Category Archives: Billings

And now for something completely different…

Posted on February 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

Last Saturday Loren talked me into heading up to Hyalite Canyon to belay him on his mixed project. To be honest, it didn’t take much prodding – Hyalite is possibly my favorite place in the Bozeman area and I don’t spend enough time up there in the winter. On top of that, I was curious about this whole mixed climbing thing. Since we were heading to Billings for a comp (keep reading…) I didn’t really want to rope up, but I was happy enjoying the canyon while belaying Loren. Here’s a few photos from the morning and a video of one of Loren’s attempts on ‘Northwest Passage.’ Make sure you watch it til’ the end…

Roping up for battle in the Bingo Cave

Lowering off ‘Northwest Passage’

As I mentioned, we finished up at Hyalite, drove back to town, picked up Sarah, then headed straight to Billings for the Montana Bouldering Championships at Steepworld. Somehow we ended up with a car full of winners – Loren and I tied for top Men’s Amateur (aka scamateur) and Sarah won Woman’s Open. Congrats SHo! I didn’t take any photos during the main comp, but here some crappy shots I took during finals:

Dominic crushing the super-final on his way to victory.

Charlie on the super-final.

SHo earning her belt buckle woman’s final #2

Becky on woman’s #1 and K-Fed on men’s #1

SHo on woman’s #1

Walter on men’s #1

-EC

Super Sand Land!

Posted on January 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

Ho and I spent Saturday at the sandstone mecca of bouldering Billings, aka Super Sand Land. Fortunately, Loren had to do his laundry so he was headed to Shepherd on Saturday and was able to join us for a day of good old fashioned Montana choss bouldering. We were even joined by the local guidebook author Joel Anderson. Unfortunately, Joel was nursing and injury so he wasn’t able to climb with us but we got a quick tour of the new Country Club area at the end of the day. Make sure to pick up his excellent guide to Billings climbing at Spire or Steepworld.

If you’re itching to get some winter bouldering in and it’s looking a little chilly or snowy in the batholith check out Billings – there’s more than enough to keep anyone busy for at least a few days. Here’s some photos:

Loren – Rave Ambition V7

EC – Rocky Top Orange Soda V5 (photo by Loren)

Standard Billings downclimb…

Loren – High Friction V7

Ho – Rocky Top Orange Soda V5 (photo by Loren)

Billings wildlife viewing!

Loren getting into character for Buck Hunter.

Also, speaking of Billings, the Montana Bouldering Championships at Steepworld is coming up soon on February 9th. They’ve got a new expansion with a sweet new steep wall ready to go for the comp. Better start training!

Hope to see you there!

-EC

Rimrocks, Steepworld and the Montana Cancan

Posted on February 6, 2012 | 1 comment

We started off the weekend with an early start to Billings for the Montana Bouldering Championships. But to fully justify the trip we decided a nice 3 hour warm-up at Zimmerman Park was in order. Isaac showed us around his old stomping ground. It may not be the MT sandstone mecca we all dream of, but if I lived in Billings I would head up there a lot.

Isaac (photo by Ho)

EC (photo by Ho)

K-Bone

Afterwards we headed to the comp at Steepworld, which was a lot of fun, but there were a few things that could have made it a little better – most notably, tighten down the holds! I had five holds spin on me and I know there were a lot of others. There was even a spinner in finals which is about the worst possible thing that can happen. We all climbed well, with Ho doing great in finals against a stacked field of young guns.

Sunday, everybody rallied out to for a semi-lazy day at Whiskey. I didn’t take as many photos as I should have, but I got a few at our last stop of the day – Montana Cancan, a sweet Moon kick dyno that I put up a little while ago.