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