Peak Fall Weekend

This weekend was the peak of the fall colors here in the High Country and the weather was absolutely incredible--warm and sunny the whole time (while the rock remained crisp many places). The traffic was also at its peak. I tried to get to the Parkway via 221 from Linville and had to turn around because of the traffic jam from tourists trying to get into Grandfather Mountain (above). I also had to do another workaround to 221 later because of standstill traffic backed up for miles on 105.  We (me and Melissa) did make it out to Grandmother for a short session on Saturday (when we shoulda been studying) and I think I may be turning a corner with the shoulder. I bouldered a V3/V4 line and my shoulder feels OK today. Regardless, hope everyone got out to play this weekend.

Just a heads up of a few things to come this week on Frixtion: I went out to Misty Mountain's factory in Valle Crucis on Friday for a great tour and I'll be doing a post on the visit in 2 parts: first, a quick history of this local company and then a post showing how a Misty harness gets made. Also, I was just wading through pics from the last month and realized I've got a lot of odds and end images from short trips out that didn't deserve their own post, but together will make a nice slideshow of after-class climbing. 

Side note: While I was at Grandmother's Long Wall, I continued my test run of the Sportiva Boulder Xs, this time using them for some real climbing instead of just approach as I have been. (And don't worry, I wiped my feet off really well before stepping up to the rock.) They climbed really well; I was surprised by some of the smaller holds they would smear and edge on. This was only a V0 warm up, but it was stll a good test of their climbability. I'll be using them more and getting a review post up soon.  

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Quick Post: Social Network Update

Thanks to everybody who "liked" the Frixtion facebook page I set up a few months back. I decided to take that page down so I could put up a new one tied to its own account (the old one was part of my personal account). Anyway, I put in a new Facebook box on the right of this page, so "like" away if it pleases thee. Thanks!

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Triple Crown of the Alps: Inspiration for Whitesides

Check out Spanish climbers Iker and Eneko Pou in what might be my favorite climbing film series yet. Here's the first one, but be sure to watch them all.

SOLO PER VECCHI GUERRIERI - IKER & ENEKO POU 1 from ItalianTREK.com on Vimeo.

The quality is so top-notch, and the clear appreciation of climbing history and heritage so refreshing, that there's nothing not to like.

One highlight for me was Kammerlander's child-like exposition about the creative pleasure of seeing a line, wondering if it will go, and then actually undertaking the adventure to climb the thing. In broken English, knowing he's not doing that experience justice, he simply concludes, "It is cool, it is great."

I'll admit these climbers and climbs may seem pretty far afield. Routes like Zahir are the definition of esoteric: both top-end hard and bold. Yet it's still inspiring to learn about them. And even more so to take in the interviews with legends like Huber, Manolo and Kammerlander. Damned if they didn't light a fire under my butt to take a trip over to Whitesides.

Zachary Lesch-Huie

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Disasteroid (V6), Hound Ears

At the very end of the day on Saturday, my friend Ben Newton from Asheville decided to give Disasteroid (V6) a try. This is one of the brand-spanking new problems down at the creek boulders. Ben had been climbing all day and still really went for it...but the blank mantle top out was a bit of a challenge. I give him props for digging deep and finishing the line.


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Great Comp Pics

Wow, I just saw the great pics that Eric Heistand took at the Hound Ears comp. We kept running into each other over the course of the day, each of us trying to find interesting angles and good shots. Eric obviously has some amazing talent (and actually has a handle on accurate exposure, unlike me most of the time!). He also does a really nice job capturing the "lifestyle" moments that happen between climbs.

Check out his killer slideshow at http://www.ericheistand.com/


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Remember David versus Goliath?

From Ukclimbing.com

Chatting with one of my taller climber buddies recently, we both hit on a shared nerve: short climbers complaining about, or using as an excuse, their lack of height and reach. Admittedly, some rocks favor a taller person with more reach. However, what doesn't often get noticed or said is that other rocks favor a shorter person, with less reach. And what never gets acknowledged is the shorter person's most important advantage: lower weight.

Take a look at the photo above. It's from this year's Arco Rockmaster, in Arco, Italy, an annual gathering of the best competition climbers in the world.

See the guy on the right? That's Ramon Julian Puigblanque. You'll notice right off that Ramon Julian is short, really short. The difference is so striking in the photo it's enough to make you laugh. Ramon Julian clocks in at a whopping 5 feet, 2.5 inches tall.

Yet his dominance of the competitive circuit this year is enough to conjure images of David versus Goliath. He has absolutely dominated world competition climbing in 2010, and pretty much done the same outside as well. On the sport cliffs of Spain, for example, he's climbed and on-sighted a fat pile of routes from 5.13b to 5.15a.

Ramon Julian's two closest competitors, Paxti Usobiaga and Adam Ondra, are six inches to nearly one foot taller than he is. So how does he do it? How can he be so damn good, and yet so damn short? My answer? Weight, and secondarily, technique. Ramon Julian is exceptionally light, and he simply makes up for any lack of reach with perfect technique and total comfort in moving dynamically between holds, all of which leverages his low weight ideally against the challenge of climbing, reachy or not.

A recent live broadcast of the European Championships highlighted Ramon's skills really well. As the commentator himself confirmed, the route setting favored a climber with longer reach. Watching Ramon negotiate the route's sequences, it was obvious he was maintaining extra tension and stretching to his maximum between holds. Yet he somehow controlled the route, shaking and resting in the steep final roof, only narrowly missing the finishing jug. Paxti surprisingly only made it perhaps a third of the way up the route, stymied by the technical bottom half. And though Adam Ondra made it a good bit further, he still failed to come close to Ramon's highpoint, pumping out in the roof a number of moves from the top. Ramon's dominance was self-evident.

Next time you're stretching desperately to that just-out-reach hold, think of little Lynn Hill freeclimbing the Nose, and of 5' 2" Ramon crushing his 6' tall competitors. Theses inspiring climbers are using what they've got, shaking their money-makers, and getting to the top.

Zachary Lesch-Huie

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Rumbling Bald Boulders Friksn T Available Online

From Friksn Climbing Apparel

Well, the Frixtion blog team got some of these shirts at the comp and can tell you they are comfy and cut to make you look good. They're now available for order over at the Carolina Climbers' Coalition site. Word there is numbers are running a bit low, but more are coming in soon. Price is $20, with your money going to saving classics like French Maid, Karma Police, Shady Grove and other jaw-dropping boulder problems. Get some of these hot of the presses!

-posted by Zach LH

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Triple Crown Hound Ears Results

Did you make it onto the podium at Hound Ears? Go to http://www.triplecrownbouldering.com/results.htm to see the winners for the first leg of the Triple Crown Series. A couple special mentions: congrats to the Star Chasers and Premium Blenders for chasing boulder problem quality over V-grade quantity. Props to the first place winner in the Ancient Hardperson Category who nearly scored as well as the third place in Men's Advanced. And, finally, contemplate this number--12,523--and the rock-crushing power it took Jimmy Webb to attain it as a winning score in the Men's Open. Wow!

See you at Horse Pens 40!

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Still More Hound Ears

I keep working on the photos from Saturday as I have time. The slideshow above now has about 20 more images in it from the comp on Saturday, plus the ones from the earlier post. There's enough new ones in there that you won't be bored if you saw the last slideshow. A lot of these pics are now running on climbing.com here, which is pretty cool. If I can't climb because of this durn injury it's nice to at least feel like part of the community by recording the day.

Also, Zach LH wrote up a great review of the event, which is now also on climbing.com here.



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Hound Ears 2010 Pictures

Hopefully I'll have time later today to flush out this post on Hound Ears. Until then, I thought I'd get up some of the best photos from the day. I think shooting a bouldering comp poses some unique challenges: mixed lighting that changes as soon as you move from a problem to the one right next to it, tons of people in the foreground and background cluttering the scene, people cycling through climbs fast so it's hard to always dial in the right settings (and you can't ask someone to climb it again like when you're out with friends). It's pretty much point, take 2 seconds to dial in settings, shoot, and hope for the best. Anyway, I think some good shots still came out of the day. Please leave a comment if you know the names of climbers or problems where I'm missing them in the caption.


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Hound Ears 2010: Another Great Comp

From 2010.10.Hound Ears

I'm still recovering from the all-day and into-the-night event that is Hound Ears. This is a quick post so I'll just say it was an amazing day. The weather was perfect, the climbers were all psyched, and the worst injury of the day was a turned ankle. So all in all, a great time. One of the highlights for me was getting to take pics while about 3 or 4 strong climbers took turns sending Fuc Yo (V9) in a row (that's the pic above). I took about 500 photos Saturday, and it's gonna take me a while to get through 'em and sort out the best, so just consider this one a sneak preview of more to come.

In other news related to the comp, the CCC raised about $1300 for the Rumbling Bald fund through various raffles and Friksn T-shirt sales.

Update:

The slideshow of images from the 2010 comp can be seen here.





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New Project: Hound Ears

I was out at Hound Ears helping clean up in preparation for the comp today and I got to see a new area that's just been developed called the Creek Boulders. For you point-hungry monkeys, there's a new project there with a proposed grade of V10 awaiting someone with some burly (campus?) skills. It'll net you over 1400 points if you send. It's open season!

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