boulders in Kansas City! yeah right.               photo: Frank Lucido



I left for the road two weeks ago. I've been taking my time so much that I'm actually still about a 15 hour drive from my first destination. It feels relaxing to just go with the flow of the trip for a bit. My first stop was Hartley Springs in June Lake. I got out of the car for about 2 hours of climbing. It was just enough time to warm up and bust out some speed sending. From there I trickled through the Happy Boulders, then went to sleep in Moe's Valley, Utah. Then, thankfully, I got talked into a mini detour to Joe's Valley. I was psyched because I hadn't been there in about 3 years. While there I hung out with some cool people. They totally converted me into a butterfinger donut addict. Thanks Food Ranch. I got to see many boulders that I hadn't seen before. I managed to do 5 v9s and a v11 but the send of the trip was definately a problem called Wills of Fire v6. I had to dig pretty deep to send that one. There is a scary move in which you have to jump to an incut gaston at the lip from a fingerlock. I hate fingerlocks. It looks like most people can just stand up static to the move at the lip. As you guessed, I can not and must jump into a barndoor swing to stick that move. It was awesome though. Probably one of the coolest walls ever.
   After that, I swung over to Carbondale, Colorado to hang out with some more cool friends. It ended up snowing just about everyday I was there. That didn't stop us from partying it up every night and taking a trip to the White House pizza joint. If in the area I recommend this pizza. A break in the weather opened an invitation for a bit more driving, so I tested the limits of my bordem tolerance and went through the state of Kansas. I must say that the police in Kansas are very suspicious of any cars that have California plates. After the gauntlet, I ended up at the next leg which is where I am now; which is Kansas City, Missouri. I've been hanging out with Frank Lucido getting the KC tour. This has included sampling some really good mid western food. One of the places we went was the famous KC BBQ place called Rosedales. All I can say is Holy Shit! It is cheap, fast, and really damn tasty. I was impressed. If I lived here I'd go everyday. Also, believe it or not, there is some bouldering right in Kansas City. We've been messing around the areas of Swope Park. The rock is limestone that seems to vary in quality. Some is bullet, some is dried mud. None the less, we've been psyched to do some climbing. From here, I think Arkansas' Horseshoe Canyon Ranch could be the next stop. I all depends on the weather. We shall see.

Tahoe Classics vid

Before I peace out I had to share this teaser from Alton Richardson. This is another video to keep your eye out for.

On the Road Again

I leave tomorrow for the road after being a working man for a while. I'm psyched to be back to full time rock climbing. I spent my last 10 days here really busy trying to get the last bit of bouldering in here at home. Between that, packing and planning it's not yet started to feel like vacation. I'm headed through the country in my truck and stopping along the way to see old friends. My first stop is the southeast. I'm psyched to do some bouldering at Horse Pens 40. It is the place where I learned to boulder when I was 18. I just remember being a gumby beginner and going there in the dead of summer to flail on slopers at 95 degrees. Even now I think its cool because back then I could care less about getting good temps. I couldn't stop myself from going on a 12 hour round trip in the car to pull off the ground on some of the coolest sandstone ever. It will be neat to go there again after many years and see if I've acquired any new skills from my time here in California. We'll see.
I also hope to check out Dayton since I love long roof climbing. That one looks really cool. All the boulders in the Chattanooga area look really awesome as well. I plan to be there from November through January. From there Arkansas and then Hueco Tanks for a while. Hueco is another area that I've been ready to revisit. I spent time there during 4 seasons in a row but haven't been back for about 6 years now. Hopefully it will feel as fun as it used to parking outside the gate for 6 hours because I'm too lazy to get reservations. From there...well I figure I'll see where the trip takes me. I definately have South Africa in mind for next summer. Time will tell.
I'll spend the last day packing, organizing and saying good bye to my peeps. I want to recaps some things that went down but I don't have time to type it all gracefully. So the short version CLIF notes of what went down in the past two weeks is as follows:
No more work. Photos. Video. Phone calls. Texts. Seishuku Samarai v10 ! yee haw. Sushi after climbing. Return of Frank Lucido. Packing. Cleaning. More photos. Mountain Beaver 4 day backpack trip. Awesome dinners. First ascents. New Boulders. More First Ascents. Motta Tiempo v6 (half lowball, half scary). Hiking pads. Hiking more pads. Dry firing off the top of river project. Sweaty tips. Packing. D Sky. More photos. More packing. Procrastinating. Road trip jitters. Packing. Emailing. Blogging....

A new project goes down

The crew and I have been doing a lot of work here in Tahoe. The new boulders being found are producing many must do classics. You have to be willing to hike far and steep to get to them but they are very worthy. Most of the problems have been working out to be v5. All of them are turning out to be really quality.
This weekend was a last hurahh for me as I start a new job this week. I went to the upper area at the Mountain Beavers to try my hand at my latest long term epic. The problem sit starts under a steep prow. There are no easy moves on it. Right away you launch into powerfull compression climbing. You just keep slapping fat glassy slopers with the right, while opposing on small crimpy sidepulls with the left. After negociating the steep prow you get to a top out crux that forces you to move right over a peculiar landing. The finishing moves are powerfull and insecure and lead to a technical top out. I spent 9 days figuring this beast out. On day 9 I managed to finally scream my way up this new climb. I called it Dark Passenger. This new climb was quickly repeated by Eric Sanchez. It was impressive to watch Eric make this problem look very easy. It took him about an hour total to send. Eric and I had a discussion on the possible grade of this thing. As usual, there is no right answer to this question, only a best guess. We decided that this thing is probably v11/12, so we went with v11. Either way, it is a very worthy endeaver and is possibly the hardest line at the area so far.
The next day I headed to the middle zone to try Jarrad Wycoff's mega line Integrity Low. I thought that I'd never see the day when I could do a problem that was as reachy as this one. It was one of those dry windy days though and shit worked out. I managed to do this thing, which I believe is the 4th ascent. I am a big fan of compression climbing. This climb is one of the best in its style that I've ever done. It is beautiful, proud, and very hard. For me, this problem was probably solid v11/12, but I am short and am at a major disadvantage on the giant spans, so I feel v10 is a good rounded out grade for this climb. That being said, it is one of the best boulder problems in South Lake Tahoe. After that I went down to the river roof and finished the left side project next to Primitive Fire. We named it Refried Rasberry v8. A very cool roof that I recommend trying when it's colder.
On the video front, I've been working with Brad Perry to help get the new Mountain Beavers movie out. We've been going out getting lots of footage of the classic there. The video will basically be an entertaining take on the full experience of developing this new area. The filming pretty much started at day one back in early May and has continued through the booming of this new zone. Brad has been doing a great job on the editing of this video. I've included his teaser of the video so you can check it out.

Tuolumne Meadows trip

I just returned from a week long trip to Tuolumne Meadows. While I was there I visited and climbed with my friend Matt Arnold. Matt has been doing lots of bouldering developement in the Yosemite, Tuolumne, and Bishop areas over the past years. I hung out with Matt at the High Sierra camp that he works at. I got to meet many cool people and eat lots of great food. One of the main boulders there is called the Battletanks. There was an awesome roof on great rock that I became obsessed with. I climbed there 6 days in a row. While there I repeated a few of Matt's problems including Big Guns v9, Belly of the Beast v11, and Heavy Artilery v9. I also established two new lines out the roof, the Hand Grenade v8 and The Art of War v12. The  Art of War starts at Heavy Artilery and climbs out that line past the crux, but then takes a rightward path which doubles the size of the roof climb. From there a few easy but pumpy moves lead to a 2nd crux to match on a slopey gaston/undercling. After fighting to stay in control for a while to establish on this undercling you find yourself at the start of another v9 problem called Big Guns. It then finishes out the climb with compression moves. This link up is one of my favorite long roof climbs. I felt lucky to actually get this one before I had to return home. In between I got to go look around at a few other areas in Tuolumne that also looked really awesome. That place has a lot of great bouldering potential. I look forward to revisiting one day.
      On another note, I hope all are psyched for Meyers Climbing Festival this Saturday September 17. Registration starts at 9am at the parking lot by Divided Sky. Check the website for the comp at http://www.tahoebouldering.com/. The festival should be really fun. If anyone's wondering, I will not be competing. Most of the areas are my backyard zones. Some of the hard problems are really familiar to me and I felt it would be better if I helped instead. I'll be millin' around at the comp with Brad Perry and company. I'll be taking pictures, heckling people, and drinking heavily. This is the first comp/festival for climbers in Meyers/south lake tahoe area. It would be rad to see lots of people participate so as to make this a yearly event.
    In this entry I've included a couple of short videos from the trip. I would have made them a bit more fancy, but I have a cheap computer at the moment and this is all that it could muster at one time.

Belly of the Beast from Jesse Bonin on Vimeo.

The Art of War from Jesse Bonin on Vimeo.

The Far Country

I've been doing lots of climbing lately.There's too much to blog about all of it. But since I have some time.... This weekend I went to visit an area established by Frank Lucido and Jarrad Wycoff called The Far Country. From what I can tell it's called that because even though it looks close on a map it seems to take a while to get there. This area is an impressive looking talus field that could hold a lot of hidden potential. I went there to try a Steve Francis line I've heard about for years now called Over the Hills and Far Away. It was every bit as cool as I'd heard. It is a steep line on great rock with rad holds...a typical classic. It was great to go out there with my friends and just explore and boulder. In addition we put up a few lines that were in a sort of underworld below the talus. Jarrad put up a cool problem that reminded me of bouldering at the sads in Bishop. Even in the hottest part of the day this place offered underground shade with a cool steady breeze blowing through the whole time. Very decent for summer weather.
Another upside was that I was psyched that my car did not get stuck when I drove downhill on a gnarly rutted out part of the road. However, when Sunday came the S 10 cruised out without a hitch. It is the weekday now, and I'm back at work. Soon work will end again for me and I'll be fully dedicated to climbing again. Until that day comes I have to stay motivated. Speaking of motivated, here is video from my trip to the Far Country that will hopefully get you psyched when you're feeling lazy.

PCI video

Here is a video about the PCI. This new organization is going to make professional climbing possible. At the same time it will help benefit sponsors and climbing companies and give back to the climbing community.