Gandalf himself leads the way

The Nerf Jug Project climbs out a nice roof on perfect rock and fairly easy climbing to a very hard lockoff/dyno. After ripping some skin on the sharp jug, Herm put a piece of tape over the edge. It certainly softened up the hold, but after peeling off the tape on several missed goes, I just took it off and did the move. I only did the hard move once after a lot of attempts and I would love to get back. Here are some pictures of the crew.

Herm on Black Swan V12

Black Swan climbs several hard crimping moves to a difficult lunge out right and then finishes up a classic highball and perfect rock.

Paul Dusatko on Do Not Name this Problem aka One Armed Scissor V10

Chris Craft on As Hard As They Come V9

Poudre River

In 2005 Dave Graham did the first ascent of The Story of Two Worlds in Cresciano, Switzerland. He followed up his ascent with a “manifesto” about grades, the media and climbing hard. I thought it was great that he took such a strong stance and as his problem remains unrepeated, it looks like he may have been on to something. I have reposted it here but what I am mostly interested in is if Dave, or his ideas, remain relevant 4 years later. Perhaps they have become more meaningful as time passes. The internet is changing the way we climb, for better or worse. Have sites like 8a.nu lead to upgrading, as Dave suggests? I would argue there is little incentive to take lower grades on 8a. There are a number of climbers who take a very conservative approach to grades and they don’t give their opinion on the site. Does it matter that grades have become inflated, as long as things are consistent? Unlike running, pole vaulting, or swimming there is no objective standard to measure one’s progress. This is part of the beauty of the sport. The ineffable qualities that factor into climbing a rock are mostly why I climb. The subtleness of a foot placement, or the myriad intricacy of fitting two organic structures together (your body and the rock) leave, like an amazing work of art, a vast array of interpretations. Trying to objectify these things is of never-ending interest to myself and many climbers out there. There is never one right answer, but always much fodder for the thoughtful. Anyways, here are Dave’s thoughts, which I think are worth a read (or reread) on their own. I’d love to hear yours.

The new 8C standard 20/01/05

Dave Graham has opened The story of two worlds something that he describes as the new standard for 8C. Here’s a part of what Dave has to say about the problem and grading.

“I changed some of the grades on my scorecard, because I thought they were incorrect. They weren’t consistent with my present views of how hard certain things seem. Didn’t make much sense to me. They were heavily influenced by what other climbers thought. I have posted what things feel like for me. Its my personal comparative analysis. My abstraction.

So, those new grades are just my grades, not the real grades, not the world grades. I don’t want to offend anyone. I just want to climb REALLY hard. Maybe 8C finally. Real 8C.

I think this is the hardest bloc yet, and I think it can change the mal-progression we can see when we are seeing millions of 8B+ and 8C blocs climbed everywhere. Now its just about comparison. The big point is REVOLUTION, hell with the media, hell with 8a.nu (don’t take that personally, it’s a symbol of the people who abuse the concept from the page), hell with climbing big numbers to keep yourself sponsored, now, it’s time to climb the REAL numbers, and really progress our sport. The Story of Two Worlds, proves that point.”

We at 8a.nu believe Dave’s right. It’s about time we, the media, and we, the climbers, start to focus on honesty rather than ego-inflating that leave a bad after taste…

From his new home in Ticino, Switzerland David Graham explains why he has retro downgraded many of his hardest sent boulder problems:

8a.nu support the thoughts and think it’s brave of David to officially state this opinion. Some times grading is like the fairy tale of the Emperor’s new clothes One should also understand that David actually drops in the ranking when he downgrades his own ascents. The 8a scorecard is just a game and it will never be an absolute thruth regarding who’s the best – but it can sure be a good motivator!

“As a climbing community, we shouldn’t be naive. The media has a big influence on the grades we see for high end stuff. 8a.nu has a big influence on the grades we have for everything. Are we climbing 8C boulders and 9a routes? How did we do that? Do we comprehend as a community a system of grading? As a community, are we confident in our current theories about the complex abstraction of high-end grades?

I changed a lot of my ideas about grades throughout my experiences climbing. I learned a lot about how to compare personal experiences and deduce their relativity. I think its amazing, as a community, how everyone involved, can appreciate the attempt to articulate (with a little number) how challenging something felt, or how one experience compared to another.

Brian Capps sends the Skeleton key V11

Saturday was somewhat of a low motivation day, but I did find a great project that we somewhat prepared until a rainstorm came. It’s amazing that big proud lines like this are still just hundreds of yards off the road and I look forward to going back and checking it out again sometime.

The project climbs the prominent black streak as is probably V7-V9 or so.

There are three other problems I would love to finish in Joe’s: Black Lung, Blackout and The Masterpiece. It’s always great to get out of Boulder this time of year, as The Park and Evans are done, and race across the desert of Utah.
The open road calls again…

A Steep Learning Curve by Max Zolotukhin

Also, check out this classic video of some free soloing in Russia.

And Dan Osman before he was killed in rope jumping attempt in Yosemite.

Skeleton Key V11

Rylan Marshall sends The Gentleman’s Project V11

Of a more interesting note is that Paul Robinson made the second ascent of another B3 boulder, James Litz’s Finger Hut direct, which Paul called V13. Here is an email I received from a climber in Squamish:

“Hey Jamie,
Speak of the devil:
I mentioned The Proposal Extension in your B3 Boulders thread as you remember. Well, looks like Sean McColl did the second ascent just recently!!
From Sean’s 8a.nu:
09/10/13 Proposal Extension Squamish Proposal into tension extension(7C) Is it 8B? who knows… 2nd asc.
He graded it 8B. Worth noting he considers Proposal “Hard” V12.
No longer B3 problem I guess…”

In the matter of two weeks or so three of these problems have been repeated! Awesome. It’s great to see that other climbers are psyched on the idea and congrats to Paul and Sean, who are both very talented climbers.

Right Fork, Joe’s Valley

Midnight Lightning from Deep Roots Media – Dane Henry on Vimeo.

First of all, it’s awesome to see bouldering get some attention and have it be well explained in the mainstream media.   Secondly, I thought I would share a story of a time when I was in Yosemite, bouldering with Tommy Caldwell.

At the time I wasn’t even aware that Tommy bouldered much, but his strength was obvious as he would run daily laps on difficult Valley testpieces Thriller V10 and The Force V11. I was with Angela Payne and she was trying to do a rare female ascent of Midnight Lightning. Tommy gave us a great warmup tour of the boulders in Camp 4. We took a little break and eventually made our way over to the famous problem. Our campsite was about 100ft away. We grabbed our pads and Tommy went to get his. It soon became apparent to the camping climbers that not only were people about to climb on Midnight Lightning, Tommy Caldwell was about to climb on this problem and a whispering crowd gathered around. Tommy assured us he had several methods and I was confident he demonstrate with flawless execution. We arranged the pads, Tommy confidently chalked up, pulled up on the starting holds, and his foot slipped unexpectedly and he totally just ate it. There may have been a collective gasp from the crowd, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Check out this video of Tommy Caldwell cruising Midnight Lightning in Yosemite, with a sound byte from first ascentionist Ron Kauk.