The Gym: Coming of Age

Here I sit on my couch, a Saturday night, feeling frustrated about the University of Montana's climbing gym. I frequent this gym quite a bit, 5 days a week when the weather is bad or not at all when the weather is prime. When I first started climbing here my freshman year, struggling up V1's in my oversized lace ups, I was in love. So many problems and routes, easy and impossible. Well since then, the honeymoon has ended. Meeting new people, the newest dyno problem and looking at girls in yoga spandex pants were my motivations to go. I met many, climbed with some, and bonded with a few. My motivations have spun a 180, and now I find myself at the gym so I can climb with my girlfriend, get pumped and thrashed, bullshit with a few good friends, and set problems. Let me explain. Having a girlfriend who actually climbs is great, but having a girlfriend who ENJOYS bouldering is absurdly rare, especially here in lovely Missoula, Montana. I like to think that bouldering is more enjoyable when you can do a variety of different problems at different grades, thus training and being strong are top priority. I can count on one hand the people I would go out of my way to go climbing with, and those few guys keep me stoked on climbing. Now finally, setting. In short, I'm one of maybe 5 or 6 people who have been setting hard problems in the gym. I have been taping routes and putting up holds for about a year, not as an employee, but as a guy trying to put a little spice in our mundane line up of problems. With that being said, one Italian Stallion sets great hard routes, and we all know who he is. Also, the ginger sets really good hard problems, when he isn't excavating body tissues on some dead person at a hospital(awesome). One of them works one day a week, the other doesn't work there at all anymore, he just sets sometimes. These two guys know how to set problems. They know movement and how to grade it. IF ONLY WE COULD GET MORE OF THESE GUYS WORKING AT THIS PLACE. I digress, as now I will explain where my fury is coming from. I'm in the gym today, for what I wanted to be an hour but turned into a sour 30 minutes. It's just me and the guy working, who for some reason thought Death Cab For Cutie was a good thing to play in a climbing gym. Really? A random break from the terrible bluegrass always playing in there, but not really a break, since it was DCFC! Anyways, I warm up, spy a few cool moves on an arete involving toe hooks, heel hooks, smears, jugs, gastons and everything else cool like that. I think to myself some slopers up top would be an excellent addition to this problem, along with the bouldering cave in general. I go up to the guy working, who has seen me take down/put up/set/tape problems, and politely ask him if it would be cool if I could put a couple holds up on a blank section of the wall. He replies with, "You'll have to ask Elizabeth." I think to myself, yeah, thats not going to work considering its 4:30 on a Saturday, I doubt she is here, you smelly, dirty hippie wannabe. But vocally I came out with, "Wait, seriously? You've seen me set before, I've probably set more problems then most of the employees here." His response, "Dude. You have to ask Elizabeth." I rolled my eyes, spoke a "Wow," and muttered a 'fuck you'. The same guy who sets V1's and puts v3/4 on them. I then climbed for 15 more minutes, got pissed and peaced out.

So here we are, after gym history, my recent encounter with the weak-mo gym worker, and winter weather. Coming up is about a 2 month time where bouldering hard outside is not really an option. I really want to get 20 guys who get along, to pitch in money monthly and build a woody, with rad holds, and get strong. Since the UM gym doesn't lend itself to hard problems, we have to make do with something else. Since another gym is not an option, a woody is what is left. I think it can happen, if enough strong dudes come to the realization that the UM gym won't get you stronger than a V6 climber.

Breakthrough

I have never been so enlightened, excited and optimistic about climbing. At the moment, sending, training and psych is at an all time high. My friend Levi, a very very strong climber, once said to me that V6 is the grade at which bouldering becomes hard. I took this rather light hearted because at the time I would be super stoked to send V6. This was about a year ago when he said this. Since I started bouldering more and more this past spring, I have been sending V7's outside. In retrospect, while I was trying to send, V7 seemed so impossible and then all of the sudden everything comes together for a send. Feeling elated, I'm at the top of the world after I send a hard problem like that. Now, looking back V7 wasn't that hard. I don't think that I gave 100% mentally. I've been reading, watching and listening to a lot of climbing online as of late. The thing that strikes me most about all of this is the mental aspect of hard climbers. If they believe they can do something, they most likely will do it. With this in mind, I'd like to go back in time to Thursday. Victoria and I went to Lost Horse to dispatch some projects. Slowly but surely, Victoria is figuring out Beautiful People V3. She certainly is strong enough to do all of the moves, it's just a matter of time before she realizes it. It'll go down before the snow comes. On my list was South Face of John Wayne V7 and Andy's Face V7. I had been more or less projecting South Face, but hadn't put a whole lot of effort into it. Maybe an hour total over a couple of days this fall. I decided that I would save that problem for a later date because of time, skin and lack of moderate problems for Victoria. We headed to Tanganika boulder, to show her some lowball moderate. She wasn't having it, so I tried the Tanganika Traverse and sent in 4 goes. Didn't feel like V6, but maybe thats because of my mental psych. Then we went up to the Big Chuck Boulder. Andy's Face is a pretty looking problem involving every kind of move. A heel hook, pinch, 1/4 pad crimpers, an undercling, a deadpoint and slopers up a 15 degree overhang. I had never tried this problem and was saving it for when I was strong enough and had an opportunity to session it. I hopped on and got stumped right away. Eventually I worked out the beta, punted and sent in about an hour. So stoked that I was shaking for about 5 minutes after I topped it out. This boulder problem was the next level for me, and now I will begin to train like a mad man for other projects and trips. GOOD BYE PLATEAU, HELLO SEND TRAIN.

(Also I'm 6'6 and grades are irrelevant at this point.)

I'm growing a mustache, too.

Excellent Weather at Whiskey Gulch

Finally after a week of shit weather, blue skies came to Montana.  During said shit weather, we (Joe, Sam, Sarah and myself) took a quick trip out to Sweathouse to climb on Thursday.  We got there and were overly optimistic about the conditions.  We arrived to every boulder soaked.  We tried to dry the holds on Baloo Direct and I got super frustrated on it after 2 goes because the holds were just too wet.  The rest of the time was spent drinking beer and trying to make a better landing for the Mt. Evans project, which looks too good to be true.  Next time...

Victoria and I met Joe and Sam out at Whiskey Gulch for Friday and Saturday to do some bouldering.  It was Victoria's first trip out to Whiskey and she ran train on pretty much everything she touched.  Sam was putting all his T-H into Pope's Penis, a hearty V7 and was still working on it when we left.  I hope he sent.  Joe sent Pope's Penis for a second time, which was awesome to see.  I do believe Sam got a video of it.  Before Victoria and I got there, Joe was working out the beta for Crimpers of Doom, a BEAUTIFUL V6 that goes up some slightly overhanging nasty crimps.  We went there after he sent Pope's Penis and I sent in about 20 minutes using his beta.  He almost sent it that night, but sent first go the next morning.  All in all, a good trip to Whiskey; sending, drunken campfire and bomb ass food.

Victoria sending a nice V2 slab.

Victoria working out the moves before the send on the Senile Boulder.

Joe HIKING Pope's Penis, to make sure the first one wasn't a fluke.

Joe sending Crimpers of Doom!

Projects and Flashes

I got off work around 1 on Thursday and originally was going to go to Sweathouse with Sam, but he bailed like a sally, so Victoria and I went out to Lost Horse to work our projects.  She made some big links on Beautiful People, a classic V3 on the Super Rad Boulder, and it is going DOWN next time she hops on it.  Then we hiked up to John Wayne Boulder and I got my beta all figured out for The South Face, probably the best V7 at LoHo.  Hopefully I will put some postage on it next time and send it, then on to that crimpy V7 on the Big Chuck Boulder.  I finally figured out how to work my flash for the most part, so I borrowed Steel's flash too and did some off camera flash photography.  Here are two of Victoria working Beautiful People. 

ALSO, my buddy Joe Schmechel finally started blogging and here is his site:

mtbouldering.blogspot.com

Good stuff on that blog.

Lost Creek Bouldering

Headed out to Lost Creek State Park near Anaconda on Saturday for some scouting and bouldering.  I picked up Levi and Victoria, drove in the nasty wind to meet "Choss King" Rick, as Levi so eloquently put it.  Also his friend Carl was there, who appeared to be the sketchiest straight-edge man i've met.  Besides the wind, it was a little nippy out, but some how I managed to rock my jersey for 10 minutes.  Levi, Rick and myself did this arete/slab/highball, another slab, a traverse and a direct variation of the traverse.  Could be FA's, but no way of knowing at this point in time.  Here's two.

Newer bouldering shots

A new one from Sweathouse.  Joe and Sam are being ballers and puttin' hard new shit up, cheers kids.  Also Sam loving Zulu and dabbing on Flake and Bake.

GNP

Some Glacier National Park photos that I took on a quick day trip.  It was snowing and blowing 40mph winds on top of Logan Pass.  Epic!