Quick Roadtrip Edit

I did an ultra quick roadtrip edit of some random footage and random areas on my trip. I wish I could say that this video is awesome, but it sucks. I went for speed on the editing because I just don't have any time to make it good. The video is very speratic. The areas in the video are Hueco Tanks, Kansas City, Moe's Valley, and Joe's Valley. The climbers featured are myself, Mike Wickwire, Ian Cotter-Brown, Kenyon Smith, Matt Arnold and Henry Schlotzhower.
    I am really busy packing and getting ready to leave for the Rocklands in 2 days. I could write about all the awesome shit I've been doing lately like remodeling bathrooms, trying to figure out how to fit 10 lbs of shit in a 5 lb bag, doing long endurance circuits in the gym for training, constantly texting, but honestly all that stuff sounds pretty lame now that I'm seeing it written down. So I'll just keep it curt: Going to Rocklands, super busy packing, very psyched for sending, enjoy the video, and last but not least Metolius and Evolv are the best sponsors ever!!!

Browse Boulders from Shibidaang on Vimeo.

Here is a video my friend Isaac posted of an area I briefly visited in Utah. All problems shown are really awesome.

Home Sweet Home

                                                  It's great to be back home.


     After 5 and a half months on the road I've finally returned home to relax for a bit. Traveling and living in a car for that long really takes it out of you. Some recovery time is going to be nice. My last month in Utah was interesting to say the least. Joe's Valley gave us some good weather. I spent most of my time just having fun and sending moderates. I did manage to get a couple hard ones before I came back home. I also did some cool newer ascents in the St. George area. I helped my friend Isaac establish some awesome new granite lines at a little known area north of the town. After cleaning this steep thuggy project, we figured out the beta and put down a hard new gem. Isaac named it the Velvet Glove and we thought about v10ish. I also repeated some of his other classics that were really good. The climbing was very gymnastic for granite which was awesome.
     Next I hit up Bishop for a few days to hang with some buddies. One day at the Sads, Matt Arnold showed me an old project of his right between Cowskull and Enter the Choss. We started trying it and realized the difficulty, which revolved around this desperate reach back move that has a vicious swing with high dab potential. It started to feel possible but very hard. Eventually, out of nowhere, I sent the problem while doing a crazy one armed catch into a double helicopter, somehow, by a miracle, not dabbing. It was a very memorable move for me. I called the line Catch Me If You Can v8. Matt Arnold repeated this problem a few days after. I was psyched to add another great new line to this awesome area. Now I'm back home chilling out for while. I have to now start getting ready for my trip to South Africa this summer. I plan on doing about 5 weeks of training, while of course trying some of the great outdoor problems Tahoe has to offer. I've been to South Africa for two seasons and this will be my third. I really like that country and the climbing that it has to offer. I'm hoping to spend the last bit of the trip there living and climbing in Cape Town, which will be an awesome, new experience no doubt.
     

Out of Hueco and Onto Joe's Valley

I reached the end of my Hueco Tanks trip last week and escaped the decadent vortex that is El Paso, Texas. January offered good temps while I was starting to get into shape, but February was unusually warm this season. The hot weather made it quite difficult to get any hard problems done. Unfortunately, my first season trying the famous power endurance line Martini Right ended in failure. After getting this line in two parts I was ultimately shut down on the link. It was still quite an honor to get to try this iconic boulder problem that has a reputation for making even the strongest climbers pay their dues. I was happy to put in my first season of hard work on this beast. It left me with a hunger to come back stronger next year to give this rig another try. One day I'm going to send this thing so long as the park doesn't close down the cave. El Techo did not go as well. This one was a bit reachy for me and offered up an extra challenge. All the moves went down though proving that even for a short fella it is still possible.
    I noticed that Hueco Tanks can ironically have a lot of distractions that I fell into. The food is so good but seems like it is all cooked in lard. Even chicken burritos kind of leave you feeling like crap because of the tortillas fat content. They also have really good pasteries that taste great but really weigh you down for that next climbing day. The popular camping area, The Hueco Rock Ranch is sort of the "animal house" of this bouldering mecca. Staying here one can find that you end up drinking heavily a bit too often i.e. every fucking day. All these things combined get many climbers into bad habits and, like me, you find that too much of this stuff can lead to you getting weaker the longer you stay here. But damn what a good time. I think next visit I will go in December when it is colder and stay in the park where you can keep to yourself and hopefully drink less and eat a bit healthier. If anyone is planning a trip there that would be my recommendation. Keep yourself in control, it will be boring but you will climb way better as a result. Fun times but lesson learned.
   I have moved on to Joe's Valley, Utah. It is nice to be free from the regulations and distractions and have a plethora of great sandstone at your disposal. Isaac Caldiero put out a great guidebook that will get you around the area to the best problems. This guidebook has been very useful in locating the good lines and even gives some beta for those who are interested. You can purchase the book for $30 at the local grocery store called the Food Ranch. Which by the way has butterfinger donuts, just saying. And, no, I haven't been eating them, I swear...
    I've been enjoying my stay here and plan on staying another week or so before continuing west to Moe's Valley to get another chance at my project from last season. It will likely be too hot by the time I get there to try it but you never know. I'm hoping that southern Utah will get a late cold spell in April. I guy can dream right? In the meantime I feel like some sending might go down here as it is supposed to be cold this week after the next snow storm hits. I'm really looking forward to some sunny 30 degree days. Ah...friction.
    In case anyone wanted to know my ticklist from Hueco Tanks in the two months I spent there here it is:
Barefoot on Sacred Ground v12
Schwer Gustov v10/11
Wonderhole Dyno v10
10-10 v10
Theater of the Absurd v10
Julio and Me v9
Glas Roof v9
Choir Boys v9
Dragonfly low v9
Paleazoic v9
Big Nose Milley v9
Something Different v8
Ultra Mega v8

There is more but I can't remember. These are the ones that stick out in my mind. I doesn't seem like very much for 2 months but I'm getting back in shape so you do what you can. Feel like all this steep crimpy stuff definately tightened up my game a bit. I'm excited to test the new skills out here in Joe's.

More Hueco Tanks

I am most of the way through my trip to Hueco Tanks, Texas. At this point I feel like it has been a good trip. Hueco is a great place to get fit, and I feel like it has helped get me into better form. The other day I took out a couple of nemesis problems for me. I sent Theater of the Absurd v10 and Barefoot on Sacred Ground v12. It felt good to put these projects to rest. Many days of effort and some good support from friends goes a long way.
This past weekend, some friends and I participated in the volunteer Hueco Clean Up Day. Various groups were guided around the mountains building trails, picking up litter and glass, and washing excess chalk off the popular problems. My buddies,David and Kenyon, and I were assigned to the Icarus Area. We cleaned chalk off the warm ups and the famous 99 Heroin Balloons. After washing off chalk, our group picked up about 6 grocery bags of broken glass litter from around the small area. It felt good to help out on a rest day and make a difference to the cleanliness of such a great area. Afterwards, volunteers gathered around the Hueco Rock Ranch where there was all you could eat burritos and Shiner Bock on tap. The party went into the night, ending, as it usually does, with a bunch of drunks by a fire all talking beta. Good times.
With about three weeks left, I definately feel the pressure to take down the other 2 problems I really want to do here. I am close on the Right Martini and on El Techo de los Tres B. Both these lines have been epic for me so far. I'm sure I have up to 6 days this year on each of them. They seem to be great training tools for getting back in good shape. Even when you don't send hard lines you still get stronger just by trying them. None the less, I'm really hoping to send these two before I leave. From here I will take a short trip to Joe's Valley, Utah. Weather will be cooler there when it starts to get too hot here.
This whole trip has been good so far. I'm psyched everyday to see what waits for me around the next corner.

                                                 Me falling on the last move of Shake and Bake v11 photo: Kenyon

                                                  A typical sunset at the Hueco Rock Ranch

                                           Theater of the Absurd v10, a nemesis for me

                                            A huge crowd assembles for the Hueco Clean Up

                              Kenyon Smith and David Outcalt clean chalk off of 99 Heroin Balloons v9

mountain beaver segments

Brad Perry got some video segments out from our favorite area of the 2011 Summer. The Mountain Beavers was found by Jarrad Wycoff last Spring. After a lot of hard work by Jarrad, Brad Perry and myself, the area turned out to be quite the South shore spot for people who didn't mind a little hiking. We estimated that a total of 70 problems were established that summer. Here are Brad's videos of some of the gems that got done.

Hueco Tanks

It's nice to be back at Hueco Tanks. This place is special indeed. It has many cons such as waiting in line, limited access, highly restricted bouldering; the one pro is that the bouldering here is unbelieveable. The area lends itself to steep, powerfull climbing. It is the perfect recipe for hard boulder problems. I've spent my first 7 days here climbing as much as I can trying to get into Hueco shape. After only a week I feel like I am getting back into the flow. Yesterday, however, I kinda started to get sick. Recently progress came to a hault as I am trying to get over this cold. I have my fingers crossed for a quick recovery but time will tell.
     As in the past year or two I wish I could fill this blog with news of super hard sends, but I'm still actually waiting to get back on the wave. I guess that's how it goes. The climbing I have been doing is fun as hell though. Most of the climbs I've done have been repeats of things that I did in years past. There have been a couple of exceptions. There is a 50 foot long overhanging traverse here called Mop Boys. I spent my first couple of days epicing on this really long problem that has about 5 tricky crux sequences. I went from having it in 10 parts to chucking laps on it for endurance. This problem is given 3 stars in Matt Wilder's Hueco guidebook. Despite many naysayers who complain about it being low, dabby and stupid, I will have to agree with the three stars. Not everything has to be deadly tall and reachy to get stars. Some things are cool based just on the challenge. I love long rock climbs and this one was bad ass. I had never done this line before and it was bad ass.
     There was another line I did the other day called Shower Cap. In previous years, I always had an epic on this one and thought that maybe it was a bit to reachy for someone 5 ft tall. It is a roof with an opening move that is full extention from an undercling with no footholds, none that I could reach anyway. I watched my buddy Matt Arnold do it rather easily using his long arms and legs. Matt assured me that I could send using his beta. Well, he was right and wrong but mostly right. I had to improvise a little for the first bit by having both hands and feet in the same zone. This seemingly silly-looking tactic payed off and I stuck the big move. Even though I hadn't been able to do a single move on the problem after an hour of work, somehow after sticking the first part I screamed my way through about 7 more moves that I hadn't done. Sometimes when you get lucky, you stay lucky I suppose.
      On a bit of a different note, I have to give a little info about a new Metolius pad I've been using called the Recon. This pad is my new favorite from Metolius. My favorite feature is the size. It is a little bit smaller than it's bigger brother the Colossus. When this pad is folded on the back it is very narrow at 22 inches wide, which is really usefull in Hueco where you have to constantly squeeze between tight corridors. I am also a big fan of how quickly it packs and unpacks. It only has one buckle that holds the tri fold together. My saddle bag of bouldering gears easily wraps around the outside. By doing this I avoid stuffing all my gear inside the pad, thus increasing the life of the foam. I've noticed that I'm always the first one to have my stuff packed up or unpacked. This saves more time for climbing, if only about 15 seconds per stop.  Basically it is one of the most unique and efficient designs I've seen in a crash pad. At a price of $249 it is not the cheapest but it is not the most expensive either. Seems like a fair deal to me. Props to Metolius for thinking outside the box and finding new ways to make crash pads better.

    I have 2 months left here in the Tanks. This should give me ample time to work out some of the classic hard lines that I've always wanted to do. In the meantime, I hope all the folks out in Tahoe continue to get their boulder on. Sounds like I picked the wrong season for a winter trip. But I will have plenty of time there soon enough.