Out of Hueco and Onto Joe's Valley

I reached the end of my Hueco Tanks trip last week and escaped the decadent vortex that is El Paso, Texas. January offered good temps while I was starting to get into shape, but February was unusually warm this season. The hot weather made it quite difficult to get any hard problems done. Unfortunately, my first season trying the famous power endurance line Martini Right ended in failure. After getting this line in two parts I was ultimately shut down on the link. It was still quite an honor to get to try this iconic boulder problem that has a reputation for making even the strongest climbers pay their dues. I was happy to put in my first season of hard work on this beast. It left me with a hunger to come back stronger next year to give this rig another try. One day I'm going to send this thing so long as the park doesn't close down the cave. El Techo did not go as well. This one was a bit reachy for me and offered up an extra challenge. All the moves went down though proving that even for a short fella it is still possible.
    I noticed that Hueco Tanks can ironically have a lot of distractions that I fell into. The food is so good but seems like it is all cooked in lard. Even chicken burritos kind of leave you feeling like crap because of the tortillas fat content. They also have really good pasteries that taste great but really weigh you down for that next climbing day. The popular camping area, The Hueco Rock Ranch is sort of the "animal house" of this bouldering mecca. Staying here one can find that you end up drinking heavily a bit too often i.e. every fucking day. All these things combined get many climbers into bad habits and, like me, you find that too much of this stuff can lead to you getting weaker the longer you stay here. But damn what a good time. I think next visit I will go in December when it is colder and stay in the park where you can keep to yourself and hopefully drink less and eat a bit healthier. If anyone is planning a trip there that would be my recommendation. Keep yourself in control, it will be boring but you will climb way better as a result. Fun times but lesson learned.
   I have moved on to Joe's Valley, Utah. It is nice to be free from the regulations and distractions and have a plethora of great sandstone at your disposal. Isaac Caldiero put out a great guidebook that will get you around the area to the best problems. This guidebook has been very useful in locating the good lines and even gives some beta for those who are interested. You can purchase the book for $30 at the local grocery store called the Food Ranch. Which by the way has butterfinger donuts, just saying. And, no, I haven't been eating them, I swear...
    I've been enjoying my stay here and plan on staying another week or so before continuing west to Moe's Valley to get another chance at my project from last season. It will likely be too hot by the time I get there to try it but you never know. I'm hoping that southern Utah will get a late cold spell in April. I guy can dream right? In the meantime I feel like some sending might go down here as it is supposed to be cold this week after the next snow storm hits. I'm really looking forward to some sunny 30 degree days. Ah...friction.
    In case anyone wanted to know my ticklist from Hueco Tanks in the two months I spent there here it is:
Barefoot on Sacred Ground v12
Schwer Gustov v10/11
Wonderhole Dyno v10
10-10 v10
Theater of the Absurd v10
Julio and Me v9
Glas Roof v9
Choir Boys v9
Dragonfly low v9
Paleazoic v9
Big Nose Milley v9
Something Different v8
Ultra Mega v8

There is more but I can't remember. These are the ones that stick out in my mind. I doesn't seem like very much for 2 months but I'm getting back in shape so you do what you can. Feel like all this steep crimpy stuff definately tightened up my game a bit. I'm excited to test the new skills out here in Joe's.

More Hueco Tanks

I am most of the way through my trip to Hueco Tanks, Texas. At this point I feel like it has been a good trip. Hueco is a great place to get fit, and I feel like it has helped get me into better form. The other day I took out a couple of nemesis problems for me. I sent Theater of the Absurd v10 and Barefoot on Sacred Ground v12. It felt good to put these projects to rest. Many days of effort and some good support from friends goes a long way.
This past weekend, some friends and I participated in the volunteer Hueco Clean Up Day. Various groups were guided around the mountains building trails, picking up litter and glass, and washing excess chalk off the popular problems. My buddies,David and Kenyon, and I were assigned to the Icarus Area. We cleaned chalk off the warm ups and the famous 99 Heroin Balloons. After washing off chalk, our group picked up about 6 grocery bags of broken glass litter from around the small area. It felt good to help out on a rest day and make a difference to the cleanliness of such a great area. Afterwards, volunteers gathered around the Hueco Rock Ranch where there was all you could eat burritos and Shiner Bock on tap. The party went into the night, ending, as it usually does, with a bunch of drunks by a fire all talking beta. Good times.
With about three weeks left, I definately feel the pressure to take down the other 2 problems I really want to do here. I am close on the Right Martini and on El Techo de los Tres B. Both these lines have been epic for me so far. I'm sure I have up to 6 days this year on each of them. They seem to be great training tools for getting back in good shape. Even when you don't send hard lines you still get stronger just by trying them. None the less, I'm really hoping to send these two before I leave. From here I will take a short trip to Joe's Valley, Utah. Weather will be cooler there when it starts to get too hot here.
This whole trip has been good so far. I'm psyched everyday to see what waits for me around the next corner.

                                                 Me falling on the last move of Shake and Bake v11 photo: Kenyon

                                                  A typical sunset at the Hueco Rock Ranch

                                           Theater of the Absurd v10, a nemesis for me

                                            A huge crowd assembles for the Hueco Clean Up

                              Kenyon Smith and David Outcalt clean chalk off of 99 Heroin Balloons v9

mountain beaver segments

Brad Perry got some video segments out from our favorite area of the 2011 Summer. The Mountain Beavers was found by Jarrad Wycoff last Spring. After a lot of hard work by Jarrad, Brad Perry and myself, the area turned out to be quite the South shore spot for people who didn't mind a little hiking. We estimated that a total of 70 problems were established that summer. Here are Brad's videos of some of the gems that got done.

Hueco Tanks

It's nice to be back at Hueco Tanks. This place is special indeed. It has many cons such as waiting in line, limited access, highly restricted bouldering; the one pro is that the bouldering here is unbelieveable. The area lends itself to steep, powerfull climbing. It is the perfect recipe for hard boulder problems. I've spent my first 7 days here climbing as much as I can trying to get into Hueco shape. After only a week I feel like I am getting back into the flow. Yesterday, however, I kinda started to get sick. Recently progress came to a hault as I am trying to get over this cold. I have my fingers crossed for a quick recovery but time will tell.
     As in the past year or two I wish I could fill this blog with news of super hard sends, but I'm still actually waiting to get back on the wave. I guess that's how it goes. The climbing I have been doing is fun as hell though. Most of the climbs I've done have been repeats of things that I did in years past. There have been a couple of exceptions. There is a 50 foot long overhanging traverse here called Mop Boys. I spent my first couple of days epicing on this really long problem that has about 5 tricky crux sequences. I went from having it in 10 parts to chucking laps on it for endurance. This problem is given 3 stars in Matt Wilder's Hueco guidebook. Despite many naysayers who complain about it being low, dabby and stupid, I will have to agree with the three stars. Not everything has to be deadly tall and reachy to get stars. Some things are cool based just on the challenge. I love long rock climbs and this one was bad ass. I had never done this line before and it was bad ass.
     There was another line I did the other day called Shower Cap. In previous years, I always had an epic on this one and thought that maybe it was a bit to reachy for someone 5 ft tall. It is a roof with an opening move that is full extention from an undercling with no footholds, none that I could reach anyway. I watched my buddy Matt Arnold do it rather easily using his long arms and legs. Matt assured me that I could send using his beta. Well, he was right and wrong but mostly right. I had to improvise a little for the first bit by having both hands and feet in the same zone. This seemingly silly-looking tactic payed off and I stuck the big move. Even though I hadn't been able to do a single move on the problem after an hour of work, somehow after sticking the first part I screamed my way through about 7 more moves that I hadn't done. Sometimes when you get lucky, you stay lucky I suppose.
      On a bit of a different note, I have to give a little info about a new Metolius pad I've been using called the Recon. This pad is my new favorite from Metolius. My favorite feature is the size. It is a little bit smaller than it's bigger brother the Colossus. When this pad is folded on the back it is very narrow at 22 inches wide, which is really usefull in Hueco where you have to constantly squeeze between tight corridors. I am also a big fan of how quickly it packs and unpacks. It only has one buckle that holds the tri fold together. My saddle bag of bouldering gears easily wraps around the outside. By doing this I avoid stuffing all my gear inside the pad, thus increasing the life of the foam. I've noticed that I'm always the first one to have my stuff packed up or unpacked. This saves more time for climbing, if only about 15 seconds per stop.  Basically it is one of the most unique and efficient designs I've seen in a crash pad. At a price of $249 it is not the cheapest but it is not the most expensive either. Seems like a fair deal to me. Props to Metolius for thinking outside the box and finding new ways to make crash pads better.

    I have 2 months left here in the Tanks. This should give me ample time to work out some of the classic hard lines that I've always wanted to do. In the meantime, I hope all the folks out in Tahoe continue to get their boulder on. Sounds like I picked the wrong season for a winter trip. But I will have plenty of time there soon enough.

Southern Stone is Here!!

Rockwarrior Films has just uploaded the Southern Stone video. This video features many of the best lines in the Southeast. The footage is energetic and exciting to watch. Anyone who wants to see a sample of the country's best sandstone should check it out. I got to help do some filming and climbing in this video. Ian, the brain behind RockWarrior Films, is a good friend of mine. Ian works hard traveling around and getting good footage so that he can edit climbing videos. The videos are entertaining and will get you psyched. You can help support Rockwarrior Films by going to this website www.rockwarriorfilms.com and purchasing this video for $10 via internet download. So when you're sitting around on the couch, scratching your ass on a rainy day, GET MOTIVATED ! Check out some serious action packed sending.

Southeast recap

Well my stint in the South is over. As expected I had a great time. As with most trips I met a lot of cool people and new friends. There was lots of beer, great food, and country living in the house in Mentone. Props to my parents for hooking us up with a place to stay. It was easy on this trip to remember that bouldering is all about staying psyched and enjoying yourself with good friends. As a roof climber my favorite place was Dayton, Tenn. That roof was sick. I left a problem behind too. The Crazy Craver v11 was in the bag...or so I thought. My last day on it was day 3 and the conditions were perfect. Every try got me closer and closer to the finish line. In the end I fell at the move to the jug 3 times that day and had to walk away empty handed. I was really excited about finishing this line but sometimes that's the way it goes. I took the failure pretty hard but in the end I had to say fuck it. It is what it is. I will return one day and send.
In case anyone was curious, here's my southeast ticklist:

The Snail v6

Little Rock City, TN             Castaway v7
                                 Tennessee Thong v7(flash)
                                 The Pinch v7
                                 Robbin the Toothfairy v9 (2nd try)
                                 The Wave v6


HP40, AL                         Short Long v7/8
                                 Five -0 v9
                                 Soopa Coola v6

Rocktown, GA                     Tractor Trailer v9
                                 The Dao v7

Zahnd, GA                        Prey Lika Mantis v10
                                 Harvest Moon v8

Citadel, AL                      Breadloaf Factory v10
                                 Ninja Camp v9
                                 The Snail v6
                                 Earl the Squirrel v6

Little River, AL                 The Engagement v7(flash)
                                 Diego Problem v8 (flash)
                                 Diego Problem left v8

Dayton, TN                       The Honeycomb v10
                                 River Dance v9 ( 3rd go)

Matt Arnold working a hard project in Mentone

Maybe not my best performance but whatev's . Currently I'm in Baton Rouge, LA hanging with my parents. Tomorrow we head to Austin, Texas to hang out with my brother, Glen, for the holidays. I may check out some of the Austin climbing areas if it works out but will most definately check out the Austin Rock Gym which is supposed to be the bomb. By January 5th I plan to land in Hueco Tanks. I'm excited about revisiting this area as it is one of my favorite bouldering spots in the country. This will be a great place to hang with the homies and climb. Can't wait.   

Southeast first half

                                                        Isaac on the Shield v12, Little Rock City

the fridge stocked with the bare essentials

Ian Cotter Brown on the Golden Harvest v10

Haley Waldrop quickly sends the Big Poppa v8

I've been on the road now for about 6 weeks. So far it has been as expected, awesome. The crew and I have been climbing at lots of great areas. We've gone to Little Rock City, Desoto State Park, Rocktown, Zahnd, Horse Pens 40 and the Citadel. There's only about 15 days left here for me, which is not nearly enough time. In the Southeast half of your trip can likely be taken out by rainy weather and poor conditions. In the 20 days I've been here I've had 8 climbing days. Maybe 4 with good conditions. These kind of odds make sending hard boulders really difficult. I wish I had tales of how I'm crushin' this and sending that. But I've really just been doing whatever I can. Perhaps I'm out of shape since it's the beginning of the trip, or maybe the grades here are more solid. I don't know. When you're used to climbing hard you feel a bit deflated when you've traveled so far to do your best only to find that you're bumbling around on moderates. Five years ago I would have been a mopey bitch about this. Now, I have a little less expectations for performance and more expectation for fun. So that has been the theme..fun. And there's lots of fun to be had out here in the south. As usual I wish that I had more time here so maybe I could do a hard boulder or two. But since I don't, good times will do.
      My friends and I have been mostly staying in Mentone, Alabama. This town holds the southern most ski area in the states. The Cloudmont Ski Resort in Alabama has one chairlift that gives skiers access to a single ski run that is 150 ft long...holy shit. Get Jeremy Jones down here now! I know ...not very impressive. But it's still cool to be staying in an Alabama ski town. This place has a great central location to all the best boulderfields in the south. We have even found great potential right in town that hopefully we'll have time to get to.
    I have been climbing with lots of great people on the trip too. We are hanging with Isaac who demonstrates every hard boulder he tries quickly and with style. We also got an opportunity to meet an Evolv athlete named Ronnie from Florida. Ronnie has a prosthetic leg. But that didn't stop him from crushing the Zahnd classic Harvest Moon v8. That was inspiring to see. We've also been climbing with Haley Waldrop. Despite being short she still crushes all the power lines in the south. It's always fun for me to climb with another short person that , ya know, feels my pain. The list of great people and good climbers goes on and on around here. I'm super psyched that I've got to hang out with all these people.
    On the video front I've been helping Ian Cotter-Brown of Rockwarrior Films get footage for his next video featuring the Southeast. There's been lots of sending going on an the video is piling up. I've been watching the editing process and the film is coming together really well so far. Keep your eye out for this one if you want to see some Southern classics.
     After all this planning I'm halfway through the Southeast part of my roadtrip. I have high hopes for better weather and more great times for the second half. As of the 20th I leave for New Orleans, Louisiana to visit my parents and go partying with old high school buds. From there I head down to Austin, Texas to chill with my brother. Eventually I'll land at the next big destination in Hueco Tanks, Texas. I am very excited for Hueco. I used to go there a lot but have not been in 5 or 6 years. It will be fun going back to all my old projects. Maybe they'll still kick my ass...but maybe not. In the meantime, the weather today is shit in the south. Heavy rain is forcasted for the next 2 days. Just in time for a much needed rest day. My psyche is being renewed as we speak.