Some Inane Games

Fall is here and mixed with totally crappy days, have been some sunny, albeit windy days. Unfortunately, I have very few windows through which I can sneak away anymore so I have to take what I can get. This has lead to some pleasant and unpleasant outdoor sessions. The Antelope Boulder is always waiting to extract skin and power, it gets roasted from 1:00 to about 3:30 with sun so it can be great on a sunny but cold wintery day. The wind tends to blow at times and due to being very exposed sitting on a ridge it gets blasted when its blowing. Clint and I were determined to get in a session so we persevered.

Cold and Windy Day at the AB from Mike Snyder on Vimeo.

The Billings crew came again last weekend with Joel and headed to the Sphinx area. They had warmed up at the Toadstool before I showed up and were moving to The Spinxter and Coffee Skills when the kids, dog, Dave and I arrived. It was downright cold when the sun went behind the clouds so warming up was difficult. The rock was super sticky and I manged to do Fuck Germain V7 on my first attempt but couldn't manage Mini Cave Center V6 at all. When we joined the crew they were working on Coffee Skills and making a mess of things. This is a shitty problem that is an ass dragging lowball on shitty rock with all the good holds being off. There are rules about how it goes and what you can grab. All in all its kind of a joke, the only redeeming qualities are that its a lot of fun to climb and pretty hard too. Clint held the camera as the batterries were running out.

Coffee Skills V6 from Mike Snyder on Vimeo.

We went up to the Holy Horizontals Boulder and played on the brilliant V3 tummy turner of the same name. Plenty of pads made the going for the last throw pretty casual though Clint and I were the only ones who sent. The camera died as I perched on top leaving me with nothing from here on. We then turned to the V5 on the left arete, Joel was psyched to flash this problem as I think it suited him to a tee. The Hueco Wall was next and we found the Wannabe V6, V5 getting a sliver of sun - perfect. This problem is very good and though a bit tweaky, people seem to enjoy it. Art and Joel were very close but ultimately had to walk away before sending. The rest of the Billings boys took down the climbs to the right, Smiley V0 and Terrible Twos V3, then they all headed out. It was so nice at this point and my kids were having fun, Clint and I decided to do some of the roof problems on the Red Garden Boulder. A pretty damn good day.

A bit a Bouldering

It has been a while since checking in and honestly not much has been happening in the way of climbing with me lately. A new climbing unfriendly schedule, three snowstorms with weather like February, and a cold have contributed to the decline. I have not been back to my sporty project on the granite and now fear the Bureau of Rec. may have helped themselves to my draws - bastards! It is their land and I had no intentions of leaving them there for this long so we shall see what is there when I can return. I have slowly lost my power and psych for climbing and am trying to chart a course of training activity for what could be a long cold winter.

Fortunately all is not lost, and with a call from Clint to tell me the Billings crew was coming for a Saturday session, I checked the weather and promptly secured a sitter for the afternoon (thanx Kerry!). Joel, Nate, Ben, Mike, Miles and Angela showed up shortly after 10 Saturday morning and finding 60 degree temps they were psyched. We all met at the Cornflakes boulder to warm up and though I felt my role may be more of a guide and videographer for the day, once I got warmed up, I felt pretty good and was having to much fun climbing to shoot anything. After running through the standard problems on Cornflakes we moved over to the Fishhead Boulder and did Tuna Town and The Bludgeoning, both of which are V5, one really hard and the other a gimmie.

Joel mentioned he would like to try Studs, a V8 a little higher up the mountain and with everyone warmed up, we hopped in the vehicles and headed up the switchbacks to begin our quest. Now Studs is a great problem but it sits right next to the Spear Point Boulder which is difficult to walk past with out your jaw dropping. The boys were psyched and with a quick problem spraydown and warning of small hold sharpness, they set to work. Spearchucker a great but painful V4 was first and after several successes we moved to Babies For Breakfast V7. This sandbagged sideways crimpfest repelled all but the mighty Clintone who fired it for his first time with the quickness, too bad I didn't have my camera running. We then moved to my longtime project, the Spearpoint Crack, a striking diagonal line begining in the center of the face and trending up and right. I surprised myself by doing the first move 5 out of 6 tries, which is usually very difficult for me, and of course falling a few moves higher due to my typical lack of core strength. At V9 this climb ranks in the middle of the 7 climbs on this face. Tribal Vibrations V11, the undone sit to the Crack and the right to left link up of Spear Chucker into Babies into Hoedown Throwdown (also undone) are significantly harder.

With the painfest over we headed to Studs and nestled the pads into the snow under the problem. I absolutlely love this problem, it is nearly horizontal and involves compression, big moves and slopers - dig it! I manged to do it my first try and fire the crew up, but being cold and in the shade it was gonna take a while for some more sends. Everyone had started to feel the chill and after trying a bit we decided to head down the hillside to find some sun.

We chose the Maze area and with a lot of great moderates to pick from we managed to send a number of good problems including The Gym V5, Sugar Pie V6, Medusa V5, Perseus V4, Crucified Serpent V1 and most everything on the Hueco Simulator Boulder. Also I did manage to finally shoot some vids for your viewing pleasure. Hope you enjoy.

The Billings Crew visits Cedar Mountain from Mike Snyder on Vimeo.

Shut Down

Bouldering, Sport Climbing and most other out door activities have been halted today for what may turn into a week or more of early winter. Rain and cold are supposed to give way to snow tomorrow. I am not ready for this, but alas the changing of the seasons are upon us.

I have put six tries into my granite sport route in the Lower Canyon to no avail. I have good sequences figured out and have one hung the route 4 times now pushing my high point higher each time I try it. I need to be good and rested to do this route and with regular bouldering sessions every other day I can't seem to recover enough to fire this route off. My friend Aaron took some pics the first day and made some video clips with my flipshare camera, none of which were what I was hoping for. I then tried to make a video using a tripod set up 100 feet away, this was marginally better than watching paint dry. I have excerpted some photos from the vids to spare you the agony of watching it.
The last 4 clips seem slabby, compared to the bottom, though this is not the case.Some pinches and stemming down low. Cruxy turning the lip, though not super hard, you are pretty pumped.

Again, wrestling with the lip.

I planned on climbing the Scoop route on Saturday morning, and with Clint in tow we showed up to 40 degree windy and shady conditions at the base of the route. No go for this geezer, I wouldn't even pretend to be that tough. So Clint and I raced up Cedar to join Dylan, Clint had his sights set on Two Face one of the best V7's on the mountain or any mountain for that matter. One of the warmups here is called Batman, a long V4 traverse that magically switches boulders to top out. A very unorthodox thing to do in bouldering, Cody boulderers did not invent this idea, but we definitely advocate it. People seem to hate traverses and the concept of switching boulders during a climb, too bad because this is a gem. I captured the reclusive Dylan Etscorn for his 100th or more lap on this problem.

Dylan Etscorn climbs Batman V4 from Mike Snyder on Vimeo.

We have been hitting up Drews new area around Dining at the 'Y'. The High Boulder, the Pioneer boulder, the Cougars Den and the Dime Lady Boulder all make worthy additions to our Boulder Garden. Also Danscaping saw multiple repeats and may settle in to the V5 range. I finally climbed on the black streak on the Dragon Force Boulder and could do it from the stand but adding a proper sit start will be damn hard. The stand has V3ish moves to get on and then a handful of big moves up runnels to the top. The Dragon Force problem itself had some action too, with Clint solving the exit which itself is a V3 sit start. You can start lower in the cave for something in the V11 range, a fine FA waiting for some big guns. Also, I shot some footage of Drew caressing the Megarete, another fine new addition.

Drew Haman climbs Megarete V2 from Mike Snyder on Vimeo.

Drew is Industrious

A week or more has passed and I have had several bouldering sessions resulting in many new problems. Drew Haman has been hard at work climbing problems he has not done, building trails and scrubbing new boulders and putting up new problems. Between Drew and Dan, it would seem we are having another surge of development which always gets me psyched!

Jason and I roped Drew into a tour of his new area the Driving Range, above and to the right of the Fort Boulder. This area was the result of trying to find a high trail to access the Fort Area from the Spirit Mountain Cave Road. Earlier this year Drew, Clint and myself chopped a new trail down through the forested hillside and into a new cluster adjacent to the Fort Boulder. As it turned out I was already familiar with the Driving Range boulders, having spied them during the trail building recon. Most are now landscaped and have established problems such as the unnamed warm up boulder, The Sandstone Pleasure Palace and the boulder now called the Country Club. This boulder had a golf ball and a driver near it when we found it hence the name. Drew had cleaned some holds and began to envision the climbs but hadn't had any success yet. We put in another day of cleaning and the sending began. Four short but good lines resulted with some variants as well. Here is a video we made.

The Country Club Boulder from Mike Snyder on Vimeo.

Another session above the Pre-Cleaned/Pit area with the Tuesday/Thursday crew resulted in the Megarete V2 getting a more thorough scrubbing and more sends. We also wandered up to Dragon Force and cleaned the steep arete to the left which resulted in Danscaping a short but cool V6-ish problem with a viscious slopey top out with dab potential. I went back with Jason and Dave for Jason to try it and made another video.

Danscaping V6 from Mike Snyder on Vimeo.

Meanwhile Drew has spent the last two days hacking a new series of trails around Lewistown Pharmacy and has unearthed a bunch of new stuff to climb as well. There is a corridor in particular that I had been meaning to get back to that apparently now has several new problems. Psyched!! Fall bouldering season is gaining momentum.

On a last note I am reluctant to let the sport thing go just yet, so I finished bolting a steep route on the granite in the lower canyon. This is a line I began a couple years ago but just never got to finish it. As it turns out its quite steep with side pulls, underclings and pinches. I TR'd it today and with a little help from Meg, figured out a sequence that is funky but works pretty well through the steep scoop section. I slammed in 8 bolts and cleaned many exfoliated potato chippy flake thingies. One more day of cleaning prep and I may have a new rockstar of a climb. I sure hope I can climb this little beastie. More on that as it unfolds.

Goodbye to a friend

Bobby Model passed away yesterday evening from complications due to an illness. Bobby lived an amazing life and fought back adversity from a near death accident several years ago. I was glad to have had time to get to know him over the years and am now sad I didn't visit him more often during his rehabilitation in Cody over the last 8 months. My family and I will miss his spirit and kindness. He was an inspiration in so many ways for many people. Rest in Peace

A little More

I have made some peace with the demon that is my urge to climb. I feel like I have spent more time this summer chasing around trying to get things done and have found a bit of success. This in no way quenches the hunger the demon possesses, but seems to distract it for a while, hopefully enough to regroup and shift gears. This is good because as sport climbing season comes to a close, the fall chill brings bouldering season.

The boulders typically see very little change as far as our local boulderfield goes. Occasionally someone authors a new problem or cleans up a new boulder or some jackass partyers make a fire ring and a huge trashy mess (that the climbers clean up). This summer has been different and momentum for improvement has increased in the recent years. This summer has seen landings flattened, large intrusive stones are literally gone, and many new problems on old well established boulders have been opened. I am psyched for circuiting this fall and trying some new games. The 100 point V4 circuit list has been made and now we have to go put it to the test. A similar traverse circuit has been bantered about and those with a bit of endurance are eager.

After warming up the other day at the Ethiopian we wandered next door to the Starvin Marvin Boulder to run through the fun problems it offers. We had a good crew so we shot some video and though it is not in the footage I managed to snag the FA of the link up Starvin Ape which we figured at V7. I had tried this on and off over the years but could never manage the Ape Index throw after crawling down into it, I just had to dig a little deeper. Here is the clip.

Starvin Marvin Boulder from Mike Snyder on Vimeo.

I took the girls to Tensleep on Saturday because Meg said she was too busy to join us. Maya wanted some proof that she had crossed a raging river on a log because a kid at school called her a liar. We made a video of her and Eden crossing and excerpted some snapshots for her to take to school. Of course I had my own agenda and knew Alli and Kev along with their friends from Canada would be there. Kevin and I both had our sights set on Bro Job a 5.13a link up of Slim Jim into Esplanada. I had watched Kevin last weekend as he worked Slim Jim and hoped the bottom would be pretty easy, and with a recent ascent of Esplanada, I was secretly hoping I could flash it. No luck, the bottom turned out to be pretty stinkin' hard and dammit if I didn't poop out a bolt from the end and got the beat down by the crimpy finish. The weather conspired against me and keeping my fingers warm was tough. I ended up taking a short run along the cliff to get my body temp up and then tied in to send it on my third try.

Linea Alba

Someone has given the climbing community a great gift. This someones name is Bill Davies from Molt MT, and he has created an awesome 3 pitch sport climb in a beatiful alpine setting up Rock Creek Drainage west of Red Lodge, Montana. I mentioned the remote climb to my friend Drew Haman, who has recently moved back to town, and his eyes got wide. I knew I had found a capable partner, being that I have drug him up local multi-pitch stuff before and I know he is comfortable in the backwoods, due to his backcountry skiing/suffering resume.

We blasted out of town after I finished work and were on the road by 1:00. I figured about 7 hours round trip if all went well. The drive took an hour and forty five minutes and the hike another thirty minutes. We racked up and I set off up the bolt line not knowing how long the pitch was. The beginning was a little unnerving climbing over giant slabs of hollow rock to reach the first bolt which was up 40 feet or so. Once I got onto the more solid stone the climbing got better and I found a groove and just kept moving. The pitch was about 150 feet and seemed hardest going through the small roof at maybe 5.11-. It took me a long time to lead it, more than a half hour and Drew followed taking about the same amount of time. The second pitch is more sustained though slabby with a mid 5.11 crux section and is a little more than 100 feet total length. I led this pitch as well and it took only 15 minutes, drew followed pulling on quick draws to save time since it was getting late and cooling down. The final pitch is around 100 feet and goes through a larger roof on square cut jugs, it felt like 5.11-. Drew followed and we rapped with two 70 meter ropes down to the first anchor then to the ground.

Drew following the first pitch

The techy 2nd pitch

Looking up at the 3rd pitch with a big flake and then roof

Typical bomber anchor

This route is very well concieved, well protected and has modern bomber chain anchors. I would highly recommend trying it if you are confident leading 5.11. Two ropes are required since the first pitch is so long and 18 or more quickdraws worked well for us. Though overall a bit slabby there are several roof sections to get you good and pumped. The climbing is mostly on edges of varying sizes but occassionally you find great pockets. I believe the rock is granite though it tends to appear like limestone at times. Summer is the best time of year for this route and it gets morning sun. We were on it at 3 o'clock in early September on a perfect bluebird day and it was a bit chilly.