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A great day today! I went to the Park after work and finished off Blood Money, the outstanding roof behind Sunspot. I had been thwarted by the rain on Sunday however today was cool enough but more importantly dry.

Daniel Woods was nearby making the second ascent of Ty Landman’s great new problem Top Notch V13. I have been climbing at the Park alot lately because of the relatively good conditions, “short” approach and potential for new things. I am looking for a change of pace, always and so my attention now turns to either some some long hiking to see what’s out there or perhaps a trip or two to Mt. Evans.

Alex Johnson, a recent Wisconsin transplant, is starting classes in the Fall at Colorado State. In June, Johnson won the World Cup in Vail. The past couple of weeks she has been climbing outside and dispatching hard problems with great ease. In the beginning of the month she climbed Sunspot V11 in about an hour and today she has made the hardest FFA in Colorado, climbing Clear Blue Skies V12. Several climbers, including Paul Robinson and Carlo Traversi, have registered this climb as V13, and amazingly enough, Alex climbed it in an hour and half! Well done.

For my efforts today I climbed out to the lip on Blood Money in a driving rain storm only to fall when I grabbed a soaking, lichen covered hold. This was followed by a mad dash down the trail as the thunder and lightening pounded down on us. This was one of the worst storms I have been in, as lightening was striking the ridge just a thousand feet above us. To say the least I was terrified and am now happy to be home.

This Tuesday Tommy Caldwell made the first 9 finger ascent of Freaks of the Industry V13, and today Andre DeFelice climbed the same problem as well. Well done boys. Freaks of the Industry was put up by James Litz in 2003, and originally graded V14. By my count Tommy’s ascent was the 11th. It is a crimpy traverse that starts on Bushpilot and heads right after several moves.

Freaks of the Industry V13

As well, Chad Greedy did the Marble Sit Start V11, nice one Chadwick! as well Ty Landman, in a solid one day effort, has added Top Notch V13, a project I mentioned in the previous post.

Today I bolted out of work and ran up to the new roof project I had cleaned and chalked three weeks ago above Sunspot. Sunday I showed it to Daniel Woods and today he made the first ascent. Dave Graham has done the second. There were many good things said by all about this new boulder, which Daniel named Blood Money. The landing is a bit weird, but everything else is there. Good rock, classic and technical moves, and a great line. The V12 grade has been suggested. Well done.

Blood Money V12

Upper Chaos

Dave, Chad and I tried another new line in amidst the talus that looks to be at least V13. With things cooling down and some strong climbers in town I am sure some new great problems will be climbed in the upcoming weeks.

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the positive response. If you haven’t written Falcon, I would still encourage you to do so (guides@falcon.com). Letters filled with articulate and logical remarks will have the most impact.

Secondly, I am experiancing some difficulty posting and I apoligze for the odd text at the top of the page. I am not sure what that is yet and am working hard to solve the problem.

Finally, I took Daniel Woods and his Austrian friend Emmanuel Mooseburger up to a great new project in Upper Chaos I put chalk on a few weeks ago. The bad landing has kept me away until now. I think we all did all the moves, which when complete, will add up to a 10-12 move roof in the V11-13 range. I have some nice pictures and hope to get video soon as well.

Additionally, I signed on as a Colorado correspondent for www.momentumvm.com and I look forward to sending videos of some great new projects there within the coming weeks.

In the last few days I have been working with the Northern Colorado Climbers Coalition in an attempt to figure out the best way to deal with the new book. As I understand it, the book is printed and Falcon Press is ready to move forward with getting this pile of mis-information out to the public. I very much oppose this because a guidebook of this magnitude and scope should be of the highest standard, and this one is nothing but the lowest. It is time to take action and the best way to do that is to write to Falcon Press. Let them know why you oppose the guidebook. Let them know that you are not interested in such gross misrepresentation. Let them know that you don’t intend to spend your money on this book and that you will tell your friends to do the same. It will take a large effort to make a change but I think its worth it. If you feel strongly about this please write to guides@falcon.com
Also, if you are near an outdoor retail store, gym, REI, Barnes and Noble, whatever, let them know that they shouldn’t buy this book. Feel free to print out my original post on the matter and show them all of the errors that I noted. I know places like Neptune Mountaineering here in Boulder pride themselves on being a great local resource for climbing information and it would be a shame for us, and them, if they were to carry such a book. It is my impression that we only have a few days, and if you could make it into a shop, write an email, or simply get the word out by the end of the week, you would be doing the community a great service, in my opinion.
My hope is that we could really come together and decide our history together, in the most accurate representation possible, or the future will look like this…

Freak of Nature V14, Freaky Boulder

As I was walking down the endless rows of vendors today at the Trade Show, I happened to walk by Falcon Publishing and lo and behold there it was, Colorado Bouldering by Bob Horan. I flipped through the book in 20 minutes or so and what I saw was appalling, embarrassing, and the source of much entertainment.
The Poudre Canyon, RMNP, and Mt. Evans were all included in the guidebook and each section was rife with gratuitous mistakes. In the Poudre Canyon nearly every problem on Hank’s Boulder was renamed. It was also written that Hanks boulder was named after a climber named Tom Henry.
The Park may have been the worst of three areas I looked at closely. Most boulderers know the massive boulder that sits in the lake as the 50/50 Boulder. While there was no mention of 50/50 Where it Counts, it was written that on that boulder were several problems, including European Human Being, The Centaur, HandiCapps, Nuthin But Sunshine and the “highballs” Skyscraper and Stars and Stripes (none of which are actually on that boulder). The boulder with Tommy’s Arete is listed as having two problems named Tommy Arete, one of which is V7, the other V8. The Gobot was listed as V4. I also saw “The Kine Traverse” as well as the “Large Roof V10″ at Emerald Lake. Directions to everything are horrendous and unusable. In Upper Chaos, Triple Threat Arete is shown in a photo and labled as Sunspot, with McFly on the same roof to the right. There is a picture of Freshly Squeezed, with Bob “topping out” that is labeled as the Freaky Boulder and the problem is called Freak of Nature V14. I can’t emphasis how laughable his mistakes are.
At Mt. Evans the trajedy continues. Ty Landman’s problem Blackie V11 is listed as Jiggles V9 and All Dogs go To Evans is listed as Pat’s Arete V7. On the Dali Boulder we have The Dali V5, The Lime Wall V13 and The Lime Wall V12. Although Bob told Cameron that Area B,C, and D would not be mentioned, there they are clear as day and in fact Area D lists “The Big Four” This would be great except there are five problems listed and most incorrectly, by either name or grade. He also mentions an area at Lincoln Lake called the “Greener Grasses Area” Perhaps that was Bob’s name? I could go on and on. Trice V10, Animal (pictured as No More Greener Grass and given the V11 grade) Suspension of Disbelief renamed to something forgettable and inaccurate, as well he gives directions to The Tropics (which don’t even exist because they were blown up 7 years ago!) Cage Free called Hit Hard Tactics V7, etc etc and this is nothing to say of how lightly access issues are dealt with, if at all. At one point I was surrounded by Carlo Traversi, Daniel Woods and Paul Robinson and we were just laughing aloud at how bad it really was. All of this was uncovered in a mere puruesing. I can only imagine what a good sit down viewing would reveal.
I talked to a fellow there from Falcon and he said that they would contact Bob and that he would really look into it. He also suggested that myself and my group of friends maybe had the wrong names and that Bob was very experianced in Colorado Bouldering.
When this book hits the shelf in a month or so, I recommend keeping the 50$ to yourself. I will happily give free tours of accurate information to anyone that wants them. This book was written with little regard for anyone in our community and its unfortunate so much time and money was wasted on a very poor effort.

I didn’t do nearly enough climbing this weekend but I did scrub some more new problems which I am very psyched upon. I also added a sit start to the Hobbit. I think this is a bit harder than its counterpart Riddles in the Park, and after some discussion with other climbers I am suggesting V12. It starts on a right hand undercling and a very nice left hand rail.
I hiked all day on Sunday and saw some great new and old projects.
Wednesday I am off to the trade show and hopefully I can sneak out to LCC to have a go at Bully.

Today I ran out of work at 3pm and went straight up to Upper Chaos. It takes a good effort to make it up there as fast as possible. I had my sights set on a nice problem to the left of Riddles in the Park. I think this has been done from a high start previously, but I was psyched on a proper sitstart. The problem starts on two good crimps and makes a big lockoff to a very nice incut sidepull for the left hand. It took my a while to sort out the feet necessary to hold