Change of scenery

My trip to Colorado in now over and I’m on my way to South Africa. I’m really satisfied with what I managed to climb in Colorado, especially since the weather was really bad at first. Climbing Jade was my primary goal and after quickly dispatching it, I was able to focus on other things like making one of my best FA’s, Sunseeker and repeating classics. Check out this excellent video of Carlo Traversi doing the second ascent of Sunseeker at DeadpointMag.com.

Nuthin' but sunshine, V13

My flight arrives in Cape Town tomorrow at 4 PM local time. I can’t wait to get to the Rocklands! As much fun as Colorado was, I don’t think I’ve ever been more distracted from climbing on a climbing trip. It was interesting to see that even though climbing seemed secondary most of the time, I could still climb really well. Rocklands will be different, though. I’m really psyched to get back to the same routine there, as I had going on last year; getting really fit by climbing pretty much every day.

Jade, V15

This year the name of the game will be first ascents. I have plenty of time and only a few problems that I want to repeat. My goal is to find and develop new areas and problems. I also hope to find something really hard and inspiring, that I get psyched to work on for a longer time. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to do, but never really have. That is because for me it is very important that a line I’ll spend a lot of time working on, is actually a good one, not just hard. A project that is hard enough, but not too hard and inspiring to work on at the same time, is incredibly difficult to come across. However, I believe that if anywhere, Rocklands is the place where you can find a line like this.

In South Africa internet access is very limited, but I’ll try to update the blog when I can.

8th Day of Rain area in Rocklands

Here’s my ticklist from Colorado:

Jade, V15
Sunseeker, V13 FA
Whispers of wisdom, V11
Kind traverse, V11
Storm Shadow, V12
Gobot V11, Flash
The Automator, V13
Wildcat, V11?
Nuthin but sunshine, V13

Sunset at Mt. Evans

Nuthin' but Sunshine

Mt. Evans

Lake Kayaha

Alpha Farms at Rocklands

Sunseeker

Yesterday was Mt. Evans day again. I wanted to go try a project at area B, that I had seen photos of earlier this week. I thought it looked really good in the photos, but when we got up there I was blown away. This tall and proud line climbs a sloping rail on a perfect steep overhang, leading to a horrifying mantle high off the deck. It has a good obvious starting hold and about 21 moves, all of them upwards. The bottom part climbing into the stand is probably around V12 and after that you still have to do do stand start which is a technical highball V10. At the moment there is still snow on the landing making it possible to take falls without getting hurt, but when the snow melts it will most likely be a death landing.

After flashing the stand start and almost shitting my pants doing the mantle, I started working on the bottom part. I tried the beginning for some time and I got trough the crux and all the way to the mantle. I felt solid, but then suddenly my heel slipped and I took a really scary fall from about 15 ft, landing more or less on my face. I was lucky and I walked off with only a sore neck. After taking a bad fall I was really nervous to try again. However, next try I made it to the mantle again, scared as hell, and managed to keep it together. I pressed out the mantle, highstepped my foot on a bad smear and grabbed the top. Sunseeker, V13 got it's first ascent! I dare to claim that it is one of the best problems in Colorado and I still can't believe nobody climbed it before me. Big thanks to Carlo and Chris for the real effort; carrying up the pads!

Sunseeker, V13

View from the top of the boulder

Mt. Evans

Rocky Mountain granite

Photos: Jon Cardwell and Nalle Hukkataival

Colorado

I've been here in Colorado for a couple weeks now and the weather has been anything but good. Actually it's been raining pretty much every day. Still we've managed to get some climbing in. The season is just starting in the park and a lot of the problems in lower and upper chaos are still buried in snow.

Freaks of the Industry, V13

Despite the snow, the Green 45 is in the prime right now meaning that I finally got to try Jade, V15. First day that we hiked up there I was definitely not used to the thin air at 11 000 ft. After a desperate effort to warm up I started working on Jade. I suprised even myself by doing the famous crux move on my third try. It was too cold to stay warm while resting. I got really close after a few tries from the start, but then split my tips on the tiny crimper.

Jade, V15

Yesterday we hiked back up, even though the weather forecast was bad. After I got warmed up up it started snowing really hard and we had to hide in the cave. Luckily it didn't last too long and the topout on Jade stayed pretty dry.

Whiteout at the Green 45

On my first try of the day I got trough the crux and felt solid. Then my left foot slipped. On the ground I noticed that my shoe was wet from the pads. I was really frustrated, because that try took a lot of skin, and you only get about five good tries before you split your skin on the tiny spike. Second try I stuck the crux hold, but my feet swung and I let go to save skin. Right when I fell on the pads I looked into the valley and noticed it was already snowing and saw a huge blizzard coming towards us. I knew this was my last change and with no rest I started climbing. I got through the crux, stuck the sidepull and got to the good rail. At this point it was snowing really hard and I saw some water dripping from the top. Carefully grabbing the holds I topped it out in the rain! In total Jade took me two days and around ten full tries from the start. Such a good problem! Video and photos coming up soon.

A cold day in Upper Chaos

I'm hoping the weather turns better soon, because I'm syked to climb in the park and Mt. Evans. There are a few hard projects that I want to get on before I leave to South Africa. This week we might escape the cold weather and go to Joe's Valley in Utah to climb on sandstone.

Benson

Lake Haiyaha

Home sweet home

I'm back home from Val di Mello in Italy where the annual Melloblocco was held. It's a big outdoor bouldering event (6000 people estimated!) in the Italian Alps. This was my fist time there and I thought it was good fun, except for the weather which was really hot for hard bouldering. There were a few problems with price money that was split between the people who climbed them. Among lots of others, I was not too psyched to try these problems, because some of them had drilled holes, some sika used and holds or parts of the wall taped off. Adam Ondra was superior in the competition by climbing all 8 problems. Instead of the competition problems I was more motivated to climb on some of the nice looking problems that were outside the competition. One very good problem that stood out was La Chimera, a really beautiful and high 8A arête. Overall I thought Val di Mello was a nice area with tons of bouldering in a scenic valley. You might want cooler conditions though or you'll lose the skin really fast.

After Mello we made a quick visit to Zillertal in Austria. I only got to climb there one day, well half a day, because the weather has been bad in Austria lately. I got to see some areas I haven't been to before and climbed a classic problem called El Gauhara.

I'm excited to be back home now. I've been a traveling a lot lately, so I decided to skip the Nissan Outdoor Games in Switzerland. It's a really cool event and I like the concept, but spending two whole weeks at home just seemed too good. At the end of this month I'm hitting the road again, first stop Colorado for 5 weeks and then South Africa for 6 or 7 weeks! I'm really psyched for that, but at the same time I'm happy to spend some time at home.

The Machinist Video

There is a nice video on Projekt-Media.com of The Machinist, V13. It's a really cool roof problem I put up in Hueco this spring. Props to Brant Hawkins for making the video.