Mckenzie Pond Video

I was lucky enough to get up to Mckenzie pond for a quick session a few weeks ago. I havn't been there in over a year now and I had a project on the last boulder in the set. The last time I tried Shtickums I chickened out at the top and came down, this year I had to do it. Here is a video I made of the day, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqCqjLNEBlg, I also recorded Cooker, and Brock Lee Soares, two more fun problems.

New Videos Up

New videos of some of the classics at the Rumbling Bald in North Carolina are up now on Youtube. Check it out Here. Also there's a quick video of some of the fun boulder problems in Prescott's boulder spot, Groom Creek.

Hueco Tanks

After a long few days of car trouble we finally made it Hueco. Just driving into the park we could tell we were in for some crazy climbing. One thing I never really realized is that Hueco is pretty much just a big mountain of boulders, there is so much climbing! We have been climbing three days now on north mountain and we have barely scratched the surface of it. One of my favorite climbs so far was most definitely the Asylum Crack, a gnarly climb that goes for about 20 or 30 feet up a nice slanting crack.

This is Andrew pulling up near what we thought of as the crux sequence. The only downfall of the climb is that you have to get past the other boulder under it that threatens to hit your back every time. It's definitely a really fun and unique climb though. Another fun problem we got on was 100 Proof Roof, a horizontal roof that comes around to what looks like 40 feet of slab afterwards.

There are a couple ways to do the roof sequence, either dyno twice, or do the first then make a couple moves that lead out right. I chose the double dyno because it was just too much fun to pass up. Unfortunately the roof part was the easiest and I couple quite pull out from under it yet, so hopefully next week it'll go. Also right nearby this problem is some of the rock art left by the native americans, really cool stuff.

It makes you realize how lucky we are that we can even climb at a place with these important historic paintings on the same rock. Well we are planning a couple more days at Hueco and the camera is charged so there'll be more of Hueco soon.

The Rumbling Bald, NC

So our sixth month trip finally started about two weeks ago. We had planned to climb at the Red for the first week or so, but when we got there it was frigid cold and the weather didn't look good, so North Carolina was next. We climbed at the Rumbling Bald, a place just a little south east of Asheville. It was really cool climbing, the rock was really nice and there were tons of really good problems. I had never done any really necessary campus moves outside, until this place, where it seemed like every other problem has it.

This one is The Leprechaun Roof, a V5 that follows a nice crack way up and then comes out the roof with some sweet campus moves. Definitely a must do if your down there.
This problem above was the Brackish One, a sweet problem right next to some serious hard stuff. It starts with a campus move off some crimps to a nice slopey ledge. The snag a heel hook and get to the ledge, which was the most fun part of the climb I think.

This one was The Dime Crack, a super fun V4 with another campus start. You head left on a nice sloping ledge then head up to a nice ledge, then some sweet loose feeling side pulls. The general consensus on this one was smaller fingers help, cause there is a small crack you can jam your fingers in right before you head up that makes it easier.

This bad boy is The Campus Problem, you start way up on a nice ledge then huck your way up to nice holds then a cakewalk top out. Super fun problem if you can reach the start hold.

This problem eluded a send from us, but it was definitely super cool. The Green Knob starts in a kind of weird position, the you get up to a ledge and do one of the coolest looking mantels you'll ever do.

Overall the Rumbling Bald is a really nice place, tons of easy stuff, and even more hard stuff so there's something for everyone. We stayed for three days but we all could have stayed longer and been happy.

Another Red River Gorge Boulder

Last weekend we had another trip down to the Red. We went back to the boulders we found a few weeks ago and played around on some of the stuff. Most of what we thought was do-able turned out to be really hard, which seems to happen a lot. But we did find some nice ones back there, this one below is a fun little slab climb directly across from the stream at the Bulldog Boulder.

It was pretty easy but the cool arcing seam made it fun. I made a video of this problem and one more that we found, you can find that and all the videos I've made here http://www.youtube.com/user/FindingRock?feature=mhum. That problem would be a good warm up for the couple of problems we found near it. No pictures of those yet because they havn't been sent so far, but we worked all the beta on a problem Brent is calling, The Shield.