The Santee Boulders

I am currently in San Diego visiting my family for the holidays. Today my brother Max and I went to the Santee Boulders (San Diego's most popular bouldering spot) and had a very nice day. PS these boulders are about house size. Lots of scary highballs!

Being that I still live in Wisconsin and the only bouldering I get to do is on quartzite or sandstone, it was nice to get on the rounded granite action that California is famous for.

It was a very interesting area (about 60 + problems V0-V4 mostly). The rock was interesting too, as most of the holds were side pulls or underclings on solid features. The feet were pretty much non-existent and on many of the problems, the feet were very polished. You could see on some problems black streak after black streak of rubber in parts. Yikes.

I did manage to bust through to the rand BADLY on my anasazi's, bummer, i will have to get them resoled once i am back in Wisconsin.

Anyways it was great bouldering again, with my brother of course, in pretty stellar temps.

Recommended Problems :

The Black Spot Problem V2

A 15 foot slab with pretty much no feet, and quiet desperation marked by the many chalky handprints up the side of it.

The Carousel V0

A pretty stellar boulder you could traverse all the way around. Max and I found some nice V2-3 problems on one side.

Masochist Crack V2

A desperate 15 foot crack with PAINFUL hand jams. I don't think i've ever not wanted to fall off a problem more, i was all crunched up like a ball with hands and feet very close together in painful jams.

Bullet Hole Wall Crack V1

A solid clean crack with neat features and a terrible landing. Fun though!

Unknown V4

We also climbed a nice problem which had a horizontal climbing shelf in which you needed to walk your heel about 5 feet or so to complete, my brother sent on his third go! = )

Lieback Rock Dyno V3

Probably my proudest send of the day, tenuous stretchy moves to a good shelf off bad feet, then the rest flowed pretty well. Very fun! The boulder looks like a dinosaur egg!

Well, i'll be back in WI tomorrow! Gotta train hard for Q on the D!

Peace,
Z

Introducing new climbing terms.

Last weekend my buddy Tommy and I were at a local climbing gym training hard for the Q on the D and No Holds Barred competitions coming up.

Tommy and I started out on a nice warm up 5.10c near the desk. After I finished the climb we got a 15 minute lecture from an employee of this establishment about proper ways of leading and belaying.

Here were his points:

1. I was clipping too high, meaning my body was too far above the clip. Now I did not run out/skip any draws and clipped off the reasonable holds.
This employee went on to state that I was risking deck potential. Furthermore he said their setters always plan how to clip.

Dude, not everyone clips/climbs the same - this is my same problem with beta.

2. I was bringing the rope up in my teeth to clip. I am guilty of this, but I have full confidence in my abilities.

3. He criticized Tommy's lead belaying, saying he was belaying with his hands to close to the ATC. He then went on to describe how an ATC could cut a hand like a knife through butter down to the bone.

I was pissed.

The way this guy lectured us was condescending. This kind of thing wouldn't happen at ARock or Boulders.

Introducing new terms of climbing as a result of my encounter.

Sprayta - Spraying unwanted Beta to the climber who enjoys the process of figuring out routes/problems.

Belayta - Unwanted belaying beta.

Side note : I was at Boulders in Madison last night training, they have some quality problems up, def recommended to check out.

Alright off the soap box. Peace,

Z

AKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAA

Check out this sick video of Fred Rouhling sending the campusy route/problem Akira 9a/b (14.d/15.a). I can't even imagine what it would feel like to do this.

But it does get me very psyched for my next boulder sesh!



www.fredrouhling.com (<-- not so much in English)

Peace,

Z

Pull Over.

I like this picture because it reminds me of the $200 ticket Derus and I got on our way back from Kentucky 2 weekends ago at 1:30 in the morning.

Here's how the conversation went:
"Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"No officer"

"For speeding and going out of the lane (both Derus and I swear we were 100% in our lane the whole time)"

"What are you up to this evening? (Why, do you want to hang out officer)?"

"We are driving back from a climbing trip to Kentucky, and have been driving for 7 1/2 hours."

"Here's your ticket, you're free to go."

Derus: "Oh man, that was intense! How much was it for?"

"Dude, I don't even want to look at it (and didn't look at it until a week later)."

It's cool though i'm going to court over it.

Peace,

Z

Im A Squid!!!!

The Squid, a creature known to most people as something that inhabbits the deep dark depths of the sea. An illusive beast that can not be tamed, or can it?

Well, it may be known to most people as a beast, but to climbers, it is known as the ultimate tool to add ease to your climbing.

I recieved a squid for christmas last year, and for the longest time, just let it sit in my room, doing nothing. I thought that it was a piece of junk, that only wankers used, but boy was I wrong. This fine piece of equiptment is not onlyeasy to use, but very versatile. It can clip up draws, clip up rope, and also, it has a unique feature of being able to take a draw off of a hanger while below a bolt.

It can also be used to "Bat-Climb" up to a bolt. This is done by clipping in direct to a bolt, lowering some slack down, and thenpulling the squid up to your level to clip the next draw. ( Note, this can be done with almost all stick clips.) If you are struggling with a specific section of climb, you can pull yourself up to the next section, by using the pre- clipped draw. This can prove effective, when struggling on a route at military.

Example of "Batmanning"

The moral of the story is, A. Bring your squid, because it provide hours of entertainment, and B. Friends don't let friends be "Batman".

Boulders Hardcore Bagmate Competition

Hey what's up world,

This is Z, and I just got back from the funnest competition of the year. That's right Boulder's Gym Annual Halloween Party. This year it was called the HARDCORE BAGMATE COMPETITION..




Greg on the Men's finals problem. Greg is ridiculously strong. This was given a V8 rating.

Why is it fun?

#1 - Boulder's legendary customized clay holds (made by the legendary Vince)

#2 - It's a competition

#3 - Drinking and Potluck action

#4 - Scarred for life by Seth's costume switch

I went up with 5 of my good friends (a big congrats is in order for Sarah and Greg who made it to finals, Greg almost won!!!). Kelsen ended up taking the win, not unexpectedly.

I competed in the V2 - V4 range, which was really fun, finished like 13 problems. Looking forward to their Spring comp, as well as AR's QontheD!

Photo credit to : Alex Skogen (www.bouldersgym.com)

Peace
-Z

Devil's Lake Gumbys (part 1)

Well, it had been quite a summer, and after a few more trips down to the red, the weather was begining to cool down just a bit. Seeing as the red is 8 hours away from our current location, we have to make due with what wisconsin has to offer. A.K.A. The Dodge, Devil's Lake, Rib Mountain, etc. A day trip had been set to The Lake.

Being the hard worker that he is, zach had to work till 12:30, meaning that we left at about one aclock. We got there at about 3:00, and enjoyed the "nice" hike up the CCC trail. We met up with our friends Lindsay and Dave, along with rachel, who was teaching a class there that morning. We set up a rope on stretcher, hour-glass, and mouse tracks. After climbing these routes, Dave decided that it was about time for him to lead something, so over to Brintons Crack we went...

Sitting atop brintons bluff at sunset, overlooking the lake is quite a sight to see. The sheer beauty of the forest is enough to send chills down your spine. That is until a random man carying a flute come up and obnoxiously starts asking me to take his picturee while he plays his flute. I took the picture, and thought that that would be the end of it, but instead, he decides to serenade the gang, and Dave, while he makes his way up on the sharp end.

Long story short, this man decides that we are going to be best friends. After talking with our group extensivly about his political views, past girlfriends, climbing partners, and favorite climbs, he decides to climb brintons crack. By this point it is almost dark, and we only had one head lamp. He insisted that it would be a quickie, so reluctantly, we let him use our rope.

almost 20 minutes later, he decides that he has had enough, and comes down. We hurry to the top and begin taking gear out, when we are greeted by a friendly Puerto Rican man who wants to climb at the lake. He seemed pretty legit. He explained that he had a 5.4 mm rope, and he intended to pound in spikes at the top, and swing down. In return, we told him that it was illegal to pound in pitons at the lake. He whould have none of it. After 5 minutes of arguing with this man, we finally could proceed with pulling our gear out, and making our way over to the trail.

---TO BE CONTINUED---