Ninja project

Weather in Ticino has been great and we've been climbing pretty much every day. Some days ago we had a nice night session at Dreamtime and I managed to do the FA (?) of the stand start after the break, which is probably 8B now. I must say it's not as good as it used to be. The would probably be a real 8C now.

Dreamtime stand after-break

On Wednesday I found a sick new project that I'm really psyched on! It's on a big proud boulder with only one very obvious line in the middle. It holds about 20 moves of intense climbing. The project name Ninja Skills comes from the interesting crux move in the picture along with some other crazy moves. I've worked on it for 2 days now and it feels hard.

The crux move of Ninja Skills project

Too many things to climb, need to stay focused!

Zero Skillz Productions

I've been here in Switzerland for a couple weeks now. The weather has not been very good, but seems like it's getting better. A few days ago I did a very height dependent problem called Conquistador, 8A+ in Chironico. This boulder lies in the riverbed in Schattental and the landing is now about 2 meters higher than what it used to be. A nice problem nevertheless. Yesterday I climbed Confessions of a Crap Artist low, 8A+.

 Confessions of a Crap Artist low, 8A+

I have a few harder things here that I want to try, so I'm hoping the conditions stay good. Today I tried a hard project that we call the Friction Addiction project. It's 30-90 degrees overhanging and about 10 moves long on really good rock. It's too early to say much about the difficulty, but it definitely feels hard. A lot of of the moves have gone already and I'm pretty confident the rest will go, too. I'm very psyched to spend more time on this one.

We also made a quick visit to Maltatal to check out some of Klem Loskot's classics like Wresting with an Alligator and Bügeleisen. Unfortunately Bügeleisen was wet so we never got to try it, but it looked really good. I'm very psyched to return to try it.  Still, the trip wasn't for nothing as I climbed The Power of Goodbye 8B, Wrestling with an Alligator 8B and flashed an amazing problem called Marmelade auf der Shulter 8A.

Our Zero Skillz Productions has been busy filming and editing and we are trying to put together a short film from this trip, that will appear on my blog as soon as it's finished. So far we have footage from Switzerland and Maltatal. Stay tuned.

Here are some screens from the film:

Conquistador 8A+, Chironico

Wrestling with an Alligator, 8B

Wrestling with an Alligator, 8B

 

The Power of Goodbye, 8B

The Power of Goodbye, 8B

Marmelade auf der Shulter, 8A

Interview with Joost Climbing

Here is a link to an interesting interview I did with JoostClimbing:

Finland Photos

I'm in Helsinki, looking at the snow falling on the ground. For me the snow means one thing, time to get out of here. Conditions were nice until yesterday, but now it looks like there won't be too much climbing going on here anymore. Some projects remain unclimbed, until the next time. Chuck Fryberger was here filming and we got some nice footage, that I'm very psyched about. Since the snow put a stop to everything, there isn't much to report. 2 days ago I flashed a very nice 8A problem called Stylewars. It felt really soft for 8A, though. No photos of this one, sorry. Next week I'm leaving the snow and cold behind and going to Switzerland to develop a new bouldering area and try a few problems I haven't repeated yet. I'll post some photos soon. In the meantime here's some photos from Finland:

First Ascent of Spider Pig 8A, Sipoo

 Tornaattori, Puumala

 First Ascent of Never Land, Åland

 Fågelberget, Åland

 Bridge jumping

Finland

Lately I've been hanging out in Finland. A few days ago Chuck Fryberger got here and we've been filming a lot of different things, also some that have nothing to do with climbing. Chuck's idea is to show a little bit of the people's lifestyles too in his next film, not just climbing. I think it's a great idea and it's been really fun shooting all kinds of things along with climbing, like longboarding and bridge jumping.
 

Longboarding in Helsinki

One of the boulders we've filmed so far is an FA of mine from 2004 called Hypergravity, the first 8B boulder in Finland. It's located in Sipoo, about 25 min drive from Helsinki. It's a really small area with a few quality problems and very good rock. Hypergravity has a perfect obvious starting hold and climbs out a horizontal roof on small edges. I'm really syked about the footage we got from this problem.

The plan for next week is to go try a really hard trad project, that I've been working on little bit. Also we want to film a cool problem called The Globalist, 8B+, which i put up this spring. Hopefully the weather will stay like this, because the conditions are prime right now!

photos: Chuck Fryberger