Old Baldy, SD

Posted on September 26, 2011 | 1 comment

Took last week off of work and went on a little road trip.  First up was one of the most under-rated granite bouldering destinations in the west – Old Baldy, SD.  Old Baldy is basically located at Mount Rushmore right in the middle of tons of other excellent climbing (check out the new Spearfish sport climbing guide – WOW!).  Excellent course sandpaper granite slopers and crimps.  I think the Black Hills granite is the roughest rock I’ve bouldered on – it wears your skin off like nothing else.  I spent 2 days here and 4 days bouldering elsewhere and my skin/fingertips actually improved throughout the trip because I’d started at such a rough area.  I would highly recommend a trip here, especially if you throw in the sport climbing at Rushmore and Spearfish and the spicey trad throughout the Hills.  Check it out!  Here’s a few pics and a video I put together:

Rushmore - Old Baldy is out of the photo to the right

 

Next up – Rocky Mountain National Park, CO…

-EC

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Posted in SD

Lost Horse Festival 2011

Posted on September 12, 2011 | 1 comment

The Ho’s and I went over for the annual Lost Horse Festival outside of Hamilton, MT.  It was a little warm and a lot smokey, but we perservered and all three of us had a great day.  Ho was inspired by my last post and won the competition, Sarah climbed awesome (two V5s!) and got second place in the woman’s category behind local crusher Molly Rennie, and I had the best single day of bouldering in my life.  I did two old projects first go and sent three new “projects” quickly.  Here’s some photos:

the Ho-Mobile

The Taco Bus in Dillon - Amazing Mexican Food - GO HERE!

Smokey Bitterroot

Myself finishing up 'Spread Em Stand' (photo by SHo)

Ho falling asleep on V7

He's awake!

Sarah on the super-classic 'the Rail'

Myself on 'Montana Meathook' (photo by SHo)

 

The EC top-out (photo by SHo)

Ho on 'Beautiful People'

Ho and I finished out the weekend Sunday morning by getting crushed by the old-school slab classic ‘the Parrot’.  I actually have no idea if this is “old-school” but it seems that every climb like this is.  Both of us got it, but it did not go easily…

EC - 'the Parrot' (photo by Ho)

Ho - 'the Parrot'

Ho - 'the Parrot'

Ho - 'the Parrot'

EC - 'the Parrot' (photo by Ho)

 

EC - 'the Parrot' (photo by Ho)

 

Big Thanks to Corey Piersol for organizing such a cool gathering!

 

-EC

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Posted in Bitterroot

Epic Showdown at the Northern Bourbons

Posted on September 2, 2011 | 4 comments

The 2nd annual Butte Bouldering Bash was held last weekend at the Northern Bourbons and it was a battle royale – EC vs. the Ho-Master aka David vs. Goliath.  What possible chance could I have against this guy:

The Ho-Master in all of his glory

Most everyone started off the comp near the tents, including Ho on Dim Sum at the On-On Tea Room.  He was giving good burns while it baked directly in the sun.  Not looking good for EC…

Ho-Master on Dim Sum...

Some creepy guy

 

Creepy guy - "I found a crack."

I was given a glimmer of hope when I found out that the comp was best ten problems, not five.  Maybe Ho wouldn’t realize it and he’d stop at five problems.  I had work to do.  Things started well for me, I cruised around and managed to pull off a few harder problems – Special Reserve, Alien Nation, Lateral Dyno, and the excellent new-ish problem Discus.

Peder on Discus

Aaron on Discus

While walking around between problems, I would see the Ho-Master on a different project each time, most likely crushing one then moving onto the next.  I was hosed, I just had to fill out my card with as many moderates as I could muster and hope that Ho wouldn’t beat me too bad.  Well, we headed back and tallied the scores…

 

 

Drum Roll.

 

 

 

H0-Master    –    9,800 points

EC           –           44,000 points

 

No, that’s not a typo.  Official, undisputed, undeniable proof that I am 4.5 times better at bouldering than Ho.  Boo-yah!

In all seriousness, thanks to Tom and everyone else who helped make this great event happen.  Looking forward to next year already!  Tom’s got a bunch of other photos from the event here.

-EC

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Posted in Northern Bourbons