started out up by Tunder Tighs and I warmed up on Fixie while Katie played around on The Hipster. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice Fixie was and it made a fun little warmup. Katie figured out the moves on Hipster but didn't want to put too much effort into so we moved up to Tunder Tighs.

Right as we got up there Ian showed up, after having done Perfect Medium(nice job!), and lent his pad to my cause.

I quickly did the topout and figured out a damn fine method and then promptly did Tunder Tighs first try.

The quality of this problem is amazing and the holds are just too cool. Don't ignore this one. It's a gem and probably the best of the grade at the lake, no doubt. The landing is already better and once Esser and I finish it up it should be really really good.

After that we moved on to So Dope Direct so Ian could get some shots on it. Only noteworthy thing about this was the absolute bloodshed that someone(Eggy???) put on this thing. It was like someone was bleeding from every single tip. Crazy.

Shortly after that we went over to Alpine Club where Katie worked on the crux some more and Ian tried to repeat it. I will say this, I think Katie will do that problem before me. She's close. She just needs to channel someone other than Remo and slow down a bit. Really cool and particularly inspiring to see her get so strong and comfortable this season.

The ladies in general have been holding it down. Sam is close on Massive, Sarah is breaking hearts at Dog Walk and more and more girlies are getting psyched on the lake. I'll try hard to have my lady goals up this week. Sorry bout that Sarah!!

After that we went back up to Monolith to play around. Ian did most every variation on the boulder while Katie and I perfected the tree spot on Bark Biter. It was great. I totally had her.

Most notably though was the obvious onset of summer. Early symptoms included bugs, sweatyness, tourists, leaves and greasy holds. Not at all psyched about that. Not one bit.

Old man egghead also did the Amazing Pillar which is pretty cool. Apparently even got vid of it. Amazing.

Highlight of the day though was for sure seeing little Luke Keifer coming down the trail with his family. So rad. Quote of the day: "Climbing outside is hard. You can't even see the holds!"

Good day.

Punt Of The Month

2011-05-05T15:13:00.002-05:00

I'm gonna go ahead and call out a new award, the Non Punt Of The Month. I'm probably only gonna do this once so listen closely.

Life gets in the way of things. It's a fact. We all have work/school/family conflicts and can't go climbing as much as any of us would like to. Weather craps out, schedules don't mix and then all of a sudden you find yourself at the gym totally unpsyched to be there. It's just how it goes.

I'm personally really lucky to be married to a woman that loves climbing and it makes finding time to go a whole lot easier. Our lives are pretty simple when it comes down to it. We've got a few pets, no kids, pretty flexible jobs and are able to go climbing most times. Sometimes it lines up better than others but we can generally make it work.

It's never enough time though. In the end we all find ourselves complaining about how little we're able to go climbing. Boo Hoo, right? Poor us. Schools in the way....(insert crying). Work gets in the way......(insert more crying).

In the end, if you love something enough you make time for it. That's just how it goes. This brings me to Mister Eggsack/balls/nuts/head. For those of you who don't know him Chris is one of the few people around here that regularly manages to inspire me.

While we're all bitching about not having enough time Chris manages to juggle a wife, 2 young kids, a full time job and the impending doom of turning 40 years old later this summer. Through the timing mayhem the must consume his life he manages to get out and climb really hard.

We'll ignore the fact that Jenga is the constant thorn in his side and instead focus on the fact that Chris gives all of us hope for the future. I'm not even trying to be a dick here. Personally it's incredible motivating to see someone absolutely crushing with that much going on in his life. It gives me hope as I age through the seasons that I can at least aspire to be as badass as him when I turn 40.

Now, as for Punt Of The Month, there was some competition. Luckily we had a clear front runner. It only seems fitting that the winner dislocated his hip. In the gym. On a heel hook.

He hates heel hooks.

Oh Dobbe. Old man Dobbe. What a punt. Luke actually heard it pop. Gross.

Anyone who follows this site knows that life punts almost always win out over climbing punts. I'm really looking forward to getting your prizes. Nic got some good ones but I think we can top those.

So congrats Dobbe, YOU are the Punt Of The Month.

Sunday

2011-05-02T13:51:00.002-05:00

I'm just gonna start a tally:

Sandstone Violence - Esser
Tunder Tighs - Remo, Aaron, Esser. Eggnutz and Ian repeated it
Remo's Sacrifice - Ian
Hipsters - V5 FA - Dobbe, Remo
So Dope - Eggballs 2nd Ascent
Beautiful Soup - Tony B.
Alpine Club - Ian
Hangman - Sarah McCoy
Split Personality - Ben Rosen
Punts - Yours truly

Another good weekend. Highlights for sure are Chris and Sarah cleaning up projects at Dodge and the Sunday crew up at the West Bluff. To start things off on Sunday Remo dispatched TT first go and Aaron satched it up 5th go I think. Really strong work there.

While that was going on I was attempting to warm up as Dobbe found the little cave that The Hipsters comes out of. After making fun of him a bit I tried it and it's actually super cool. Really powerful opening moves and a surprisingly pumpy finish. We were both kind of surprised at how cool it was. For those that are wondering, it's just down the hill from Tunder Tighs and sits on top of the big roof down there.

Good work Dobbe, and good eye.

After a little playing around on Remo's Sacrifice Chris and I gave some burns on Tunder Tighs. He nearly flashed it but had a damn fine dry fire while going for the topout jugs. He did it next try without a problem. I had a few more troubles on it even if I'd hoped to give it a good flash effort. Instead of doing the toe hook switch off of the high left hand break I figured out that I had to do that off the left hand sloper and then bump up to the good hold. Not a big deal but it was finicky the whole way.

Same thing with the big left hand move off the break. Instead of the good right foot, it went on a little smear. I, very happily, just figured out the chick beta. Except for Katie's beta which will be so jacked it won't even be funny since she can't physically span the upper move.

So with that figured out I gave some burns from the start, each time losing more and more skin. After a few tries, and one falling right at the lip, I found myself at the good right hand jug over the lip.

I'd promised myself I wouldn't fall there. I knew that TT sucked in punts like a dangerous vortex. I saw it happen to Aaron. I heard it happen to Remo. It wasn't going to happen. I wasn't falling there.

I fell there.

Ian called it one of the best punts he'd ever seen. Said it was super proud. I dunno about that but it was a goodie. For those that are interested, I fell with my fingertips on the second jug trying in vain to get as much of me on the boulder as possible. Instead I just slid down the slab into the pit.

I just didn't have it in me to try again.

So Ian took off with Eggsack to try Alpine Club and Chris and I did what we do best. We moved boulders. While we didn't get the giant block into the pit under the project we were able to move it about 3-4 feet to the north directly where the punting pit was. We should be able to move it a bit more and make the landing rather nice.

In the process we discovered that the talus around there is super unstable and really gnarly. We filled some holes, left some others and bent one of these:

Awesome.

When we're done the landing will be fitting of a problem as good as Tunder Tighs. While I risk inflating Nic's ego even more, I have to say that this problem is hands down one of the best at the lake. Its quality is incredible and the movement is rather amazing. The holds are all solid, comfy and unique making TT an absolute must do at the grade. Every single person who has gotten on it has said the same and credit goes to Nic for figuring it out in 90 degree heat.

It falls very easily into the top 5 at the lake. Ask anyone.

Once again it was really nice to see and hear so many people at different areas yesterday. There were people at Anchorpoint, Tunder Tighs, Massive Vertigo, Beautiful Soup and I think the North Shore. DL is full on blowing up right now. I love it.

Praise Sweaty

2011-04-27T21:17:00.002-05:00

So tomorrow I've got meetings all day but I've gotta give credit where its due.

Sweaty. Man. That was the best comment ever. I've never seen so much go into something posted on this site. It was truly a piece of art. So much so that i'm posting it here. Read the whole string to get a sense of the grandness of it all.

(Climbers)
Ding Dong! The Brownie's dead. Which old Brownie? The Wicked Brownie!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Brownie's dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Brownie's dead. He's gone where the brownie's go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Brownie's dead!
(Steve)
As Mayor of the Climber City, In the County of the Land of Gnar, I welcome you most regally.
(Eggnuts)
But we've got to verify it legally, to see
Steve
To see?
(Eggnuts)
If he
(Steve)
If he?
(Eggnuts)
Is morally, ethic'lly
(Remo
Spiritually, physically
(Narc)
Positively, absolutely
(Climbers)
Undeniably and reliably Dead
(Sweaty)
As Sweaty I must aver, I thoroughly examined him.
And he's not only merely dead, he's really most sincerely dead.
(Steve)
Then this is a day of Independence For all the Climbers and their descendants
(Eggnuts)
If any.
(Steve)
Yes, let the joyous news be spread The wicked Old Brownie at last is dead!

Take note that this is all in response to me saying that I payed nic off with a snickers bar to kill RV. After RV scolded us for giving Nic chocolate.

Also, Remo punted really hard today on Tunder Tighs. So many peeps in the running for Punt of the Month it's mind boggling.

Velvet Hammer

2011-04-25T16:47:00.009-05:00

Too many things happened this weekend to write a full write up. And I'm feeling lazy. So here you go. I'm liking numbers lately.

1 - Ian did the Falling Pieces project and named it Hungry Hippos. He thinks it's a 7 or so. Instead of doing a jump start he started matched on the juglet/sidepull and went up hugging the arete. It was pretty cool actually and I want to try it. He did a great job on the landing too so go do it.

2 - Ian then did a sit start linking Jenga into Hungry Hippos, naming it Hungry Hungry Hippos. He called it a 9. Should be a classic line actually and doesn't feel forced at all. Once again, go do it.

3 - Chris and I moved a shitload of boulders. More on that soon hopefully.

4 - Super Slab is absolutely badass. Everybody should do it. I'd totally forgotten how much fun it is. One of the best V0 highballs in the park.

5 - Ian then flashed Moj which was sick. Sadly neither of us had our cameras on and I might actually get video punt of the year. Ian tried to repeat it for the camera and fell on an easy move after the crux. Dude is strong.

6 - I tried the Seam Project again and feel absurdly close to doing it but I don't know what I have to do. It's a really interesting move for sure.

7 - The first right hand hold on Moo Stache broke off on Saturday but it doesn't seem to have changed the grade too much. It's kind of sad just because that hold was really cool and somewhat unique. Sarah is also extremely close on that one and should do it soon. Go Sarah go!

8 - The Tilted Project is REALLY hard.

9 - I truly enjoyed seeing Aaron climb yesterday. He's having a good season and is motivated by the lake right now and that's just cool to see. He fought through it all and finished Smooth Operator which is super proud and one time he even came off the topout. Skeery. Then over at Tunder Tighs he said he just wanted to give it one or two tries. A half hour later he was cruising through the problem and getting ready to top out. I'll let the video below tell the rest of the story. Nice to see someone climbing really well outside while not caring about the gym too much.

10 - Ian is climbing strong right now. He flashed Flatiron, Smooth Operator and Massive Vertigo with relative ease. Adding his try hard flash on Moj he had a damn fine weekend just with that. Then he went and did Tunder Tighs in a handful of tries calling it one of the best at the lake. It's nice having him around for the season. Need to find him a project.

11 - The ladies held it down too. As I said above, Sarah will do Moo Stache soon and will prolly do Magnum as well. Sam looked really strong on Massive and I hope she'll finish it up before the summer sets in. Katie seems really psyched on Tunder Tighs though she can't span the big left hand move to the lip so she'll have to figure out different beta. Excited to watch her on that.

12 - I may have gotten my pad golf swing back. It took me four shots to get to the path coming down from Tunder Tighs and I had my best throw ever. Suck it.

This season has been an incredibly enjoyable one for me. We're only a month or so in and I've been lucky enough to spend an absurd amount of really nice days at one of my favorite climbing areas with many of my closest friends.

I want to thank everyone for that. It's been a really fun season so far.

Here are a couple of videos from the weekend.

Devil's Lake Bouldering - Super Slab, Seam Proj, Hungry Hippos from Steve Schultz on Vimeo.

Devil's Lake Bouldering - Dirty North, Smooth Operator and Tunder Tighs from Steve Schultz on Vimeo.

Snake Proj

2011-04-20T10:57:00.003-05:00

So we all know that traversing is equal to that of murder and theft. It's beebus's punishment against us all for all things unholy. The work of the devil really.

Nic found a new proj at the lake. We're calling it the Snake Proj. It's far and away the proudest project I've ever seen at the lake.

The goal is to physically touch every single hold on the Keymaker boulder. Nic came damn close the other day and I've got video to prove it. I'll put it up here soon.

To give you a better idea of what it entails see below.

Green=Beautiful Soup
Blue=Keymaker
Pink=Snake Proj.

HAH!

Here are some other videos to enjoy.

Eggsack finally making soup.

Me being a dumbass.

Adam and his sleepy self.

Sleepy Adam from Steve Schultz on Vimeo.

Commitment

2011-04-18T09:09:00.002-05:00

There's really only two things to talk about here.

Chris did Keymaker. So sick. Katie finally did Jenga. So sick, once more.

It happens so often when you walk up to a problem, do it and walk away, not putting any real thought to it other than "that was fun". There is no work, commitment or sacrifice. No punting or trials and tribulations.

Those problems tend to be somewhat forgettable.

What Chris and Katie did yesterday doesn't fall into that category.

There was a huge amount of commitment that went into each problem and it inarguably took over a major part of their lives. It dominated their thought process and they each spent multiple days trying to get off of work or out early so they could go up in the evening or early mornings.

The level of psych it takes to get to that point is something special and somewhat rare. It doesn't happen all that often but when it does good things happen. They are times that should be cherished and enjoyed to the full effect.

What's most inspiring to me is knowing that it didn't come easy for them. They had to try extremely hard. There were huge falls, dry fires and so many punts it was staggering. So many days were spent walking down the talus wondering when it would happen and to come back from that can be demoralizing.

Right before Chris did Keymaker, after multiple big falls from the last hard move, he wondered if he'd rested too long(probably had) and whether he'd be able to do it that day. Not 5 minutes before Katie did Jenga she looked directly at Nic and told him she wasn't going to do it that day. She hadn't stuck the crux once and felt terrible on the problem.

They both turned it around yesterday.

On November 14, 2009 a nice crew went up to the lake. Aaron, Ellen, Katie, Chris, Sarah and myself. We started at the North Shore and went to Beautiful Soup. Chris tried Beautiful Soup for the first time that day. We spoke briefly about Keymaker and I remember talking about how psyched I was for it. Chris noted that he'd never do Keymaker.

Shortly after that we walked up to Moj. Chris and Aaron wanted to work it a bit. After neither sent we walked up the hill to Jenga. Both of them did it and Katie tried it for the first time.

As we walked down the talus that day Katie looked at me and said, very candidly, "I'll never, ever do Jenga".

A year and a half later, on the same day no less, they've both cleaned up their projects.

Season So Far

2011-04-15T13:58:00.002-05:00

A month ago I posted some predictions and I gotta say, we're doing pretty well so far.

Beautiful Soup is 2 for 5. Moj is 1 for 2. Keymaker will get done for sure by Chris very soon and hopefully I'll get it done too. Ian has a hurt digit and wants to work Greatest Show since it won't be tweaky.

We're 1 of 10 on new problems and seem to find new projects weekly. I believe pretty firmly that the Corner Project will fall into V10 or harder with the eventual sit to Moj checking in at an even more desperate level. The Tilted Project seems brutally hard but absolutely stunning and there are more projects out there for sure.

I can say with relative ease that there are only 2-3 established problems I'm psyched on right now. Cleaning up these projects are the next level for the lake and are only going to add to the general feel and psyche of the area.

I hate to get all huggy huggy here but this has been a really cool year so far. The sheer amount of psyche and energy coming from all the different players is encouraging and honestly, astounding to me. It takes much more than one person to make a great season and everyone has been around so far. People are making sacrifices and creating time to get out. It's something that doesn't happen all that often and it's one of the reasons I look back on 2009 with such good memories.

Nic is coming down for the second time this year to try a couple of projects(assuming he isn't a dumbass again). Eggsack has a full time job, a wife and two kids but still somehow makes time to get out and send V8's like they're nothing. Katie and Adam have been going out weekly squeezing in early morning sessions before work. Chris and Sarah have been making time between having brand new jobs and buying a house(congrats!!!). Runnells and crew end up having to drive 4 hours round trip but have still found time to get out multiple days. Dobbe, Aaron and Gabe all got out to the new problem up in the East Bluff fields between new jobs/relationships/general insanity. Hell, even sweaty was able to make it up here once so far. Considering an almost 8 hour round trip(insane) we all have nothing to bitch about.

It's those types of sacrifices and commitment that make special years happen. I really can't say enough about how cool its been to see the general level of psych grow. On top of being psyched, things are going down and people are getting close on whatever projects they have. It's sick to see first hand.

I'll leave you with two things.

1 - Josh sent me a new pack yesterday. It's ridiculously awesome and I've been waiting for it to come out ever since I saw it last summer. It's yellow and black and small and perfect. It's awesome. Everyone should buy one. They're cheap.

2 - Here's a video of Katie hiking Massive Vertigo for its FFA.

Devil's Lake Bouldering - Massive Vertigo from Steve Schultz on Vimeo.

Tilted Project

2011-04-12T12:46:00.005-05:00

So I took a quick video of the Tilted Boulder last night when Katie and I were packing up. We fixed up the landing a bit and looked at the area for a few minutes. Could have some potential. Saw a really striking highball arete just down the hill and the line to the left of the Project is pretty cool too assuming we can move a few more boulders.

Excuse the super dark video. Just wanted to give everyone some perspective on the line. The boulder is maybe 10-15 feet tall and the arete will be extremely hard. The holds aren't as good as you want them to be and the feet suck. But it looks somewhat possible at least. Enjoy. I figured I wouldn't post to Vimeo since I just wanted to give you fools a quick view.

Weekend Wrap

2011-04-11T12:53:00.005-05:00

I feel like a broken record every time I come on here and say we had yet another damn fine day. It's been so good this season though that I can't help it. It seems that every time someone goes out something goes down and it's super fun to see. I love it.

Saturday was no different.

We made it up there around 10:30 in the AM and waited for Eggnutz at the cabins. How, you may ask, did we know that he was up at the lake?? We could hear his "Rumbler" of a car over at the South Shore parking lot idling.

Then we could follow his progress as he drove along the south shore road. It was pretty great. So much power he doesn't even know how to deal with it.

Eventually we made it up to Keymaker and soon after the other Chris E and his better half Sarah joined us. Party time.

Thanks to Mr. Runnells all the upper holds were well chalked and ticked perfectly. Thanks bud. We quickly warmed up on the traverse while Eggy warmed up on Soup. For once I wasn't the worst at warming up.

After a bit of waiting I hopped on for my first try at Keymaker. Traverse felt fine, and I was able to get some good beta for bumping to the higher edge that starts Beautiful Soup. It all felt fine.

I grabbed the crimp and it didn't feel super, but felt decent. I readjusted a bit and moved my feet around. I felt pretty good about everything and started to throw.

And then I was on the ground. Everyone was quiet for a second or two and the pain started to seep in.

I've dry fired a lot at the lake. The Alpine Club one sucked but Ian got smote down for laughing at me. Massive Vertigo was terrible but Dobbe, Chris and Remo were nice enough to put a jacket over me. Perfect Medium was horrible but it only tore the tape a bit.

This one though, was the worst. By a staggering amount.

Eggballs put it the best when he said it sounded like a firecracker went off. And bonus. Esser got video of it.

After some recoup time I got back on the horse but each time I got to the crimp it felt terrible. One time I did make a half ass throw to the rail but never really committed to the move after that.

Esser on the other hand had some great tries and it's over once he hits the rail. Staggering how wired he has the top section. Literally it's just one move separating him from the link. It's super fun watching him on the thing. He's got it wired and it'll go rather soon I think.

Moving on to one of two highlights of the day now. I really enjoy climbing with Eggsack. Dude's just fun to be around and he's strong. Not only is he strong but he's strong in crappy shoes.

He's been trying Beautiful Soup for about 3 years now, off and on. He'd given it a go with RV and I last September and he was just barely not holding the rail. Super close. Fast forward to this year and we'd sprayed him down with finish beta in case he stuck.

Each time he'd come to full swing and then just as he was coming back in something would pop. After a while his skin started to roll and he was down to basically his last effort. Duder just got up and did it. Kept both his feet on, no less! He sketched his way through the finish moves and stuck the jug with ease.

I'm really glad we were able to meet him up there in his really limited time. Geezers like Chris give me hope. He works 40+ hours a week, has two kids, a wife and is turning 40 this fall. Plus he wears Sportiva Mantis's. Suriously impressive that he climbs so hard on and off rope. And he'll be going for Sandstone Violence again this fall on his birthday. When he does it it'll be his 10th time doing it. So sick.

Impressive bud. Really happy for you.

We parted ways after that and the four of us hiked our way up to Massive Vertigo. Katie came absurdly close last week before her heel popped with her hand on the jug and she was psyched to get back. After a couple of close calls she finished it up with fairly little effort or drama.

Sarah giving it a few burns

Right before the send

It was really just a super solid link for her and she looked great on it. Very nice to see. She remarked afterwards that it was nice to do a problem. It didn't feel like an epic or a super hard project, just another problem to do at the lake.

It was good.

After we cleaned up there we hiked over to Dog Walk to see if Magnum P.I. was dry. It was not, but that didn't stop us. Esser and I dried the holds that we could with chalk and he even used his jacket to cover a wet spot.

Sarah started working out the moves once more and after 10-15 minutes she was getting close but not quite there with the crux move. She moved her foot a bit and something clicked in her. All of a sudden she was super close to doing it. Each time she'd get to the gaston and pause for just a second before popping off.

She gave a few ditch efforts but her shoulder had been acting up so she called it a day. That one will go very soon for her. Should be good!

After Dog Walk we hiked it up to Jenga but everything up there was damp and wet so we didn't give anything any real efforts. A nice round of Pad Golf down the 500Ft field ended the day and I was able to reclaim my winning ways with a 1 stroke win over Chris. He was close, but not quite all there. He's a solid putter though. He came through clutch to put the pressure on.

Weather is looking dodgy this week so we'll see if anyone gets out. Anyone in town this weekend should come to the comp at Boulders on Saturday. It'll be a good time. Ale Asylum is donating 2 kegs so bring your drinking boots.

New Energy

2011-04-07T09:08:00.002-05:00

Man the energy around here is just incredible right now. People are so psyched and it's awesome to see first hand. On Tuesday Remo took a crew of people up to try the Get Up Stand Up project and Vince figured out some super high foot and sent the thing. Nicely done! Called it Night Grinder and put it up at V6. Apparently it's pretty sketchy too. Even better.

Then yesterday Remo, Sweaty and Eggnuts went up to the West Bluff and re-found an area that Hefty, Peter and I had climbed in a bit. It made me abnormally happy to see the pictures come up on Mountain Project this morning. The line that we did isn't amazing or super proud or uber hard but it was one of the final unresolved things leftover from the Fall '05 season.

I've put in a decent amount of work trying to make sure that Peter's contributions have gone recognized as he was the one that got me excited about the lake. He changed my mind about the area and showed me a glimmer of its potential. Often times I find myself wishing he were around to help in the renaissance that we're experiencing here. The Futballer Direct and the Fire Road boulders were kind of the last bits of info that hadn't quite hit in full.

It makes me happy that those boulders won't be lost anymore. It really surprises me that no one else found them throughout the last two years though. I definitely spent some time searching for them myself.

And right now Katie and Adam are up at Massive Vertigo. Katie linked into the pinch on her 4th go but fell off going to the good hold on the arete. On top of that it seems Mr. Narc is on his way up to the lake and I'm guessing he's going to start trying Keymaker. He seemed excited about it and he seemed to do well on the traverse and tried the upper section a bit. Curious how that'll go for him!

Can't say it enough but good things are happening right now. People are trying to get up to the lake as much as possible by making time for it. It's something that we didn't do last year. If time wasn't there then oh well, we wouldn't go up. This year people are putting in the work and making room to go climbing. It's often overlooked how much of a commitment it can be to take all your free time and put it towards something like this.

And I'll leave you with a quick video of Beautiful Soup and Keymaker. My footage is the bomb. For reals.

Devil's Lake Bouldering - Beautiful Soup, Keymaker from Steve Schultz on Vimeo.

Saturday

2011-04-04T16:23:00.002-05:00

Often times I have a hard time thinking of the lake as a true bouldering area. Part of it is that you always seem to trek to one area and kind of stay put. Contrast that with other areas where everyone is climbing on different problems in different places all at the same time.

For the first time in a long time this past weekend felt like the lake was coming into its own. In total there were 11 people up on the West Bluff bouldering. At any one point we had people at Dog Walk, Black Sheep, Dumpster, Wrong Way on a One Way, Anchorpoint, Double Elephant, Alpine Club/Beautiful Soup and Massive Vertigo.

Problems got done. Projects got sent. New stuff was found.

It was a damn fine day.

Katie and I parked by the cabins after a quick hike to check out the new stuff Remo found(which is really cool. I'm psyched to see/try the Get Up project after you send it!). Just as we were making it to the trail Runnells, Tony and Sarah were coming down from Double Elephant where Tony and Brian had just finished it up.

We all went up to Beautiful Soup and just as we were unpacking Chris/Sarah and crew were coming up. Katie took Sarah, Ben and Erin over to Dog Walk while Chris and I went up the hill to try Keymaker a bit.

We watched Brian and Tony for a bit before shoeing up to try Soup again. After one slight miscue each we did the crux throw on Beautiful Soup on our second try. Personally I was really psyched I could still do it as I had tried it last year and failed.

After that we just started boosting each other up into Keymaker, trying to figure that beast out. After a few tries we'd each whittled down our beta a bit to our own totally different method. Myself jumping/campusing to the crimp and Chris using the high heel.

A couple boosts in Chris just took it to the top! Very sick to see it go down that quickly for him and I have zero doubt he'll do the whole problem extremely soon. On my best go I was able to get a pause on the second crimp and felt the body position click in a bit.

Watching Chris on this thing is super inspiring cause it's just made for him. It's really cool seeing a problem/climber seemingly built for the other.

All I can say is I'm really excited to get back on it now. Its taken top priority for now and that feels good.

Towards the end of our time at Soup both Brian and Tony were getting heartbreakingly close to sticking the jump move, coming up just short of reeling it back in. Finally Brian stepped up to the plate and stuck the jump move with a good dose of try hard. He calmed himself down, matched the crimp out right and avoided a punt on the last hard move to the jug.

Done and done! Brian seemed happy to have done it and we were all happy for him.

After a brief stop at Alpine Club they headed off to Dog Walk while Aaron and I threw ourselves at Alpine. I'll be honest, Aaron isn't known for being a technical climber. Aaron is strong, like bull. I can say this stuff cause he can take it. He's tough.

I've NEVER seen anyone so close to doing Alpine Club as Aaron is now. Dude basically stuck the crux 3-4 times in a row and looked like a damn rockstar on the problem. It's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen and I can say with the upmost confidence that he'll do that problem soon. It's incredible.

After picking up there we walked over to Anchorpoint and met up with the rest of the crew. Sarah sent Recreational Vehicle which is awesome! Seems that her and Ben were also excited about Anchorpoint. It's nice to see others getting more and more psyched on what the lake has to offer.

We didn't stick around too long since Katie wanted to try Massive Vertigo once more. This time, after some beta refinement, was a bit better. Fairly quickly she'd worked out an entirely new sequence that seemed to play to her strengths and allowed her to get the kneebar a bit more securely.

With fatigue setting in and light fading she gave a couple of all out efforts and on her best go she fell on the last hard move before the jugs. Sad but encouraging at the same time.

On our way out we met up with the rest of the crew coming down from Dumpster Diving where pretty much everyone sent it and moved on. Once again, so nice to see people going out and just climbing new problems in new areas.

So notch it up. Another good day at the lake. More problems got sent, no one punted and new problems are on the horizon. This year has had a different flavor than the last couple. People are getting out more and the projects seem closer than ever. Excited to see where this leads.

I'll leave you with another gem of a video. Go Katie go.

Devils Lake Bouldering - Jenga from Steve Schultz on Vimeo.

Punt Of The Month - March

2011-04-01T18:13:00.005-05:00

Well now. Here we are. I was really hoping Nic would get punt of the month. He deserved it. Here's his case:

- Drove 4 hours to Madison. Climbed at the gym for a few hours and then started drytooling. Broke a hold. A Nicros hold, just to top it all off. Punt

- Drove 1 hour to the lake and then failed to stand on top of two big pads after repeated effort. Punt

- Did some 5.6's and then cut his arm open walking over to Jenga. Had to hike out and go to the doctor to get it glued up. Punt

- Both the Ranger and the Doctor were dicks to him cause they didn't like his tone. Punt

- Drove an hour back to Madison, at a burrito and passed out on our couch. No Punt. Burritos are good.

- Set the Union South wall with a busted arm and forgot his socks, charger and something else at our house. Punt

- Drove 4 hours back to Minneapolis not having climbed anything and called it his least productive climbing weekend ever. Punt

- Ended up driving a minimum of 10 hours only to buy Katie a bottle of Adult Chocolate Milk(which is DAMN strong btw). Punt

But then Katie threw a wrench in the gears. Here's her case:

- Repeated, uncountable punts off the last move on Jenga. Over and over and over. All caught on video. Punt

On one hand we have a general life punt. Nic wasn't trying hard or doing anything difficult for himself, he just slipped and fell and started bleeding. Dude was just walking...On really slippery quarzite.

On the other hand we have someone who's trying incredibly hard and coming up just short. Albeit many times, but coming up just short. It is possibly the definition of punting. I mean seriously, watch the video. Textbook punt.

Now, I've equalized the two cause they're pretty inexcusable. Both of them. Individually in any other month they'd win outright, but we have this truly incredible circumstance where I've got two clear winners. Two people that punted so hard it's difficult to comprehend. Neither of them are winners here. But there has to be one clear loser. It'd be sheer chaos if I just took the easy way out and made them both punt of the month.

How did I decide you ask? How did I separate two perfectly equal but totally different punts? It's an almost impossible task but after some soul searching I figured out what I had to do. It was so simple after I thought of it. So easy.

I brought it down to the bribes.

Nic bought me a six pack of Double Cream Stout and a bottle of incredibly strong boozed up Chocolate Milk.

Katie made me a cake in the shape of a penguin.

Katie wins.

Nic loses.

Nic, YOU are Punt Of The Month. And I want you to know that this wasn't an easy decision to make. If you had made me a cake in the shape of a penguin AND gotten me some boozy chocolate milk, you'd have won.

But you didn't. I look forward to procuring your prize at Goodwill this week.

Good Things Are Happening

2011-03-31T12:01:00.000-05:00

Well, Remo found a couple of cool looking projects this past week and he added yet another talus field to the circuit. This one seems like it could hold a few gems and sounds like a rather benign approach. I, for one, am psyched to at least see the projects on Saturday.

The "Get Up Stand Up" project looks very cool and I'm excited to try it once Remo gives it some more effort! Sounded like he was so close! On top of that the "Block Party" project looks pretty cool too. Looks short but sounds like it's super hard. I'm curious to try that one out a bit and see what it's like.

Katie is up at Jenga right now with Adam hoping to finish it up before months end. If she does she just might avoid Punt Of The Month. I really hope she finishes it up today as its been kind of epic for her and it's always good to put those things behind you.

We'll see what happens I guess!

Birthday Weekend

2011-03-28T12:17:00.016-05:00

I wanted to go climbing this weekend. I really did. Saturday was too cold and it was snowing. Sunday...well....on Sunday I was far too hungover to go climbing. It sounded like Adam, Ben and Jeremy had a nice day at Dodge though, so that's good.

Awesome stuff that happened this weekend...

Katie made this:

After making a cake version of my headless teddy bear chalkbag, a foot tall cupcake and then my Organic Big Pad she had a lot to live up to. Somehow she did it and made me a freestanding penguin. Utter amazement.

For those that don't know, the Penguin is my power animal. RV will try to convince you that he came up with that but it's all lies. Dirty lies.

Remo did this:

Chris and Adam ate these:

Which allowed them to do this without consequence:

Without the magic fruit tablets you'll look like this:

After Adam took the tablets he couldn't taste his beer, which made him sad:

After that we played a game of foam bowling(thanks Chris n Sarah!!!!!!!):

For the last frame we put up some obstacles:

Basing my decision solely on amount of strikes, I won:

At one point after my first strike I got so excited that I jumped up and broke our kitchen light with my fist:

Remo was nice enough to get me a bag of Petzl Chalk. Jon made me a 3 foot by 2 foot paper mache` pretzel which is now hanging in our living room. Totally sick. Chris and Sarah got me a giant gangster chocolate bunny and a foam bowling set. Also some jelly beans. Awesome. And Katie got me a thermos with a handle on it. It's gigantic. She also put two Petzl stickers together and made one that said "Pretzl". Fantastic.

Even cooler though, she got me a little Flip Cam video camera. I'm excited about that and will be posting videos on Wisconsin Bouldering once I get it going again. So keep an eye out for that.

Finally, some vidoes!! The first is of Chris doing Moj:

And Katie. Poor poor Katie. Can't be much closer without doing it:

Saturday, In Review

2011-03-21T16:56:00.007-05:00

Five notable things happened Saturday.

1 - Nic was hiking around in the talus, fell, cut his arm open and had to go to the hospital. It was pretty fucked up. As a bonus it seems he found a cool roof.

2 - Katie. I don't even know what to say here. So many punts off of Jenga. It was truly heartbreaking to watch and yet very evident that it'll go down soon for her. It's putting up a bitch of a fight though. Her hand was literally ON the jug multiple times.

3 - Chris got employee of the day by absolutely fucking HIKING Moj. It was truly impressive and fun to watch. Really psyched we got to see it.

4 - The corner project by Moj seems like it will go but will be balls hard. If that gets opened up then there will be a brutally hard sit start that could go into Moj. I'm extremely excited about this project as it's short - only 5-6 moves long - and really powerful off of absolutely terrible feet and small crimps that are just barely enough to make you believe it'll go.

After trying it a year and a half ago I was convinced it wouldn't go at all. I feel different about it now and that's encouraging.

5 - I'm sorry to announce that Nic beat me in Pad Golf. What can I say. I'm embarassed. I mean it was my first round of the year and I only lost by one stroke(two if you count the freebie I gave him). Give him credit, he came back from a debilitating defeat last summer and had some very impressive throws.

BONUS - We got items 2 and 3 on video so once Esser posts that somewhere I'll get it up on here.

I will say that for a first week of the season shits going well so far. Magnum PI got worked over three times, Jenga almost got did, The Zipper went down and Moj saw it's 5th suitor I think. A good sign of shit to come.

I'll leave you with a bunch of pictures of Nic looking like a fool and trying to stand on a big pad.

Totally aces.

Predictions - 2011

2011-03-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

1 - Alpine club will be done 3 times

2 - Beautiful Soup will be done 5 times

3 - Keymaker will be done 2 times

4 - Moj will be done 2 times

5 - Greatest Show will be done 4 times

6 - Tunder Tighs will be done 2 times

7 - Sandstone Violence will be done 4 times

8 - 10 new problems V6 or harder will be put up

9 - Of those 10 problems 4 will be V8 or harder

10 - At least 1 new problem will be DOUBLE DIGIT(said in a monster truck announcer echoing voice.)

Go. Conquer. Destroy.

It's On

2011-03-17T11:01:00.002-05:00

Well, the season is on I guess. Magnum P.I. got worked over this past week getting 3 sends and now Remo has done the Zipper! Really good work buddy!! Sounds like he's putting it in the 7 points category as it felt a smidge easier than EZ's other 8's. That'd fall in line with what Todd and Peter used to say about the problem. They called it V6 multiple times but I think that was a bit much and they both had the thing wired. Either way about it sick work and this is the first time it's been done in a long time. Possibly since Todd's bday challenge in 03 or 04. Proud work Remo.

I've said this multiple times now but THIS is the season for the lake. As good as 09 was 11 will be better. Overall psych is overflowing at this point and Remo and I in particular are ready to do work.

Either get on the bus now or sit back and watch. I don't care what you do but get ready. It's gonna be an epic one.

Predictions to come tomorrow.