Climbing – Page 6 – The RV Project

Larger Than Life

By SpenserBolt Clipping, Climbing, MusingsNo Comments

The Elephant in the Room The past couple of days have been a bit of a blur. Most likely, if you’re reading this, you’re familiar with rock climbing. From that I’d deduce that you’ve heard the news about Dean Potter and his partner Graham Hunt’s fatal wingsuit flight in Yosemite (edit: read about Graham Hunt here). Many, many stirring tributes have been posted, and I’m sure that many, many useless internet comments will be/have been appended to those. I’ll leave the bulk of the eulogizing to those who knew him better, and I encourage you to spend some time studying Dean’s legacy. Yet even as I write this post, I can’t help but reflect on how influential he was to a younger me. I believe every child feels that he or she is somehow “different,” but parents and teachers and mass media cause us to become a bit smoother around the edges as we grow into adults. On one hand, a society requires a certain allegiance to order, but on the other hand, nothing good ever came from people obeying conventions. I remember hearing of Dean’s controversial 2006 ascent of Delicate Arch, and thinking that he was somewhere between a genius and a total asshole. But I remember thinking, and realizing that simple concepts like Leave No Trace aren’t so simple after all. Remember 1984, and how dull and grey everything was. Dean never lost his color. In a game without rules, Dean further defied convention by inventing entirely new games. Say what you will about selfishness or…

May 20, 2015

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Who’s Your Daddy? The Life of a Climbing Father

By VikkiBouldering, Climbing, Guest PostNo Comments

Hi, I’m Andy White. I’ll pause for a second while you ask yourself, “who the hell is Andy White?” Well, in the broad scheme of the climbing world, I’m not really someone who’s all that important or well known. Yeah, I’ve penned guidebooks and magazine articles, have been part of a few bouldering film projects, have put up hundreds of boulder problems in our region, manage our local bouldering blog, created and organize our local, annual bouldering festival, act as head routesetter at our gym and get the opportunity to serve as an ambassador for some terrific climbing companies – all while performing my “real job” as a full-time teacher. Still, I know there are many other people out there who have done much of the same, while also crushing harder than I do. I guess what gives me something to talk about is the fact that I sometimes manage to do these things, with varying degrees of success, while also playing the all-important, and at times, climbing-antagonistic role of father. This madness all started a few years back, when upon our return from yet another carefree and blissful trip to Bishop, Staci and I found out our little family would be growing by one. After all the initial excitement and happiness, I have to admit, I started to think about how this would affect climbing… yes I have a problem. I’d seen many friends and strong climbers take a step back from climbing after having kids, and I was…

May 5, 2015

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Everything Real Big

By SpenserBolt Clipping, Musings, Trip Journal7 Comments

For more frequent updates, video clips, and photos, follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Also, there’s a little teaser clip at the bottom of this post. Enjoy! It’s truly hard to believe that we’ve been doing this travel/climb/document thing for over 3 years now. Year 1 was a bit of a dizzying doozy. Year 2 was when we first stepped into the world of semi-professional media. Year 3 was the year of Shit or Get Off The Pot. Year 4 is the year of Love. Jumbo Love. For the past 4 weeks, we’ve been living at Casa Mike in Las Vegas. Ethan, Georgie, Vikki, and myself are here with the main goal of going up to Clark Mountain and filming Ethan on what is arguably the hardest sport route in North America, Jumbo Love 5.15b. Side goals include Georgie sending 1000 Churches 5.13a, and myself sending Jumbo Pumping Hate 5.14a, both at Clark’s 3rd tier. What’s It Like Up There? Everything about Clark is bigger and badder. We are out the door by 8:30. It takes a bit less than an hour to get to the Yates Well exit, and another 30-40 minutes to drive the infamous 4×4 road to the parking lot. The Third Tier (AKA The Monastery, not to be confused with the several other crags with the same name) is less than a mile from the parking lot as the crow flies, but the hike takes about 40 minutes. The first section is an uphill trail of increasing steepness, leading to the…

April 26, 2015

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Relationship Redux

By VikkiBolt Clipping, Climbing, Trip JournalNo Comments

Spenser and I have been together for almost 6 years and living in a 6×10 foot trailer for the last 3. Spenser carries the heavier things, primarily drives the truck, and snags things that are out of my reach. I do most of the cleaning, organizing, and picking stuff up off the ground. We logically took on these roles, and this seems to happen in every relationship, romantic or otherwise. We all play a specific role in our jobs, our friend circles, our families. Whether you’re the black sheep, the prom queen, or the jokster – you fall into a role, you become an expert, you form habits, and build patterns of behavior – and, even if these habits make you unhappy, they are still hard to break. Like I mentioned last time, you get comfortable and you settle into your part. Some people are happy and fulfilled in this comfort zone, others (like me) are not. I believe that you are meant to play certain roles – for example, Spenser will always be able to reach higher than me, as I’m not willing to wear to 12 inch heels, ever. But, there are other roles that I don’t want to be typecast to, comfort zones I want to get out of for example we order a toy when we read the anal vibrator reviews and we wanted to try something new that we both would like. Because of this, when we left for Spain, I had high expectations for myself. I didn’t want to relinquish myself to…

April 15, 2015

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Projects, Projects, Film Projects

By SpenserBolt Clipping, Climbing, Trip Journal2 Comments

In the time of services like KingGreen.com, natural landscapes are seldom appreciated. The region of Catalunya is like a limestone analog of the US Southwest’s sandstone landscape, with flat-topped mountains guarded by sheer cliffs, a Mediterranean climate, and tall pines in place of diminutive pinyons. The result is a less dramatic but far more intricate topography, made more marvelous by the traces left by myriad cultures throughout the centuries. Wandering the harsh landscape around the Four Corners fills one with a sense of desolation. Driving the pleasant and hospitable countryside of Tarragona fills one with a sense of calm and well-being. Both have ample evidence of ancient human habitation, the former of the Stone age and the latter of every age from prehistory to the present. Above all, the Spanish countryside feels tranquilo. We have fallen into a rhythm here. We wake and make coffee, not too early and not too late. James Lucas, who sleeps on the couch, usually gets out earlier than us. We might do a little work in the morning, we might walk around the corner to the bakery and produce market where our California Spanish facilitates simple transactions and friendly smiles (Catalan is a complete mystery to us). We eat simply and generally healthily. When we feel ready, we pile into a small car and drive on small roads to Siurana, a small distance away. We warm up, we climb. We enjoy the spectrum of color as the sun sets over Cornudella de Montsant, and…

March 8, 2015

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Spain, Day 1- Star-struck, Awe-struck.

By SpenserBolt Clipping, Climbing, Trip JournalNo Comments

Day 0- Awake at dawn; an empty international terminal at SFO; some hours to Newark; some more to Barcelona. We’re damn good at road tripping, but flying internationally is a whole ‘nother story. Spain, we’re coming for your limestone!!! Eventually!! A video posted by @thervproject on Feb 20, 2015 at 4:06pm PST Somewhere in there we watched Boyhood, which is not to be missed. Bleary-eyed, we got stamps in our passports (one can approach the Fresno,CA family attorney in case of any troubles regarding the immigration) and stumbled to baggage claim. I had to lie down on the floor, after virtually no sleep and 12 hours in an upright and locked position; some friendly Spanish airport police checked on me to make sure I wasn’t passed out. I suppose we looked haggard. No sooner were we deposited in a foreign land – my California Spanish feeling clumsy in Catalunya – than we run into a Chattanooga foursome in the airport café. Shortly thereafter, we are greeted by Ethan, who’d just dropped off Ben. It was a smooth handoff of Americans. 2 cafés con leche, a trip to the biggest grocery store I’ve ever seen, and a 90-minute drive later, we arrived in Cornudella De Montsant. Keeping our eyes open was difficult. We slept for most of the afternoon, I went for a run, we ate a gigantic bowl of salad, and slept for another 10 hours. Our first full day in Spain was a Sunday. The sun shone, the air was…

February 25, 2015

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Fighting the Fear, Part Deux

By VikkiBouldering, Climbing, Staying Healthy, The Interior, Trip JournalNo Comments

I have so many emotions when it comes to Bishop. It was one of the first places I ever climbed outdoors and it hooked me. I had been climbing for less than a year and Bishop made me truly fall in love with bouldering. The boulders are tall and scary, but the landings are flat and the approaches short. And the backdrop. It’s just an incredible atmosphere out there. It can also be chossy and grainy and sharp – and I love all of it. After climbing mostly indoors for the past couple months and setting some new standards for myself, I was ridiculously excited for our Bishop trip this past week. It was going to be as crowded as a Justin Beiber concert because of President’s Day, but we were going with a good crew and planned on just accepting the masses, or running away and climbing in more obscure locations. Before leaving for Bishop, I knew a few problems I wanted to get on, but nearly any problem in Bishop forces me to face my fear of falling. Spenser had mentioned that I should try the namesake problem on the Bowling Pin boulder. To be honest, I didn’t really take him seriously. I had a clear recollection of feeling like I was eons away from doing it last time I tried. It was decently steep, crimpy, and tall. Oh, and the nice slab finish. Ya right I did, however, realize that this was a perfect problem for me to project. It is within a doable grade range with…

February 21, 2015

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Planning the Training Plan

By SpenserClimbingNo Comments

This is a piece I wrote for Mojagear.com (original here). Check them out if you need some gear, or just something to read to get you psyched to use the gear you already have. Last time, I mentioned that we are training for some fairly big goals. I’m going to gun for my first 5.14, Jumbo Pumping Hate at Clark Mountain, CA. Vikki is trying to take down the boulder problem that is largely responsible for how you and I see bouldering now: Midnight Lightning. She’s also trying to send Nat’s Traverse, a classic urban bouldering testpiece in Berkeley, CA. (The links for the latter two will take you to videos of the problems.) Before I start talking about the sets and reps and exercises, it’s worth a few words to explain why we’re training, and why we’re training the way we are. The Past I’ve been climbing for a little over 10 years now, starting when I was 19. Unlike the Ondras, the Megos’, the Sharmas, or the Raboutous, I didn’t have the good fortune to start climbing at a young age. While I’ve been lucky enough to avoid major soft-tissue trauma (I’m mostly talking about finger pulleys here), I don’t have the same natural tendon strength and flexibility as someone who grew up on the sport. Vikki’s the same, only worse…she only started climbing at age 23! When I started climbing in college, I fell in love with it and spent my time obsessing about how I could get…

February 13, 2015

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Fighting the Fear

By VikkiClimbing, Staying Healthy, Training, Trip Journal2 Comments

“Discomfort is a common barrier to hard work. Usually, hard work is unpleasant. In addition to the obvious aversion to pain and suffering that tempts climbers to give less than their best, athletes are also encouraged to “listen to their body” or “back off at the first sign of injury.” These pieces of advice, while fundamental and necessary, create a murky line that atheletes are reluctant to cross for fear of injury or wasted effort. The solution to this conundrum is for each athlete to incrementally push ever so slightly beyond their comfort zone, monitor the effects, and then analyze the results. If all goes well, the athlete can push that much further beyond her previous limits the next time around. Though it may sound complicated, this is relatively straightforward to do with diligent application of the previously discussed training principles and contributing factors. This methodical approach to progressive overload is the essence of this training program” – The Rock Climber’s Training Manual. Spenser mentioned that we’ve set some lofty goals. In my mind I’m like this: but I’m actually usually like this: Sigh. Fear. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of crossing the line. Fear of disappointing. That simple four letter word tends to hold each of us back in its own way. When it comes to climbing, I realized a while back that the fear of getting hurt (often exhibiting itself as fear of falling) prevents me from trying hard. Until now, I really never wanted to do anything about…

February 11, 2015

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Setting Goals

By SpenserClimbing, Trip Journal3 Comments

Wow, where to start? I sat down to write a blog post about what we’ve been up to lately, but there’s hardly any way to begin it because everything I want to address is linked forward and backward and sideways and it’s all exciting but still up in the air. Right now I’m sitting in the office of our friend Lindsey’s house, for whom we’re watching over things and collecting mail in Berkeley. We’re not far from Berkeley Ironworks, which is great because Vikki and I are working our way through the Rock Prodigy training program. This ain’t no kinda new year resolution, neither…see, we’ve got goals. We even spent several days in the gym in Chattanooga to get in our ARCing and hangboarding. Those goals I mentioned come with what I would call a good chance of failure. Vikki’s goal is to climb Midnight Lightning and Nat’s Traverse (both very solid at V8). I’m going to skip 5.13b-d and try to send Jumbo Pumping Hate (5.14a) at Clark Mountain. Yeah! Sports-climbing! http://vimeo.com/117974391 That’s nothing compared to the goal of a certain someone with whom we’ll be traveling to Clark. The spark that kicked off our training was Ethan wanting to train for Jumbo Love, a route he’s tried in the past with some success. We jumped at the opportunity to film one of the hardest and most impressive routes in America, and I got excited about the prospect of trying its younger brother. The three of us share a tendency to flit from one thing to another, so the theory…

January 29, 2015

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