Tues/Wed Reset and Free Gatorade at the Spot!!!

Come down to The Spot for free natural Gatorade and G2 and brand new problems on the entire Font boulder!

World Cup Soccer and a Quick Setting Update for 23 June 2010

Ok, so today started out a bit slowly as everyone was really interested in the USA vs. Algeria World Cup game this morning.  Max and Garrett were so into it that they couldn’t even stop watching while we were stripping the wall!

Max and Garrett couldn't be away from the World Cup for even a moment!

Eventually we all gave up and just watched the last 8 minutes of the game before starting to set, which turned out to be a good call because in the last 4 minutes Landon Donovan scored a pretty awesome goal–the only goal of the game–which meant Team USA won.  While the rest of us watched from Max’s computer and Max ran around screaming for the goal, Garrett was sorting bolts and watching on his phone with headphones and, because the stream on his phone was about a minute behind Max’s computer stream and he had his back to us, he didn’t know there was a goal til a minute later.  It was pretty funny to watch Garrett jumping around at the bolt cart after we’d already stopped.  Anyways, if you didn’t watch the game, at least check out the highlights.  There aren’t that many goals scored (usually) in a 90 minute World Cup game, but the ones I’ve seen so far this year have all been amazing.

And the setting update: Jonny is still out of town and Max is still helping, so today Max, Jon, Carlo, Jay Jay, Garrett, and I set the back scoop of the Hueco with a bunch of problems from 1 Spot to 5 Spot.  Kyle Owen came by to help us forerun, and we ended up with several 1s and 2s, many many 3s and 3+s, and a few 4- and 4 and 4+ as well.  And a 5 or two.  Between that and yesterday’s Dojo set, you should have plenty to climb on ’til next Tuesday.  Enjoy!

Setting Update 6.22.10

Today was a busy (and hot!) day as Carlo, Jon, Garrett, Jay Jay, and I stripped and reset the right side of the Dojo.  Helping us out were guest setter Max Zolotukhin (who you may remember from the Battle in The Bubble) and guest intern setters Dallas Milburn (from Team BRC) and Colleen Brents (Spot employee and Team Sik Bird).

Dallas Milburn | DM

Dallas has set some before, and put up three nice problems on the right side/middle of the cave.  You’ll see his initials on a neon green 4-, a black and dark green 5-, and a neon yellow 5-.

Colleen Brents | CAB

It was Colleen’s first day twisting a wrench, ever!  She is responsible for a fun pink 3 and a nice dark green 3+ out the left side of the cave.

Newly set Dojo

Newly set Dojo far right side

The rest of us had some fun with some of our favorite features, like Revolution’s The Boss (the one at the link is a slight variation), E-Grips’ The Bubble Wrap Pinch Wedge, Teknik Fat Slopers, The DRCC’s Hole (ours is a comp pour so it’s not quite as positive as the one you can buy from their site), and, of course, some big Climb-It Jugs to help you get out the roof.  Enjoy!

Battle in The Bubble Men’s DRCC Semifinals Video

Yes, it’s really late.  No, it’s not edited any more thoroughly than the women’s video.  Includes footage of several different climbers and all 5 problems (not complete for a few of ’em though) and climaxes with Daniel Woods’ ascent of Semi 5.  Enjoy!

The Women’s Issue of Deadpoint Magazine

Ok, so this is the cover of the brand new issue of Deadpoint Magazine that just got posted online last night.  This magazine is both online and in print, and, as you probably know, the print copies come to the Spot and are free to take.  They should show up in the next couple of weeks.  If you click on the picture above it will take you to the issue RIGHT NOW! (In an easy-to-use online reader.)

Anyways, this issue is special to me because I was given the privilege of guest editing it.  It all started last winter in Hueco when Matt (Stark, a setter from West Virginia who started and now runs this magazine) agreed to let me try and put a women’s issue of the magazine together.  I’ve written for climbing magazines before, but, as it turns out, editing an entire mag is a much more consuming process than writing an article or two.  Luckily all the women of the climbing community who heard about it were quick to offer their help, and soon my guest associate editor Vanessa Compton and I were literally flooded with content.  (Vanessa is also the artist who conceived and created the cover art and several other pieces, including the beautiful 2 page mix-tape music review collage).  As you can see by the cover, one of our main points with the issue was to try and represent as large a spectrum of female climbers as we could find.  You will probably recognize many of the women from Boulder, most of whom climb at The Spot, but we also have women from all corners of this country and even a few from other countries (and not just Canada) (and actually, most of the women, even from other countries, have also climbed at The Spot.  That’s cause the Spot rules!)

The Masthead and Table of Contents Pages, and more women!

Oh yeah, and just so all you guys out there know, many of the articles (about training, nutrition, and family, for example) are relevant to both sexes, so you’ll find plenty of entertaining and educational content in the mag for you too.

Enjoy!

Setting Update for 6/15 and 6/16

Remember this hold?

Notice the proliferation of t-nuts on this baby. They're all sunk straight into the polyurethane, and are perfectly straight!

Check out the right river granite to see what Jon did with it–pretty cool.  On that note, it’s been a month since The Battle in the Bubble, so the strip and reset process is back to normal.  Last week we stripped and reset the left river granite, and this week we did the right river granite and left dojo.  Most of you will be glad to know that we took those big volumes off the bottom of the right river and added a few of ’em back on, but higher up.  We’ve actually got quite a bit going on now in the volume department, between the Detroit Rock Climbing Company’s mini bolt-on volume (above), the two mini Motivation Volumes (also bolt-on) that Jonny brought back from his week of setting the World Cup in Vail (more on his role there to come soon), and several of our bigger gray triangles that require a slightly more involved mounting process.

We've got these Motivation Volumes, but ours are colored!

On the left side of the Dojo you will also see a brand new urethane PUSHER Molecule hold–one of the very first hollow-back Molecules in existence!  It’s a slightly larger pour than our old blue molecule, and it’s so big it’s almost its own volume.  Did we mention the hollow-back?

New Pusher Molecules!

Ruminations on Rainy Weather and Climbing with the Slovenians.

It’s the wet and misty mountains around here today, which we refer to as the “bag of suck”.  You literally cannot see the Flatirons.  Everything is wet.  It’s the weekend, but this is not climbing weather.  Yesterday was not climbing weather either.  UGH.

There are usually mountains here. Now it looks like Seattle.

What to do in this situation?  On one hand, there’s a possibility that hiking into these mist-enshrouded Flatirons will produce a heretofore unknown about Taoist or Buddhist temple or a secret Shaolin Training ground.  If you are lucky enough to find one of these places, you may find yourself transformed into a spiritually enlightened kung-fu climbing genius who can Moon Kick with ease through the hardest D Woods testpiece.  On the other hand, you might just get super wet.

That is what happened to the four visiting members of the Slovenian World Cup team (who are staying for a few days between the Vail and Moscow World Cups) and I when, despite the bad forecast and foreboding dark clouds, we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park on Friday to try and get some bouldering done.  As any alpine boulderer knows, even a hint of the weather being “good enough” to climb is enough to get you out of the car and humping your gear up the trail through intermittent sprinkles, just hoping that that sucker hole you see in the clouds will translate into dry rock and climbable boulders.

Jernej experiencing the American post-hole. Luckily these were minimal on the packed-snow trail of the main hike.

We were lucky.  Though the rain started when we hit Lyons, and continued with varying severity as we drove the windy 20 minutes to Estes Park, when we finally got to Bear Lake the sky was dry so we headed up the trail.  Thunder boomed in a very theatrical way as we passed Dream Lake and headed up the canyon to Emerald, but nothing came of it until after we’d started warming up, when a brief hail storm wet the top outs of the boulders and threatened to send us running for the car.  Luckily it quickly abated, and Jernej and Klemen were able to send Whispers of Wisdom in short order (on their first tries the top-out holds were still wet, and we had to wait a bit for them to dry before the boys braved the still-damp slab top out).

Klemen warming up with wet top-outs. It's actually raining in this picture.

Katja, Klemen and I climbed some more on the Large boulder, with Klemen flashing Tommy’s Arete and Large and sending Real Large in a few goes.  Natalija took a scenic walk, from which she fortuitously returned right when the rain picked up and the boulder started running with water. We figured it was time to go and bailed through the soaking wet trail and forest to the Estes Park Pie Shop.

Katja

The moral of this story?  We had fun, and got super wet, and it was lucky we decided to go because Saturday and now today are totally shot for outdoor climbing due to wetness.  Yesterday we amused ourselves by perusing the Pearl Street Mall and climbing at, you guessed it, The Spot!

The monster at the Volcom Store

Actually, Natalija and Klemen climbed at the Boulder Rock Club, but the rest of us went to the Spot where, despite the large crowd, we bouldered to exhaustion.  I’ve gotta say, the Spot absorbs people like no other gym I’ve ever been to.  No matter how many people are there, there’s always some free wall space to climb, and with the new wall things are really really spread out.  Last week we reset the left river granite wall with a bunch of new problems, so if you’re looking for something to do today, go to the Spot!

~ Skymasters ~

Skymasters, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a completely unique comp in which climbers climb across wall features that are suspended from the ceiling of a huge warehouse.  In 2008, the first year, it was sponsored by Ford, and they hung a car from the ceiling near the end of the route.  Here’s a video that explains the concept.  You can see a video of a guy climbing that first route here – Skymasters 2008, and one of a woman here – Beth Monks Skymasters 08, and a really commercial one with highlights here – Ford Skymasters Challenge 2008. The winner of 2008, Dave Barrans, was one of the British competitors at this year’s Bouldering World Cup in Vail.

In 2009 they kept the suspended structures but updated the concept to a speed/difficulty event.  Here is a video of a guy named Drew climbing not-so-fast through it – Skymasters 2009.

In 2010 they kept the speed race and suspended structures, but added a second set so there would be a head-on race instead of just a timed difficulty event.  The results were undoubtably more exciting from a spectators standpoint.  The walls were made by Walltopia–the same company who created our new wall!  It’s amazing what they are capable of with their fiberglass molding techniques.

Check out the video!

I’m sharing this because I think it’s awesome that more people are trying to think out of the box with climbing competitions.  This one looks like it’d be fun for the competitors and the spectators–who wouldn’t want to climb on swinging boxes hanging in the air?  Of course, we all think that deep-water-soloing on hanging suspended boxes would be even better, but one step at a time…

A little more Vail 2010 and a Setting Update for June 8 and 9

Daniel Woods can often be found at The Spot, or on the front page of the paper!

Late night forerunning in Vail | Jackie Hueftle

Official final scores for Men

Official final scores for Women

Jonny Hork Forerunning Women's Semis on Friday night

Oh yeah, and Rock and Ice made a semifinals highlights video HERE.

Back at the Spot, this week things finally got back to normal after several weeks of competition setting and resetting.  Though Jonny was still in Vail and recovering from Vail, and Jay Jay is in California, Garret, Carlo, Jon, and I stripped the left side of the river wall and re-set it, so all the problems are new and improved, just for you!  Also, Jon found the most comfortable seat in the house.

Jon in a bucket

Did we mention the Spot has air conditioning?  It’s cooler than outside, so see you here!

Vail 2010 Top Falls

I took a bunch of pictures, and over and over again my favorites were the ones of people falling.  Sorry guys, everyone likes to see you succeed, but some of these expressions and body positions are priceless.  Here are the best of the best, in reverse order:

12 – Last year’s winner Jonas Baumann just missing the flash of Men’s Semifinal 4

Jonas Baumann | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

…

11. Second-place finisher Tsukuru Hori falling way out from the last move on Men’s Final 2

Tsukuru Hori | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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10. Winner Daniel Woods missing the last dyno on the unsent Men’s Final 3

Daniel Woods | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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9. Canadian strong-boy Sean McColl missing the huge last move on Men’s Semi 3

Sean McColl | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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8. Alex Puccio looking for a good landing after sending Women’s Final 1

Alex Puccio | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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7. 2008 winner and World Cup Champion Kilian Fischuber not doing the dyno on Men’s Final 4

Kilian Fischuber | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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6. Again!

Kilian Fischuber | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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5. Ryan Olson taking a winger on Men’s Quali 1.  He sent 2nd 3rd try.

Ryan Olson | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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4. Wouter Jongeneelen pretty mad about missing the end dyno of Men’s Final 3. No one stuck it.

Wouter Jongeneelen | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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3. Daniel Woods sliding into home off Men’s Final 4’s starting dyno

Daniel Woods | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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2. Francois Kaiser showing some French style off Men’s Final 3

Francois Kaiser | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

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1. Daniel Woods about to belly flop on his first fall off the Men’s Final 4 dyno

Daniel Woods | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

Daniel Woods | Vail 2010 | Jackie Hueftle

ouch!!!

…

As you all know by now, Daniel eventually stuck the dyno and won the comp.  The thing is, it was clear he’d won before he even got on this problem, but he took a beating anyways because he’s a good competitor and it was good sportsmanship for him to try his hardest to send the problem and give us all a show (a feat that he almost accomplished until the final foothold dropped him off just short of the last jug on his last try).  Thanks Daniel!  Hope you weren’t too bruised up from all of this!