China Bound

Many years ago, maybe ten, I was looking through some pictures of rock in China that Todd Skinner had taken and/or found in his quest for climbable rock. There was a single image of a huge granite boulder sitting in a tilted valley bottom, many more boulders in the back ground led to a granite dome. Todd was a fanatic for new rock and had found many of the planets best areas. He was looking for route potential at the time of the China picture and suggested that bouldering would be worth while there. The rock was supposedly very good. I was ready to go immediately. At the time, no one took it seriously and I never found a person to go to China with for a look. Roughly a year ago, I was again looking for international destinations where little development had so far happened and found a picture taken exactly where Todd or whoever had taken the previous picture. This time a person was bouldering on the bloc and it looked amazing! I tracked down the photographer and found out where, when and what was going on.
Basically, over in China, they have what we would call a situation. A massive amount of rock with few to climb on it. Wangzehn (also known as Rocker) the father of bouldering in China invited me over this spring to have a look, and that is exactly where I am going tomorrow! Five weeks to barely scratch the surface of what is looking like a sea of stone. Qingdao, China is my final destination. I have an apartment lined up five minutes from the boulders and lot of time to enjoy it. Maybe not enough time based on the amount of rock.
Wangzehn has sent me many, many pictures over the winter to temp me over and a few are shown here.

 All Above photos by Wangzehn, Qingdao, China. You can find more of Rocker's photos by going to his blog (http://qdrocker.blog.sohu.com/) or by going to 8a.nu to track him down through the gallery section. He also posted a portfolio at climbing magazine where you can find his work online.

Yeah, those are huge granite boulders sitting on the Yellow Sea, and the the others are at various locations on the mountains above the sea. The mountains of granite rise several thousand feet out of the ocean and go for miles upon miles of broken granite. My wife did an in depth search this weekend of pictures of the area and found some encouraging images. She will meet me over there in a few weeks to enjoy the sea side stone.

My apartment is in the closer buildings somewhere. Near the sea but close to the climbing. The city of 2.5 million, Qingdao is seen down the coast.

The Switzerland of China as they call Qingdao and the surrounding area.

Fine Grain Granite Forever!

Yep, a situation!

Some very lucky little village sitting under a massive amount of good bouldering!

So, I'm off to the east. It is unclear if I can access this web site in China. It sounds like Blogger may be blocked. If I can update I will. Otherwise I will post here in five weeks or so. Enjoy spring.

A Bennett Peak Story

On Friday night as I was settling in for a weekend with no plans the phone rang and I found Bryan on the other end. He was done with Flagstaff and on his way back to Upton, Wyoming to go back to work. Not being able to drive all the way to Laramie Friday night, he asked if I would meet him in Saratoga the next morning for a day of bouldering. His second request was to work on only hard things and skip the mass development days with only a hard problem here and there. I met him in Saratoga at the local Kum & Go taking in the scene and re-heating a danish in the sun of his dash board.
After a very brief discussion, weighing the pros and cons of various areas and harder undone lines we headed out to Bennett Peak. I regularly field questions about Saratoga Valley, more specifically Needle Peak, but have had only about three questions about Bennett Peak. It is the original bouldering area of the Saratoga Valley and has great potential. The drive is longer and the boulders are less developed and more spread out than Needle Peak. None the less, it is a premier bouldering area and a great place in the spring to pull some rock.

 Bennett Peak, Wyoming

We drove straight to the Corral Creek camp ground, home to Bennett Peak's oldest problems and went straight to an old undone line. We cleaned it and half way warmed up on the top out of the thing and then went straight to work on Bryan's "only hard problems" request. What looked like it could be V7 turned into a major fight of core tension and finger pain. A real classic! A small crimp/pinch in a 50 degree roof leads to a flat side pull and really bad smearing to maintain body tension. Lock it all down and fidget a digit into a mono, somehow get an undercling pinch thing and then stand up to chuck for the lip and the "warm up" top out. That's all there was to it and it shut us down hard. It is now the Last Dirty Hole Project and highly recommended!

Bryan getting started on the Last Dirty Hole Project

Bryan working the last move of the project, guns ablaze

and the mono...

After a two hour warm up on the mono, feeling warm and a deep pain in the finger that counts, we headed a couple hundred yards down hill to another hard, unclimbed line. This one was an old one from the very early days of Bennett Peak bouldering. My wife Marla found it years ago on a break from camp. She didn't remember it when I was so excited to talk about it this spring. It is a line however that has stuck in my memory. It was my goal for the day and a beautiful line for a spring day.

Marla on the day she found the boulder of mention. The second boulder of a Bennett Peak Story.

The line felt very hard at first and the logical sit start on a big flake was found to be impossible. Not to be let down, Bryan figured out a theoretical way to start the problem still using a hand on the logical start and simply hanging on for dear life with the other hand while you step off the ground. A two hour session on the move yeilded no results. Bryan even suggested that my bump hold was not a hold at all, rather a portion of wall that had nothing to do with the problem. He was very right. We took a lunch break after we figured out the next several hard moves and decided we would at least top it out from some hold.

The project as it looked as we left for a lunch break.

After lunch we returned with hope of sticking the first move and had several good failures. Reaching the end of our motivation and strength, Bryan adjusted a finger tip or two on the starting flake and somehow stuck the move. I can only describe it as a  micro study on core tension and body position that somehow involves a point of zero where nothing moves except the gripping left hand. Naturally he panicked and went into overdrive, send the damn thing mode. Missing a key foot in all the excitement he jumped off and had that look of disbelief. The thing would actually go!

Bryan getting two fingers adjusted under the roof before going for it. The sloper he is going for is a poor one.

Moments before sticking it

Holly, what just happened, Shit!

Panic mode and the next move.

With a changed mind, I put on my shoes and adjusted my two fingers under the roof. I reached the zero point and stuck the move too. I went through the motions of the next moves, barely sticking the second crux and not really thinking until I reached the top out. The top out was a pumped pile of sloping crap a good bit off the deck. I could tell Bryan was worried about the whole thing in the way he spouted encouragement. Like encouraging the first guy out of the trench. Saying "way to go", but thinking thank god it's not me.  I spent a while adjusting various pumped out portions of my body until I numbly rolled over the top. Bryan gave it several good goes after that, always sticking the first zero point move crux, but not quite getting the second crux lock off. It was a really impressive effort to watch him do the crux move over and over! 

I named the problem The Zero Point and we thought it might be V8. It is a V8 that is harder than all others we have done, but a V8 none the less. We wouldn't want things to get soft around here, so we're sticking with solid grades. It was a great day to go to something I had always wanted to do and to finish it in good style (except the top out). 

Last Week Was Spring

Last week was a long one. Spring came and went, and might be back today. Winter has held sway still for a long while. The warmer weather worked out well with Bryan Vansickle's visit to Laramie. We got out four days in a row and reached exhaustion. Bryan, living in Flagstaff, Arizona and working in Upton, Wyoming is now getting only a few visits in here and there. When he is here we cover a lot of ground to make up for lost time.
We managed our first Needle Peak day of the season. The access road was in top form, my jeep being the only vehicle to get in for the day. We climbed with a few others on this particular trip and had to shuttle into the peak to get everyone in. Ethan, Mike, Devlin and his family, and Guili all made it in. While the newcomers to Needle Peak tried some older classics Ethan, Bryan and I put up some new problems.

Tits Up V2 is a new problem on the Nautical Inspirations Boulder. Sit Starts on the bottom rail and follows the edges just left of the arete.

The Nautical Inspirations Boulder and a sky warning of the end of spring (In Wyoming the end of spring is the next winter, followed by a short summer)

Bryan and Ethan standing under what is now Give Me My Dick Back You Dirty Bitch V2. A Bryan Vansickle problem if ever there was one!

Mike taking a second ascent of the newly done A Diamond Sparkles V1. Ethan put up the problem on the same wall as The Gift. He is getting married soon!

After Needle Peak most folks went back to work the next day while Bryan and I headed to a destination of potential sport route development. We drove up to Glendo, Wyoming and the reservoirs along the North Platte River. There is a lot of rock in the area that is primarily limestone. We found tons of rock, but little potential. The majority of the walls were undercut with a sadly, chossy section. There is some potential for clean rock, we did see some, but hiking to it and finding good rock on public land is a project. Someone will bolt the choss there one day and indeed there will be some very good lines, but we know of better potential closer to home. 

Bryan and Amie Dog walking the shore of Glendo in search of the goods. We passed a few good walls on our left, but nothing tall enough to warrant the work in putting in a good route so far from home.

Amie Dog in search of dead fish at Glendo Reservoir.

On the return drive from Glendo, Wyoming we stopped over in Sybille Canyon to look at some old routes from years past. Sybille Canyon is a forgotten canyon for climbing. A good deal of rock sits on public lands, but the access can be a hassle. Also, a good bit of the rock is poor quality. There are a few sections however of o.k. rock that lends itself to traditional climbing. It is a place for ground up and head point climbing and has great potential for ice and mixed routes too. Even in the end of April we found ice routes still hanging on!

An unclimbed line that would be a perfect route, ground up, above a pond. The route can be started on the far right side on dry ground, then diagonal-ed up the under clings into a natural line of seams. In the upper right corner of the picture is another wall with a classic ground up route Under The Bus 5.10a. The bus is on the sky line and perched for disaster.

Another view of The Under The Bus Wall. Under The Bus 5.10a follows the obvious center crack then trends left into the head wall and various seams. Expect long run outs on the head wall!

One of the North Walls showing the great mixed potential. Routes would be one to two pitches! This picture was taken April 27th and there was still climbable ice!

Another ice smear on a single pitch route.

On the hike out from the canyon Bryan and I were excited to return and put in some new routes. At the car Bryan found 9 ticks and I had 1. So, until further notice, to hell with that place. We also passed a man walking along the side of the dirt road. Asking if he was o.k. we noticed a certain look in his eye. I didn't stop driving because of that look. The guy was walking in the middle of nowhere, many miles from any house or car, in sweat pants and had nothing with him except a big smile and an "every things great" response. Psycho... and to hell with that place.

The next day was another Saratoga Valley day for Bryan and I. This time we went out to Bennett Peak to develop some new rock. We found a ton of good rock and had a hard time deciding on what to climb. After passing up many good blocs and getting the jeep really stuck, we started putting up good high balls in an area now called Boner City. The climbing was good and the day was long, but expensive. In releasing the Boulder Recon Vehicle from the grasp of Mother Earth I managed to cripple it by ruining a u-joint on the front axle while bending some other parts.

 Mother Nature's grasp. A road that turns into a drift that turns into a five foot deep hole of mud and snow.

The Boulder Recon Vehicle free, but carrying the trauma of the hole that tried so hard to swallow it. We were a minute away from driving again and hearing the dreaded click and clunk of the front end.

Bryan cleaning the top of what would become The Decoy (left side) and Camera In A Box (right side) Two very good high balls at the new Boner City.

Bryan nearing the top of the high but fantastic warm up The Decoy V1, Boner City, Bennett Peak, Wyoming.

Bryan climbing another good V1 in Boner City. This one is Great Expectations V1. It is 20' tall and the holds get better up high until a last move gaston to the lip of the boulder.

Every thing was tall in Boner City and well featured. To get there, drive into Bennett Peak and look for a right turn just before dropping into private land and the first camp ground of Bennett Peak. The boulders are across a creek and the road to access them crosses the creek too. They are the only boulders across the creek. rive to far and you are at Bennett Peak proper. Drive to short and there is no right turn that crosses a creek.

The last day of our grand adventure involved an entire day of driving and recon into areas I've been sworn to keep secret. They are places Bryan found and loves. Good rock and access is all I can say.

In 10 days I leave for a month in China. A bouldering recon trip like no other I've taken. I will update as well as I can on t he trip and if not on the trip, when I return in the end of June. I will give a small teaser of China bouldering before I go.