Our contacts prior to arriving didn’t pan out (in all truth, Mateo Cardenas, the LT11 main man, has been overwhelmed with work), so we went to a local bouldering gym called Roca Solida. This ended up working well as we were graciously assisted by the owner, Andreas Davila. Not only did he personally take us to Sutatausa (Suta for short), he’s allowed us to climb in his gym! It’s not big, but it has a decent steep area that our local gym, Rockreation Orange County, doesn’t have. It’s been nice to make up problems. After 3 weeks in Hueco on mainly roof or steep lines courtesy Rob Guinn’s guiding through Wagon Wheel, we’re content to keep up the practice!

Jon and I doing some product demoing for Andreas at his gym, Roca Solida.

First up is our short trip to Suesca. Again, it’s a sport crag, so we pretty much just dicked around on stuff to get a workout and have fun. Here are some images of the environs and Jon bouldering the start of a short line.

heading towards the crag which is around that right hillside and beyond...

According to one of Jon’s cousins, Monica, accompanied by husband Stéfan (I’m guessing with the accent) and son Simón, the village has developed quite a bit from a small hole in the wall to some place that caters well to mountain biking, camping, hiking, picknicking and sport climbing. Upon returning we ate at a local restaurant that was quite good called Rica Pizza (and cerveza!!!). Monica said this pizza joint was literally a shack some 6 years ago. Not any more, and it was quite popular.

We have few images because Jill’s camera batteries died early on. She had bought Wasabi aftermarket batteries that were defective. We’ve bought them in the past with much success, and luckily after contacting the company they said they’d send out new ones before we head out to Europe.

It's official.

Suesca is in the north, but we stopped a few times so can’t say really how far, maybe 60+ minutes (almost 80 km). We traveled on a toll road that cost about $3.50 USD depending on the exchange rate. Here are some images, but I found doing a google search shows some excellent aerial images.

this is close to the beginning of the area

again, this is close to the start

we were a bit of a sight for those walking by... then dead batteries!

It’s hard to see in these few images, but the crag is littered with mini roofs, short sport walls interspersed amongst the vegetation and ledge systems that allow climbers or whomever to traverse higher onto the walls. Unfortunately, that’s it. Instead of one long blog, I’m going to do a bunch more shorter ones all with the same name but adding a number after. My next one will be threat level? Colombia… 2  which will have more images specifically of bouldering including video.

p.s. spanish keyboards have an accent key in place of the apostrophe, meaning all my earlier emails have accents in place of apostrophes (I wonder if anyone caught it??), not to mention different placements for the question mark, return key and left upper case key. Ugh.

Wish everyone the best climbing, health and happiness for 2012. We certainly will try our best!

the traverse starts on a big ledge at the far right side of the face. He's about to start the first crux sequence.

This face now has a left stand, a right low stand, a left sit and a right to left traverse. There might be a low right sit, but the moves are big and one hold is very poor, sandwiched between the two big moves. We shot so-so video, so I did a quick edit to give you an idea of what it’s like. Jill also climbed on it a bunch, but we some how didn’t get much video. Next time!

The crimps are stellar into the undercling part then the moves become unique. I was super psyched to send it cause it really emphasized mental focus. Then there’s the Echo Arete; I need to work more on intense energy. Ugh. But I think both Jill and I can do it once we get that match move down more solid. Here’s video of the traverse:

Back at the Shark Fin Arete, we added a few new lines, or at least repeated lines that aren’t in the guidebook. One in particular is pretty cool, actually two, a descent. On the Shark Fin boulder, we did a run and jump just to the right of the arete. It’s got a sweet “stick” move after the run to get to the sloper. Then a mantel follows but one with a high step. We’ve been “cruzin’” around in a new pair of Evolv Cruzers and also did the run and jump with them that we called, Shark Jump, j1 v3:

Jon was able to repeat a line I had done a bit ago that I thought I’d covered in the past, or thought I did. It’s only v6ish but very challenging, and it sits about 30 yards to the south starting from a huge undercling and going right and up a shallow ramp with two distinct black intrustions about half way up. I’ll find that entry or update you on it and others in the area.

Just a stone’s throw from VE, north up into the boulder field, is a hanging arete I’ve eyed for years. A month or so ago we walked through there again, and revisited its potential. It’s short, but very clean on superb stone. The problem starts at the base of the turn in the horizontal arete.

as seen from the road. this is a cropped image and the only one we have besides video. the arete appears as a shadow line just to the right of Jon in the blue shirt. At the shallow notch near the top is where the line turns back onto the slab out of sight.

The face is a slab, not over-hanging. We originally thought the line would continue out around a converging bit of stone from another boulder, but Jon sent it by turning the arete with a heel hook. It’s 6 sustained moves until you can stand on the heel and reach for a jug crimp. Jill did moves 1 and 2, I did moves 1, and 4-6. Jon couldn’t give it a solid rating as pinching the arete felt fine for him but extremely hard for us. That created a predicament where I felt the same thing when I sent the Koge Traverse, v8??? (which I’ll blog about shortly), and he didn’t repeat it. I felt it was probably as hard as Relic (rated v9 which we both thought to be an 8), so we concluded that what we’d rate the Traverse and Arete the same! OK, a bit ridiculous, but we simply had nothing else to go by.

They both could be 9, but my gut feeling is the Echo Arete is a real 9, and the Koge Traverse probably an 8 like the Relic. Here’s the Echo Arete (btw, we called it that cause if you holler you get an echo from the other crag opposite the road! Kinda cool):

Here are two outtakes of Jill and I struggling on move 2:

Here is it’s location, approximately, from the road (to the right out of the picture is Velvet Elvis):

the echo arete sits below the lechlinski cracks and dark amber near the base.

seen during the day, the line would be quite good without that boulder, and a bit heady. as it is, it's a good line. Roadside traverse, v2?.

That day, the crack was the third line done, forth tried. Earlier during daylight hours, we focused on 3 lines on a boulder I’m calling the Koge boulder. A little bit of history on the name: back in the day, 1950′s, my dad was fixing IBM (I’ve Been Moved) military computers on Maui, and a fellow workmate, Harold Uehara, a surfer, was so darkened by the sun surfing that the locals nicknamed him Koge, or burnt rice. So, as you will see in the videos and stills, the inside face is quite exquisite patina the color of, well, burnt rice! We warmed up on the right edge or arete. This sure could have been done, but the arete was flaky. I’m calling it the Koge arete, but truth is it’s basically a slab with sidepulls as the video will show. Not in the video is the start, an easy mantel-like move to a huge, flat ledge. It’s good stuff.

Jill about to commit to the face off the ledge, Koge arete, v0.

... ready to slab climb. It could also be 5.9. We had no idea. the landing is flat save a 1 foot tall boulder about 3 feet back from the lip.

This next line was first climbed as a stand, then as a sit.

Update: Because I canned the two videos of the Koge face showing the stand, you don’t get to see a kufiyya in action, just a pair of hoodies when Jon joined us. Originally, I wrote about Jill and I climbing on this boulder on a previous night; my new beanie was too heavy and intense, so I used a kufiyya instead that I’d used during the daytime to block the sun. When we returned a few days later with Jon, we warmed up on the Roadside traverse, v2?, shooting (sorta) better footage of Jill sending (again, originally we had video of myself and a kufiyya but shot only from one angle):

And here is the Koge face from the sit (stand is maybe v4, and sit v7??). 

day time shot of the line going up and left, through an undercling flake and past a thin seam/crack, towards the sunlight

Here is a much higher quality large file if you are interested:

Jill did well on what seemed to be reachy moves to an undercling; she now has to work out that long reach to the lip! Having removed the two video clips, I replaced it with this FA piece we edited (we had better footage of Jon, but … messed up the topout footage). It’s a fun video of our efforts.

Another problem, that we may not go back to, but worth noting (maybe ???) is this power move problem. That hold with my hand on it, is way under to the right behind Jill’s right shoulder (second photo) under the belly, and the move she’s trying is huge. Doing both moves to get to a big crimp past the top left of the photo would require specific contrived moves only because there’s not enough room to actually climb it naturally with any swing. It was also an epically short 50 meters to reach.

probably strong enough as I hung off it.

I mentioned the Shark Fin area also, and this is another place we forgot to cover, having a few good lines done, including a tall mean corner that Aron did then KD, and myself. A tall slab Aron did, and a blunt corner I added, and two other cool lines. I’ll add a Timeline piece soon.

Oh, one more thing. This next problem resides on the far left of the Koge boulder up against another boulder, left of the face problem. Jon climbed it, sorta. He dabbed twice, and we walked away. Feel free to do the problem for the first time. The video doesn’t show it well, but he brushes the left boulder maybe twice with his clothes.

On the north end of the main formation resides a small boulder with a distinct vertical crack on the south side (actually, from memory of an older visit, that crack goes all the way through but is short on the north end). These we talked about here. Around the eastern corner (NE corner of the formation) from this crack boulder are a nice cluster of boulders that I’ll call the Nox boulders.

Our previous visit here we did only 3 lines, all of which may have been done before. This time we added 4 more lines, all of which we think are FA’s. First up is what we had called the Shield boulder: a plate of harder and finer stone not unlike the face of Alexandria, but MUCH smaller and shorter! There’s a left and right line called the Left Shield and the Right Shield that we posted about in the last blog before the summer break here. The slab may not have been done though. It’s quite thin.

The obvious shield on the Shield boulder. The arete, called the Sword Arete, in the background on the left was also done this time around as a low start.

Here, I'm confounded by my inability to stand on my feet. I think my toes got tired. Jon didn't rate it but maybe v4-5.

In this next image, i’m about to climb the corner line, but in the background to the left is a cool short crack called Bikini Chainmail. We did that line a year ago on… 11-14-2010 reviewed in the above link.

about to do the moonshine arete with the Bikini Chainmail at the left behind the moonshine boulder

And here I’m climbing the Moonstone Arete:

And the image and video below is of our afternoons’ crowning achievement: the Nox Mantel, v3.

Jill testing her reach on the first move. It's definitely a feel-good problem to send. The "downclimb" is equally worthy!

After the Nox, we traversed around the formation to another potential line on stellar rock, doing stellar moves in a shallow corridor. As night arrived, we donned the headlamps and started work. We’ll update you with images and some video hopefully during the month of december. We were pretty tired and no one wanted to pick up a camera as we exchanged attempts, move by move, on what appears to be a rather difficult line.

One last bit of media to offer you shows Jon on the second of the Sword Arete, v5?. I can’t say much about the rating as I did it second or third try during our warmup and Jon had to work it a fair bit. Jon thought it a tad harder than I did; therefore, I’m basically guessing. Of course I couldn’t stand on my toes as Jon fired the Shield Slab second or third go, so I was probably a bit angst and wanted revenge!  The video, though, shows what you’re dealing with. Nice line, nice rock except for the heel hook I cleaned and the right smears,  all at the start.

The file sizes for the videos are rather large, or so it seems to me. If you prefer smaller file sizes, let me know and I’ll make sure there’s a small one for viewing too.

We left off blogging at the end of last season without posting about the lines at the Sanctuary boulder. It’s a bit of hike, but mostly flat. It’s out in the far east at the Virgin Isles/Islands. We will also be adding video more often, but this post is about zippers: something I came up with that works well for chalked and poorly running zippers.

After heavy use, the zippers seem to get really clogged with chalk, and they no longer move smoothly. I decided on a fix that probably would have been better had I performed it on the bag new. I didn’t. So to fix that what I did was use a can of compressed air and blew out as much chalk as I could in the zipper. I noticed that I needed a fair amount of spraying to clean them out, and in doing so, I found the can to get really cold and ultimately lost its pressure. Having little to no experience with these compressed air cans, I can’t say what that means, other than they seemed to suck when it came to doing a lot of spraying.

In the end, I just switched to using a second can (they came in a two pack) to finish the job. After that, I sprayed a wax-based lubricant used for bike chains and made sure it covered all of the zipper, inside and out. The brand I used was really watery and so easy to overspray.

This picture shows the zipper after being cleaned and waxed. It’s been about 4 months and they still run fairly well.

Next up… the Sanctuary boulder.

With all three of us pretty out of shape, we began by warming up on some nice classic Josh-style slabs on the north side of a large boulder we dubbed the Straw Hat Boulder… these problems were pretty fun and a great way to get the feet re-accustomed to the friction and the body again finding its balance without handholds to speak of!

Jill on the easiest slab line the Straw Hat, V0- which starts on the far left side of the boulder, off of the small boulder Jon is standing on in this image

Rob climbing Behind the Straw Hat, V0+, which begins on the lowest point from the ground in the middle of the boulder and trends left

Jon styling the crux highstep move of Get Up Stand Up, V2, which begins as Behind the Straw Hat but goes up and trends right

From here we continued around to the northwest side of the boulder pile. Our object of desire? The Moon Boulder with its beautiful rock and decently tall lines.

Rob sending the Shadow Arete, V4, in an image that drastically understates the size of this large boulder

A better angle, showing Jon sending Shadow Arete. This line begins low on the arete and continues straight up and right to the arete

The images below show the lower moves on Shadow Arete and Jellyfish (both V4), which share a start with hands matched low on the rail where Jill’s left heel is placed. Shadow Arete continues straight up and right along the arete, while Jellyfish goes up and left, continuing left to meet an irregular crack/seam.

The middle section of Jellyfish, where it diverges from Shadow Arete and moves left across the face of the boulder

About to reach the jug sidepull on the Jellyfish

We continued our jaunt around to the north side to some other problems we’d scoped out. The first was on the Hanging Block boulder, and is called Hangman.

Rob nearing the topout on Hangman, V3. This line starts on the lower right side of this hanging boulder with a campus move under the lip on to the face. Terrible landing.

Rob on the early moves of Hangman

Just left of Hangman in the above photo is a face on really nice rock… we climbed on that, too. In the image below, Jon is working the crux of that climb, I Want Candy (v6).

Jon working the crux of I Want Candy, V6

All in all, a pretty productive day. There were more lines to be climbed here, though, and as we headed back to the van we looked forward to returning…

Sooooo….. we revisited this cluster of boulders on November 14, 2010, to send some more lines:

Here Im playing with the camera art filters while Rob warms up by sending the Pedal Arete, V1

Below, Jon at the start of the Pedal Arete, V1, on the Cycle Cap boulder, and getting ready to exit the arete onto the face. Probably silly to have this many photos for such a short problem, but it was fun and people tell us they like photos.

Just behind me as I shot these photos is a boulder we called the Tarboush Boulder… because it actually looks like a giant fez (if fezzes were fabricated from quartz monzonite, that is). This boulder has three lines on it, but they were all done so quickly as part of the warm up that we don’t really have shots other than this one of me on the right arete line.

Jill on the right arete line, The Tassel (V0), which stays on the right arete. Another line starts here but climbs out left along the face and is called Purple Fez (also V0). A third line, 5.9, goes up the slashes in the center face and is called the Felt Face.

We then moved on to the boulder just to the right of the Cycle Cap boulder, with beautiful grayish rock and a fun-looking line we had seen earlier. This is actually the south face of the Straw Hat Boulder we had climbed the north face of on the previous weekend. Hat Trick has a high start on a jug on the left (v1), or the low and more technical start which clocks in at V3. Fantastic rock… and fun moves!!!

Jon on Hat Trick, V3

Jill on the mantle move of Hat Trick. You can do it as a double-mantle for extra fun!

Before we moved on from the Straw Hat Boulder (5 lines on this boulder alone!) Jon was inspired to send this gnarly offwidth body-wrenching testpiece, which was dubbed Handful of Walnuts, V4. It climbs the crack formed by the Straw Hat Boulder and an adjacent boulder touching each other.

Jon wedging his way up Handful of Walnuts, V4

Jon topping out Handful of Walnuts using unconventional yet successful tactics

We then went around to the western section of this cluster of boulders, where the large Condor Boulder sits. We started with the easiest line, 3 Days of the Condor (V2), and continued on with the other lines on this large boulder.

Rob doing the early moves of 3 Days of the Condor, which starts matched at his left hand and moves right through awesome patina holds to a slabby face that isn't visible in this shot. The slabby face is also the downclimb (1 Day of the Condor, 5.4).

Jon on the early moves of 6 Days of the Condor (V5) which is essentially the same start as 3 Days of the Condor, but instead of continuing right 6 Days goes straight up then left from this point

Rob climbing 6 Days of the Condor

Rob continuing up 6 Days of the Condor

Rob sending 6 Days of the Condor

Flight of the Condor (V4) is located on the south face of the Condor Boulder. It starts at slopers on the lip and continues up a tall face.

Jon on the starting moves of Flight of the Condor, V4

Jon on the early moves of Flight of the Condor

Rob pressing it out on Flight of the Condor

Rob on the slabby face nearing the top of Flight of the Condor

Having finished these problems, we wandered our way north across the desert toward the cluster of boulders where the famous Equinox crack lies. We were intent on visiting a group of boulders Rob and I had observed last spring, to see if the lines we’d seen were as inspiring this day as they had been before. But the sun was falling fast so we ended up only managing a handful of problems, most of which have likely already been climbed.

Jon on Bikini Chainmail (V3). We had to clean lot of small flakes from this problem before climbing on it, so it was likely not done before.

Jill on Left Shield (V2), which may have been done before. We also did another line on the right side of this shield feature, appropriately named Right Shield (V4) which had some loose delicate flakes that broke off; this line may not have been done previously.

Jon climbing a wide crack that was likely done before

Another long and busy but fun day out in Joshua Tree…

The fall is bad, at least part of it. If you fall too far back, you can hit a stalagmite-like boulder point above head height. Then there’s the low boulder slab about 2 feet back from the base creating a shelf to hit. The crux is the middle (it starts from the boulder slab reaching an incut about 8 feet up. The height is deceiving. It looks to be 18+ but with that low slab, appears more like 15- feet. Either way, the top move is simply stunning, taking a mini roof lip pinch on an ok foot out to a jug sidepull at about 3 feet below the summit. Check out my left hand above my head:

Bats in the Belfry, v3 or 4 but scarrry.this shot shows that Im pinching the lip and starting to stand up...

the token (near) topout photo. the top is grainy, but everythings there. also, theres an obvious nob to stand on but looks like it will break, I didnt use it but kicked it several times... its still there.

I tried a stand start, from the real ground, and came close. The start hold is real small and bad, the right foot almost nothing, one of the two crystals broke, dang, and the left wall cuts out to a roof. I was touching sidepull just below the start incut I used for the boulder stand start. Here are some shots of the effort:

cute grimace Im sporting

check out my left foot thats on nothing; Im actually scumming with my left knee on the roof lip or Im falling; when I tried the move, I couldnt feel anything distinct with my left foot, so I assume this is what it looks like and not falling until a split second later.

Jill added a short mantel line about 20 meters from Bats in the Belfry. At v0, it makes for a nice warmup, Steeple Chase.

underside (meaning where my back rests while in transport) of the pad with cholla joints or pads and miscellaneous spines.

Note: This above image is pretty typical of bouldering beyond the popular areas. I tossed the pad down on what looked like rock slabs and sand with some plant detritus scattered about. I didn’t look at the undersides of the boulders, but had I, I would have found the signs of  pack rats and similar rodents that use cholla joints to protect their nests. In removing them, don’t scrape them with something as they’re already dead and break off easily. All you end up with is a bunch of needles with barbs sticking you once you have pressure up against the pad. Take a thin dead stem and flick them off, being careful of where you flick them! Don’t forget to pull out the individual spines. It’s rather time consuming.

Sitting barely visible from the desert floor, is a face with a roof capping it. In front of the face is another boulder of almost equal height. The line starts between the two and follows the roof base along a crack. This line is really cool. The start move makes it really special. Though relatively easy, and it is the crux, I think, the first move is very unnerving since below is an 8+ foot steep slot to get wedged into. It starts with a thin sidepull edge:

The Paradox of Learning, v3ish, Jill showing the start holds. that pad shes sitting on is mostly symbolic except for the initial impact of a fall; otherwise, you fall immediately down into the slot, sorry no images.

doing the mental paradox move, or crux.

mostly good holds

the crack disappears from just past the left hand then you reach over and mantel out, either directly up, as I did, or out further to the right, as jill exited.

After we returned to the van, we headed up to the hueco problem nearer the main road. The good news is I was able to do most all the moves except the topout. The bad news is it’s a bit hard. But that’s also the good news, so really there is no bad news. After leaving the caveish area that the hueco problem is in, I walked around and decided to do a fun problem in my approach shoes and called it Fishlips, v0. It’s actually on the backside of the hueco problem. No images, sorry. Here is a neat parting shot for you.

bats feeding just after sunset over the road

start of the crux sequence

foreground boulder is the battle boulder and I'm facing approximately northnortheast

Jill's crux for sure... she kept trying to flag out past her heel hook and pull to the sloper

In between rests, I went behind the battle boulder towards another one resting on its west side. Though from the desert floor, it looks small, the boulder’s northwest side goes “down” quite far into the jumble of boulders. The line is called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (I haven’t checked if it’s been used), v1?, about 30 feet or a bit less. Midway, I climb “over” a boulder and finish the top with it as the landing. The top is easy though.

that's me down in that hole, I've already climbed several moves to a good horizontal

the angle is quite pleasant. above that boulder, the climbing gets even easier

the line trends left until I reach that left sloping side and finally top out on the right side of the peak

a lower extended move left

lots of big reaches and high steps.

These next few images are from the send:

the calm before the storm, by the time she relearned the move, fatigue was setting in... maybe 15 tries easily

about to stick it. I added a bit of strobe to perk it up.

the last hard move, or so she thought

getting real. that last move, both her feet cut loose! here, she is wanting it. way cool

we finally ventured over to another project and tried the first few moves:

sweet rock and face

that left hand hold worked well until it broke...

a second before the left handhold breaks

As you can see, the rock is super clean, but the line trends left over the boulder from where these shots were taken. Also, the downclimb will either be reversing the top moves or dropping off the shorter backside with a worse fall zone; nevertheless, I think it’s more smoke and mirrors than actual real threat. Not the fall zone, it’s very real, but the risk of falling. This start section, through to the feature in the upper left corner of the last image, could be the crux.