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More Embarrassment? Wide Boyz Lectures
3 January 2012, 9:45 am

Yup, can it get any more embarrassing than standing up on a stage and talking about how I kept Pete warm at night with Alex's onions or how I got lost in Newcastle for an hour with two Satnavs?

How about this video of Pete screaming for starters?

Rumours about Pete's underwear, what Stevie really thinks, unseen video footage, tales of Onion Power and more.

Lecture 1: Cambridge - 21st Jan + Masterclass on cracks

Lecture 2: Lutterworth (south of Nottingham) 31st Jan

Lecture 3: Shaff expert night - 23rd Feb

Lecture 4: Outside Hathersage - 31st March

Crack School in The Peak - 1st April. Surely a joke??!

If anyone wants tickets for the 21st Jan date, email me and I can pass on details. All other tickets are to be sorted soon....



Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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What a Week! Newspapers and The Golden Piton Award
15 February 2012, 12:14 am

This last week has been a very strange one indeed. It’s been hectic, frantic and surreal – I’m not really sure if any of it has happened to be honest….

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Dreaming of wide again?[/td][/tr]

[/table]

Since coming back from the USA last year, there’s been loads of great feedback from mine and Pete Whittaker’s trip and it’s amazing to see (and hear) of some people that are now inspired to climbing some offwidths. God help your souls! Mostly, it’s been reassuring to be back in the climbing community talking the same old banter and getting grief off everyone for how bad my grading on routes is.

This week though, things took a turn for the more weird as an interview that I did with a journalist a few weeks back seemed to slowly seep from the woodwork. The London Metro said “Jammed in a Crevice” the Daily Mail said “They’ve Cracked It” [ha, ha, ha] and the Star stated “It’s Tough at the Top”. What made the popular media interested in this obscure niche of climbing, I really don’t know. Within just a few hours I was asked to do an interview with BBC Radio Sheffield and one for BBC News 24 – crikey, I thought – do they actually know what an offwidth is??!!

Daily Mail antics http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2098610/Theyve-cracked-Two-British-climbers-conquer-160ft-fissure-Utah-national-park.html

All in all, it was pretty good fun and I had an interesting insight into some TV and radio studios. I also found out that the Daily Mail comments pages are much funnier than UKC and that climbing forums are proper friendly bunch really. The fun hasn’t quite ended though, as both Pete and I have been asked to do something with Channel Five TV and I have a slot on BBC Sheffield this coming week at 10.35-10.55am (22nd Feb) if you’d like to hear about decisions that changed my life. Makes me sound old and past it?

Here’s the programme’s interviewer http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p001d7gs

Finally……………

Pete and I are very honoured to have been awarded a Golden Piton Award for crack climbing. I’m not totally sure what it all means, but with any luck I might be able to melt down the piton to make some ultra-soft RPs???

http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/features/2012_golden_piton_awards/index2.html



Source: Wide Boyz Blog

[SA Chris]

Well done on the Gold Piton, although it was kind of a foregone conclusion!

[robertostallioni]

To quote the Daily Fail comments page

You've had your 15 minutes.....Next!

[shark]

To quote the Daily Fail comments page

You've had your 15 minutes.....Next!

Katy Perry is back on the market if you want to string it out longer

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Any one got a spare tic for their talk at the showroom tonight? Sold out.

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Wideboyz Film Available For Download
4 January 2013, 9:21 pm

We now have (through the medium of ultra-hi-tech internet wizardry) available the Wideboyz Film on download! I'd like to claim that I've put it up here because I'm so much more technically advanced than Pete... but no, it's because Pete now lives in a house full of Chinchillas and no internet connection. Sad, but true.

If you'd like to download the film in all it's glory - get the know the nasty world that revolves round wide cracks, macho posturing, Stevie Haston and wondergirl US wad Pamela Pack - then please click here!



If you're having problems with that link then try the raw link at:

http://www.digitalgoodsstore.com/c/udeRKd/7ZeILf

Enjoy!



Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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From “Wideboyz” to “Slender Gentlemen”
26 May 2013, 8:02 pm

     

A few people that are unlucky enough to have to see myself and  Pete regularly will know that we’ve spent the past winter improving on  our crack climbing skills and taking things down a size or two. In fact  it’s gone right down in size. We’ve by-passed hand jams and fists  (aren’t they just belays anyway?) and decided to spend some time  crushing our nerves in cracks of less than 1 inch. There is method in this madness, but  for the meantime bare with us! The whole experience of the “wide world”  has taught us a few handy tricks and at the moment, we need to broaden  the skills (and strengths) a little to take on the next little (big?!)  challenge.

Front 2 locks – avoid the screws though!

After this winter’s training I traveled to Italy where I got rained on for 2 weeks but I did a couple of 8a+/5.13+  finger cracks in amongst working on wet projects – a bit of a mixed trip  of frustration about the weather but satisfaction in seeing  improvements. Pete is currently in Sweden showing them his smorgasbord  of tricks and no doubt mashing his fingers in gnarly finger cracks as  well. Once we’re both back in the UK though, it’s time to really knuckle  down and start working for later in the year: the difficulties have got  to go up towards 8c really, or we’re not pulling our weight.

As a result of the above, we are going to revive our Wideboyz blog.  Yes I know, it’s an abomination to enjoyment in climbing…. but what can  you do?! As a little taster for this stuff to come this year (we’re  making some more films with the Hotaches guys) I’ve filmed some training footage from my cellar.

For anyone who’s interested in the whole training link details (just  the individual sections shown in this clip) it’s a 100ft offwidth (8a+  ish) to V8 finger crack crux into an 80ft 8a+ roof hand crack.  Guaranteed to get a sweaty brow!

And if you haven’t seen the award winning Wideboyz Film yet…. why the hell not?! Download it here and make me happy

Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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Slender Gents Vs. The Cobra
6 September 2013, 6:50 pm

So here we are in Canada. Squamish to be precise, and one of the best places on this planet to go granite trad climbing. What do two Brits who are ex-wide-convicts do in a location like this? Stuff our bags full of friend 6s, rubber pads and leather face masks? Nope.... we take a new direction and fill up on friend 0.5s, finger tape and superglue.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td](c) Hotaches Productions[/td][/tr]

[/table]

Our main objective for this trip is to try and climb Cobra Crack. It seems kind of weird thinking about that, as it's a route that's one of the very hardest trad routes in the world and who on earth would consider it a reasonable prospect to climb this in just a quick 3 week trip? Well, maybe we've got a bit carried away with the optimism but we're definitely not falling short on inspiration. The line is every bit of the "King" that you expect from seeing the videos over the years and the quality of moves are like nothing  else. Mono undercuts, feet-first inverts off pinkies jams and holdless bridging. Mega!!

from Hot Aches Productions on Vimeo.

We've had just under a week out in Squamish now and it's been an interesting, harsh and grounding experience. I think we've learnt a lot.

The interest:

Cobra is a hugely varied piece of climbing. It's got so many different styles of movement within one pitch and it's been a realisation that our training hasn't been as effective on the variation as one might expect. With hindsight, that's easy to see now. Also the pain factor on the route is massive. Every hold on the crux overhang brings tears to your eyes and it's pretty hard to convince yourself at times that you want to give it everything.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td](c) Hotaches Productions[/td][/tr]

[/table]

The harsh:

This route ain't no push over. Despite the number of repeats for such a high end route, there's not really a feeling of "soft for the grade" or "apply the cheater-beta and it'll be fine." Every jam is pretty good for a finger jam; pretty sinker in fact. But put in the factor of no feet on a 35 degree overhang and they suddenly become painful, powerful and slightly disappointing. When we first abbed down the line our first thoughts were "man, these jams are so sinker we can never fall off this."

It's not just the moves and poor feet that are harsh, it's the nature of the red point. You can get two goes a day on the route (and that's just working moves) before skin flappers occur and the shoulders give out. To do a route like this in a short space of time seems hardcore. Yuji-we-are-not!

The Grounding:

Leading up to this trip, we've poured over information, videos and anything we could find to help us. This gives some preparation, but only a limited amount. We could see the moves and try and replicate them with some specific training but at the end of the day nothing is the same as the route and I guess this has hit us fairly hard whilst being here.

It's ok though I'm sure we can handle it, I mean the hardest finger crack we've done in the the UK is 7a+ and Honnold soloed that on-sight. Nothing like going big.

Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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The Cobra Bites Back Today
16 September 2013, 9:35 pm

week 2: The progress so far

After a a period of reflection brought on by excessive rainfall and British style weather, we've come to the conclusion that Cobra Crack is not a 'if' but 'when.' Unfortunately the 'when' part could be very interesting as we only have 9 days left and right now we're staring at weather reports that predict 5-7 days of rain. Is this the Curse of the Cobra striking into the heart of a yet again?

Everyone seems to be leaving Squamish at the moment and offering us chances to climb in warmer and drier climates at incredible destinations. We have to sit it out though, denying ourselves any chance of enjoyment or satisfaction. Our monastic dedication is reflected in our waiting for that Brit style window of perfect conditions to capitalise on. It's all or nothing. Cobra or no bra.

from Hot Aches Productions on Vimeo.

In the UK we are used to our miserable conditions; dank dark winters and scoping out that couple of hours of prime friction when the temperatures drop and the wind comes in. Just before that next lethal downpour, everything is perfect and topping out just as the first few 'spit spots' hit the rock is paradise.

It all seems very optimistic to take this approach on the other side of the Atlantic, as we could easily go and tick some classics in another area. Instead, we keep our fingers crossed having both now come tantalisingly close to success.

So how is it leading the route?

It's probably easier then trying to top rope it and way more fun. The rope above you doesn't get in the way whilst trying to get your feet above your head, the gear is quick to place and you get to take big whippers!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Pete using the Faveresse Heal[/td][/tr]

[/table]

Most of the gear is in comfortable positions to place, with just one piece placed on the headwall. Being British we ditched the usual tactic of placing friends on the headwall, got the wires out and have gone for one bomber nut, which takes about 5 seconds to place. This is useful, because we're weak and we can't be hanging around up there! We've gone 'fast and light' Ueli style (again) only using 3 pieces for the top 25m of climbing.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Tom placing the solitary nut on the headwall[/td][/tr]

[/table]

Each are having there own dilemmas on the the lead. Tom has an issue with one move no one else has ever had an issue with, which is strange. In the last session though, it started to get better and he was able to start execute the move - once this is done, the route will surely be in the bag! Pete has been gradually getting higher higher on each redpoint with the last go getting right up there falling just past the famous Faveresse foot above the head beta. So things are getting very close, but currently 'no cigar'.

If you'd said two days ago that in the last 9 days we would get two days of good conditions, I think we would have both written the route off. Now with the rain set in, two days would be a luxury. Please bring us two good days of conditions Squamish Weather Gods, we are very close now.

Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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Taming The Cobra
22 September 2013, 7:34 am

For the last 3 weeks, we have been out in Squamish trying to fulfill yet another madcap mission: to climb Cobra Crack. Why would two guys from a country that barely has a crack above the standard of 5.12 / 7a+ want to take on such a ridiculous goal? Surely, we would be best off sticking to what Brits do best? Vertical crimping filth, bouldering eliminates and drinking. Well, we both completely suck at all of those as well, so back to plan A!

There's a method behind the madness you see. Some of the best opportunities in life are taken when the crowd are looking the other way. When people think there's not room for movement - "crack climbing is dead, every hold is a rest" - then if you look a little deeper, you'll see there's a whole other world out there waiting to be explored. I suppose we did some of that with the offwidth climbing and now after a year of thin cracks we've seen the other end of the possibilities too.

So where does this leave us, three weeks into a three-and-half week long trip? Was our training any good? Did The Cobra live up to expectations and did the Squamish Weather Gods smile down on us?

1. I think so.

2. Oh yes.

3. We are forever in your debt.

The training

Pete and I were discussing this the other day. When we'd first arrived to try the route, we had some serious doubts about our methods from home as the climbing on the route is actually quite varied - no move is quite like the previous and so not quite as trainable. However, as we learnt the nuances of each lock then quickly the training effects came through. Underneath it all though, we knew we were nothing like as fit or prepared as we had been for Century Crack and I suppose we both had our doubts that we'd come ready. Even though our training link ups had been around 8c, it was hard believe this was enough when the reality of Cobra, the route itself, hit. That route is spicy!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]The Crackar Ladder[/td][/tr]

[/table]

The legend of The Cobra

As both our experiences of the route and final success on it was quite different, we'll both give you a flavour of what we felt. A personal perspective...

PETE: Before coming out to Squamish I had all the doubts of 'am I going to be good enough,' 'have I trained correctly' and 'am I climbing well enough'. Basically all those questions that an 8b+ sport climber would ask themselves when they go to try an 8c trad route half way round the world with a time limit of 3 weeks...hmmmm

The roll call of names topping out this route are pretty overwhelming. All names at the top of the sport climbing and trad climbing game; Trotter, Favresse, Pringle, Honnold, Yuji, to name a few. How could 'Whittaker' do this? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but somehow I did. Something must have been working in the biceps for once and it just goes to show a lot of effort can take you a little way.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td](c) Tideline to Alpine Media[/td][/tr]

[/table]

The route in the end didn't turn out to be as epic as I first thought. Through every session I was always learning the subtleties of the jams, the positions and movement between them and how to manage the skin to make sure the next session I was fresh. Every session you have, the route gets increasingly easier and really the secret is getting the time on it. Every redpoint I got higher, until I eventually eliminated all mistakes and the route felt easy to climb and felt great. It's strange seeing a high profile route in films, on the internet and in magazines and then eventually getting to climb on it and then actually managing the flipping thing. This is a route for Wads, however i'm not a Wad...weird feeling.

TOM: In contrast to Pete, I had very different feelings before I came out. Mine were more like I feel like a champ and how can training this hard be worthless and I feel the strongest I've ever felt in my life. At the time I had a niggling thought that kept reminding me that being too confident is almost the perfect recipe for falling flat on your face!

That is almost exactly what I started to do. After our initial week of working on the route and learning the moves I felt ok, but a little uncertain about the feeling of the redpoint burn - I'd just been putting together sequences of just 20ft at a time and not trying the route from bottom to top. My first few redpoints started to really highlight this. Time and time again, I would hit this one move just before setting up for the crux and wobble like the jellyman. My arms would melt away and I'd slump uselessly onto the rope. For quite a few days I repeated this process. Time passed, I got dejected, Pete ticked the route and the cameras around me waited expectantly. Each evening I found myself working up into an ever greater stew about the whole affair and frustrated that just one move could stop me doing this route. A move that I'd never even heard of anyone else finding difficult!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Working out the top crux early days[/td][/tr]

[/table]

In the end, it was the combination of a few factors that lead to a breakthrough. I took the finger tape protecting my skin off of one finger, I listened to some sports hypnosis videos and I accepted that the route wasn't going to happen on this trip. Suddenly, on my last day I was feeling like I never imagined I would. Light, strong and well trained. In just a few magical moments, I was through the crucial move and into the crux which I completed in a bit of a daze. I'd ripped a massive hole in my finger and hopefully kept my belayer's faith that the "old man" has some life in him yet....

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]The mono undercut culprit[/td][/tr]

[/table]Thin vs Wide

One of the very popular topics of conversation that occurred between Pete and I in the year's build up to this trip was how Cobra would compare to Century. Would they match in difficulty? How would two fitness based offwidthers fare on the power hungry Cobra? Obviously, we put a lot of thought into our route into America, but it was always based on other offwidths as we had a limited pedigree of other hard crack sizes to compare to.

Walking away from Cobra after this trip, I think we've been left with the following (entirely subjective!) opinions:

1. Century Crack is certainly a step above Cobra in terms of difficulty.

2. You can be a good sport climber and could quickly transfer this to Cobra as it's a route that climbs very "sportily" but it would be very unlikely to do the same with Century. We think you'd probably have to dedicate set specific training time for this route.

3. There's a big margin for improvement of crack grades still - surely we are on the cusp of new levels over the coming years?

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Forget the Beastmaker, get on the Earlmakers![/td][/tr]

[/table]

Thanks

We also wanted to say a massive thank you to all the people that have supported us on this trip and mission - Wild Country, Rab, Patagonia, Five Ten, Sterling Ropes, Climb On - you've been the business!

Also, whilst out here in Squamish the local climbing scene has been brilliant. Everyone has been so kind to us with lodging, beta, stories, people coming up to the Cobra to shout encouragement (you know who you are!), drinks out, parties in and lots of good vibes. Why does it have to be on the other side of the Atlantic?!

Finally, good effort to the Hotaches, Savage Films and RV Project crew for sitting in a tree for 3 weeks watching the childish antics of me and Pete. I know it can't have been easy listening to our terrible American accents and seeing Pete's lycra-clad legs and lunchbox.

Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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Wide Boyz 2 Film Download
10 April 2014, 1:23 am



Well, that was an exciting weekend! Just a few days ago was the premiere of Wideboyz II at the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival. Unlike the viewing of the first film of Century Crack, I got to have a sneak peak of the unfinished product and I have to say it made the night feel quite a bit calmer.

Cobra Crack (c) Paul Diffley, Hotaches

I remember sitting in a Kendal cinema 2 years ago for Wideboyz I and absolutely crapping my pants. I’d never been in a climbing film before, let alone one that had my face plastered all over it. This time, knowing that Chris Prescott and Paul Diffley from Hotaches had made an amazing job was reassuring to say the least. I know it seems a foregone conclusion, but when your year’s climbing efforts are in the spotlight it’s not quite so easy to be casual about. Maybe I shouldn’t care so much, but then again, I’m only human!So far the production has won Best Climbing Film already at ShAFF which is ace and John Coefield has written a very complimentary review on UKC here. As ever Pete and I will be doing a Europe-wide lecture tour to support the film, so please do give us a shout if you’re keen to see and hear about Pete’s sausage fingers, my nude top rope of Cobra or how you train for 8c on a 8ft wooden crack….Download Wideboyz 2

Much like Wideboyz I, the film is available to download directly here and all you need to do is click on this link. It’ll take you straight to the download page where you can access it direct to your computer. Simple eh?!

Finally……………….As an extra something in case you’re not into all the crack climbing – I mean, who is…? – then here’s a short video made by Guy Van Greuning about the recent first ascent of Pure Now E9 6c. Hope you enjoy it.



Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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Pre Muir-El Corazon: The Heart of El Capitan
11 October 2014, 8:07 pm

When we first thought of coming out on a trip to Yosemite to climb big walls, it seemed pretty simple. You get good at climbing (well, we can do the crack parts quite well…), book some plane tickets, fill a haul bag with food and water and then plod your way to the top in style. That’s what we thought anyway…

By day 2, we realised that neither of us really knew what was going on. Our rope ascending system was stolen from indoor route setting (it didn’t work) our pendulums were cribbed from Hans Florine’s videos (we misunderstood the concept) and it’s a flaming nightmare to manage three ropes at a belay station. Despite these obvious issues we decided to pitch in with our first big wall free effort on not necessarily the easiest pathway - failure is a little more respected if you sucked at doing something hard right…??!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Beards always make everything better. No gnomes were hurt in this process.[/td][/tr]

[/table]

With some slightly flawed logic we decided in the first week of our trip to Yosemite to try a link up of Pre-Muir into El Corazon (mainly as we wanted Freerider to remain unclimbed by either of us). The two routes actually go quite well together as they follow a vertical line, the difficulty is sustained throughout (5.13 pitches starting at pitch 6 and the last 5.13 being at pitch 29) and both routes we had some beta for. After preparing parts of the route from the bottom and also from the top, we climbed Pre Muir in a oner and came down fixed ropes for a rest and more preparation.

When we finally set off, we’d tried to give ourselves as much advantage as possible, with only the middle chunk of the route from pitch 18 to 27 unseen. We rationalised that these contained just 1 x 5.13 & 4 x 5.12. What could go wrong?!

DAY 1

Ok well day 1 wasn’t actually day one. We realised we’d left our lead rope, rack, hauling device and haul line at the top of our fixed ropes. Oh crap. What an idiotic start. How did we manage to do that? Pete had to jumar up and sort everything out.

“Real Day 1”

Our first pitches of climbing after the fixed ropes to the top of Pre Muir went relatively well. Pete climbed his 5.10 with style, I fell off my 5.11 pitch and we then preceded to get the haul bags stuck on nearly every pitch. But…. we made upward progress….. Which dumped us finally at the last bit of climbing on day 1 - The Beak Flake 5.13b. In 30 deg C temps Pete somehow clawed his way up the thin flake and still didn’t fall off the redpoint crux when a hold started to break. I shouted encouragement in a hoarse voice flinching at the thought of now having to second. Unfortunately I seemed to suffer some high gravity effects in the following hour and resigned myself to try to follow the pitch the next morning when it didn’t feel like crimping the inside edges of a warm Sunday roast tray.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Pete cruising the world's easiest 5.13a[/td][/tr]

[/table]

DAY 2The next morning when temperatures were slightly lower then the previous evening, Tom set off on his ascent of Beak Flake. He managed to overcome the powerful bouldery start and cruised through the mid crux which he’d previously slipped on the evening before, a great start to the day and we’d both managed to free the first crux of the route, we’d overcome the first hurdle (of what was to become many). After some steady lay backing the route turns into a three pitch traverse. I was confident with the climbing on these pitches as they seemed to be British sea cliff style, a bit bold, loose and scary. What I wasn’t so confident with was that fact we somehow had to get our haul bags horizontally three pitches to the left. A week previous  we’d read a chapter in a big walling book about lower outs and asked some crazy locals the best techniques to go about it…Two pitches later, it was dark.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Pete in trouble. Again.[/td][/tr]

[/table]

DAY 3

This day started a little bit like it ended: with some struggling, sweating and a lot of jibbering. The first pitch of the morning was “Bobby’s Bunny Slope” and I was truly happy that Pete had taken the hit and said he’d lead the pitch (I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it) as it had the reputation of being hard and bold. Possibly a bit disappointingly for me, most of the action on this pitch came when Pete was round the corner out of sight and within a few moves of the belay: I knew he was on hard ground.

“Watch me Tom…. oh God. Watch me”

I braced both hands on the rope, with my armpits pouring sweat.

“Ok….. nearly off. It’s nearly over…. I’m not sure…..”

With plenty of stylish grunting and cut loose moves on the slab (how do you do that again, Pete??!) he kind of fell through the crux and put the biggest and hardest pitch of the day to bed. Thank goodness. And thank goodness that my seconding was afforded a nice side rope / top rope for most of the moves as I crept over the small smears and ripples.

We had now landed at the base of a massive corner system that lead up to the big 5.13 roof pitch above. We felt so relaxed knowing it was just some 5.10-5.12 corner climbing to round off the day. Rather amusingly, the first pitch after the bold hard one was a 5.10 offwidth and one that I quickly realised we had no wide gear for (left in the tent) and was a pitch full of massive loose flakes. Fridge to car sized flakes. I huffed and puffed my way round the pitch moaning about everything under the sun until eventually I found one semi-solid piece of protection. As I moved away from it though, I nudged a huge flake with my knee and it started to peel away from the wall.

Noooooo…. not now….. It stopped. It paused for a second as smaller rocks tumbled into place behind it. I glanced down at the parties 1000ft below us on ledges unaware of the danger above and at Pete on the belay below. At this point I pretty much lost all my remaining cool and climbed back to the belay to dejectedly hand the end of the rope to Pete. I’d broken mentally and I knew it. All rested now on Pete’s shoulders. Over the next hour, that boy basically rescued our attempt on the route - it was possibly doomed at that point - and equalised dodgy gear, did super-bold moves and shook his head a lot in annoyance at having to risk so much for a stupid 5.10. What a day! And somewhat of a relief to be unhurt or to have not hurt anyone else.  

DAY 4we’d reached the real crux of the route now. With sore skin, inefficient hauling and tired muscles we knew this was where the route was going to really kick in. 4 consecutive 5.13 pitches are what lay ahead, all with different styles and techniques. As we were behind schedule we woke up early, totted up the water and food situation and came to the conclusion two of the four 5.13s needed to be freed today. Coffee Corner is the first. Some flared jamming followed by some bridging weirdness  is what the pitch entails. Somehow I managed to squirm, bridge, jam and twist my way up the thing on my first go, making a great start to the day. an hour later Tom had followed and we were onto the crux pitch of the route…The Roof Traverse.We had spent an hour each working this pitch a few days prior to our attempt on El Corazon, so we had a vague sequence and idea what it was all about. In reality I think it suits mine and Tom’s climbing style quite well in that you get to use a foot in the roof like a hand. Kind of in a similar way to offwidthing. However, instead of using bomber stacks or jams, you have some horrendous slopers to grapple with.

Tom’s ascent of this pitch was very inspiring, I could see how sore his skin was looking and he seemed to be looking quite tired and murmured a number of times how he thought he wouldn’t be able to do this pitch today. I had confidence in him and after the incidents we’d overcome lower on the route, told him it wasn’t an option to be climbing out empty handed.After fighting through the crux you arrive at a resting point right at the end of the traverse. The next section is easier but also easy to mess up. It seemed like Tom had over gripped a little at the start of this section and when the foot holds got bad and the hand holds got sweaty (as he entered the 25 degree sun) I could see his body sagging backwards and his biceps uncurling. I really thought he might be off and if that was the case the next few days of supplies could have been interesting, it really seemed like this was his one chance. However with grit, determination (and power screaming) that I have seen so much of over the years from Tom, he sucked it back in and managed not to fall (from the massive juggy undercut he was holding… ;) ) I was so pleased we’d both managed it, it made a great end to a tiring day. Now, we knew the route must be on.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Comfy nights and warm snuggling. 69 of course. [/td][/tr]

[/table]

DAY 5

Last days on big walls I always think are the best. You know the vertical desert is reaching its borders, you only have a limited time left and you get some of the very best featured rock on El Capitan.

One of these features has to be the Razorblade Flake. It’s a 250ft pancake thin flake that slices through the headwall above the heart. Every hold is a jug, but almost every foothold is a smear. You layback to glory for what seems like miles and miles on a really thin piece of rock, but the risk is put to the back of your mind as the climbing and the position are sensational. For once, even I forgot about the exposure and the heights, it was just so much fun.

By 6pm, we’d both pulled over the lip of El Cap feeling like we’d been on the wall for 2 weeks. So much had happened and we had had a month’s worth of climbing experiences all shoved into 3000ft of rock. Best of all though, I’d got to climb the route with another person who’d never freed El Cap and we shared the joint satisfaction of having realised a long held dream.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Big Wall Beards. McBlackeye on the left, Neptune's Tool on the right. [/td][/tr]

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Big Wall Disaster Merchants: Does it work?

That is the question… and in a word, Yes.

Both Tom and I went up having never done any big wall free climbing. Me never having done more then 10 or so pitches in a day and having hauled once for 20ft on a gritstone edge back in Sheffield.You have to start somewhere though. It seemed to be on this multiday big wall that it wasn’t necessarily the climbing that was the hardest part, it was a cumulation of everything stacked on top of one another that made it difficult. whether that be, hauling, sorting out rope tangles, setting up portaledges, climbing hard pitches, being run out and scared, freeing haul bags, jumaring, etc etc, it all adds up and that’s the hard part. Can anybody do it? of course they can! mine and Tom’s local crags aren’t even the size of pitch one, but with a bit of motivation, determination and the will not to give up, even us as single pitch punters can climb (free) to the top.

And never, never again will I feel disgusted when my bum touches the rim of grim public porcelain after having a hanging poo in a bag, next to Randall, and have to carry it around with my super noodles for the next few days.

I feel privileged to have my feet back on the ground :)

Source: Wide Boyz Blog

[comPiler]

Beards, Bagels and Big Walls
19 October 2014, 6:41 pm

One of the odd things about big wall climbing is that standards seem to lag behind other parts of climbing - whilst P Robz is out there cranking out V14s on the boulders and Ondra on the 9b’s, the big wall free climbers are still getting stuck into 8a - 8b at the cutting edge. Tommy Caldwell and K Jorg being the exception of course…. It would seem that standards should be broadly in line across all styles, but even in the access friendly mecca of Yosemite, this does’t seem to be the case.

Likewise the onsight / flash standards have lagged on the big walls. The biggest surprise to many might be that El Capitan has still never had a pure onsight of any of it’s free routes, despite the grades rarely going over 8b on the hardest pitches. So why is this? Is it the cumulative effect of tiredness? The diversity of climbing styles? The skin condition issues of 5 days of continuous climbing?

Well, this week Pete and I set off to find out the truth. Could it really be that hard to climb 32 pitches of granite first go, on the mega classic line of Freerider?

The Route

Freerider was first established by the Huber brothers in 1998 and essentially forms an “easy version” of Salathe on the left side of El Capitan. It’s characterised by a lower slab half which follows blank sections that join up major crack systems that are often quite wide - including the infamous hollow flake. Nothing in the bottom half of the route goes beyond tricky E4, although it’s well know for being hard to onsight every single pitch even for the easy part. Above the midway point the wall steepens up and heads towards the overhanging Salathe headwall via offwidths, corners and more hard face climbing up to E6 (or 7c). Pete and I planned to attempt the route from the ground over 3 days, having saved every pitch as unseen, but we’d begged every friend we knew to give us good beta for the route! Despite our previous mistakes on El Corazon, we adopted many of the same tactics in the vain hope that somehow second time round we might not have as many hiccups!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Better preparation = better climbing?[/td][/tr]

[/table]Day 1At 4 in the morning we set up the first section of the route, a ten pitch climb known as Freeblast and popular just to do by itself.

The first hurdle of this section comes at around pitch 5 where the cracks thin out and you reach some delicate face climbing. I think we were both quite nervous not to blow the onsight attempt this early on, and we both hesitated a little at the crux until finally gibbering our way across the mini traverse and rocking out onto better holds.

The next crux came not from the climbing, but from a bowel problem from Randall. We decided to link some pitches up and go Irish mega pitch style, halfway through the 80m pitch Tom had serious issues trying to get into the half dollar corner whilst not pooping himself. After an emergency restroom stop things eased in the climbing (and down below) and we found ourselves having done the Freeblast, the long down climb and on heart ledges before lunch time. What a great start.

A couple of parties had snuck ahead of us up the fixed lines and it seemed one party was having trouble with the notorious hollow flake. Two hours later we still hadn’t moved from Heart Ledges and realised we weren’t going to make it to our bivvy spot in the Alcove before dark. If we wanted to give ourselves the best chance of on sighting the route, we rationalised that climbing in the dark wouldn’t be that good, because although Freerider follows big ledge systems, anyone who knows me and Tom will know we are notorious at getting lost. We decided to descend from Heart Ledges and come back extra early the following morning to get ahead of the crowds and stick to our schedule.

Day 1 Again

It seems to have become a habit not quite getting off on the right foot on these routes, but nevertheless we started “Day 1 Version 2” from where we left off at Heart Ledges. The first hurdle on this part of the route comes at the Hollow Flake where you always hear rumours of huge run outs, death potential and hideous offwidths. What they don’t tell you about though, is the horrendous 30m down climb of a 5.11d that you have to do….. down climbing….. we didn’t sign up for this! Both Pete and I suffered a bit on this pitch. We’re not the biggest fans of layback down climbing.

A few pitches above I had to tackle what was to become one of the hardest pitches on the route. The 5.7 chimney. Yes 5.7 is the UK equivalent to VS. To cut a long and painful story short, I made a total hash of this pitch and ended up stuck in the back of a squeeze chimney swearing my head off and thrashing a good part of my knee skin off for 45mins, whilst everyone on the ledge below laughed at me! It was a really good grounding experience and reminded me that despite all the crack climbing that I’ve done, I can still be brought to my knees by an innocuous pitch.

The last pitch of the day to land us at our night spot was in stark contrast to a 5.7 chimney: the Monster Offwidth! More body grinding, big cams and suffering. Fortunately, this huge wide crack has a big reputation which kind of prepares you for the misery above. It was actually very interesting for Pete and I to do this pitch as we’ve done a lot of offwidths over the years and we were keen to know how the apparent “5.11a grade” would fit in with the world offwidths. Suffice to say we topped out the pitch impressed with its difficulty and thought that compared to many others around the globe it was a good solid E6 pitch. A good friend of ours, Andy Reeve (see pic below) had wrestled the monster a week before and made a herculean effort to try and remove his own arm. Anyone who climbs this pitch without a long wide crack apprenticeship gets serious respect from me. It’s very beefy.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Reeve still smiling despite having been through major surgery on The Monster. [/td][/tr]

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Day 2 We had planned to only climb 6 pitches on this day as 4 pitches above us was where the crux of the route was.

At this point the route has two variations, which is either ‘The Teflon Corner’ at 7c, or ‘The Huber Variation’ at 7c+. As we’d been given beta for The Huber Variation we decided to go for this one. I narrowly missed flashing the problem falling from the last move after not spotting a crucial hold. I was really annoyed as I felt as though i could have done it. I made a quick redpoint to make sure I still had a ‘safe tick’ of the route on the cards. The holds are quite thin on this pitch and as it got warmer Tom couldn’t quite claw his way up in the increasing heat.

We decided to ab back down and have ago on the Teflon Corner. The corner is a much different proposition and instead of using finger tip skin it uses palm skin, instead of edges its smears. I really wanted to make up for my mistake on The Huber Variation and make sure I did this pitch first go. We didn’t have any beta for this pitch but I knew it was my style of climbing, so I just went for it with a really positive approach and before I knew it I’d smeared and palmed my way to the top of the pitch without falling! I couldn’t believe it, maybe a Flash ascent of El Capitan was still on! Tom put his best Flash effort, unfortunately narrowly missing out and slipping out the slippery bugger. it was starting to get late, so we decided to have a rest, bivvy it out and let Tom complete pitch early the next morning.

Day 3

Having fallen off the teflon corner more times that you’d think was feasibly possible, I went down the next morning with sore palms, but with a bit more confidence that the cooler morning temps would help on the insecure smearing. I think what marked this pitch out, wasn’t my multitude of falls, but the fact that Pete did this first go - I couldn’t believe his performance after I’d been on it for just 15 minutes. Such a good effort to not make a single mistake. Whilst the climbing isn’t strength dependent, the moves are so weird. It’s all body tension, insecurity and butt clenchingly desperate. Think The Quarryman groove, but shorter and made of granite! After an hour of effort that morning I somehow seemed to piece the climbing together and produced a couple of nice blisters on my palms.

Knowing that we had the hardest pitch of climbing behind us, I think the tension eased off for me, but for Pete I’m pretty sure it ramped up. He still had “the flash” in hand, but now there was 10+ pitches of up to E6 above that no silly mistakes could be made on. As I sat on the belay some time that morning, I really pondered Pete’s dilemma… it’s not that hard on paper, but how do you keep it together over so many different climbing styles and on back to back climbing days?

The question to that one, has to be answered in what was the highlight of the day for me - watching Pete lead the second “Enduro Corner”, a reasonably graded 5.12b. We’d heard rumours that it was a proper sandbag and looking up at the line you could see few big holds and even fewer footholds. Essentially, it was a 15m power layback on rounded holds…. did I mention that we both hate laybacks?!  As Pete steadily made progress upwards he reached a point where I could see he’d got pretty pumped and his feet kept twitching nervously on the holds.

Fuck. This can’t be….. there’s no way he can mess this up after everything below. Come on…. just grin and bear it….

Almost as if Pete had heard my thoughts, he got “the face” out that I rarely see. It’s the one where he looks like he’s going to chew his own chin off and his face wrinkles up in shear determination. I always love this moment (I bet Pete doesn’t!) as I know some seriously grim effort is about to be shown. With everything he had, he crimped it up, got the beefcake out and gunned it to the top of the pitch looking at a huge fall if he fell before the belay.

YESSSS!!! Thank God for that. I can relax for 10 minutes now. Until the next pitch…..

As I lead off on the 5.12 traverse afterwards I kind of knew that he had the route in the bag now as no one had said anything too worrying about the pitches above. I mostly started to look forward to a night spent on a 2ft wide ledge trying to work out how to cook, sleep and not touch Pete’s toxic feet.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Ledge Life[/td][/tr]

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Top Out Day

After the previous day all the 5.12 and 5.11 pitches were done, so I was able to relax a little. However after climbing in Yosemite for a month now I’ve come to realise not to take any grade that seriously. I seem to have done 5.8s which have been harder then some 5.11c’s. I knew just to be relaxed and that the last few 5.10 pitches would be in my capability.

A few hours later both Tom and i had topped out. Tom had managed to free his second big wall on El Cap and somehow I’d managed to climb the whole of Freerider without taking a fall. Firstly I actually couldn’t believe we’d both managed to free another wall in such a short period of time and secondly I couldn’t believe I’d got up this thing in a push first try.

We had had it as a goal to try and flash Freerider before coming out to the States as we knew it may not have been done before. We saved the whole route so we were able to do this, which is why we did the Pre Muir - Corazon link at the start of the trip. Another great big walling experience, maybe not quite so much a Randall/Whittker shambles this time…..hmmmmm i’m not so sure, there were definitely some moments. massive thanks to Randall for climbing it with me.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Big Wall Flasher![/td][/tr]

[/table]Big Wall Flashing

Pete’s effort on Freerider has to be one of my favourite climbing experiences because I got to see the culmination of 15 yrs of effort in learning a craft come to fruition. Everything he’s learnt on the gritstone edges, slate slabs, on offwidths with me and in cracks all over the world came to together in one 3000ft face. It’s not often you get to be there in the action observing a little bit of history and also not that often that when you’ve done it, you bump into Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgensen at the top to talk to them about it!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Kevin wearing the beard "California Style"[/td][/tr]

[/table]

For me the best flash efforts on a number of different routes (as far as I know) have to be:

Cedric Lachat’s Freerider attempt (very similar style to Pete)Ueli Steck on Golden Gate (1 fall)Leo and Patch on El Nino (2 or 3 falls?)Yuji on Salathe (4 falls)

For anyone who’s wondering if big wall free climbing is possible for them, then I encourage you to give it a little try - you might just surprise yourself. We now have a generation of Brits from short 20m crags who are making amazing efforts and people like Dan McManus, James McHaffie, Hazel Findlay, Calum Muskett and Andy Reeve are a constant inspiration in rewards of hard work and determination.



Source: Wide Boyz Blog

[fatneck]

Massive legends...

[comPiler]

El Capitan Free - Number Three
16 November 2014, 6:56 pm



So after two months of sleeping in the dust in Camp 4, Tom and I have got back to normality. Work in the trees starts again on Monday and I know Tom has lots of jobs in the diary. It got hard towards the end of the trip, I guess when you’re on the wall (El Capitan) for 45% of two months it’s going to be. There is only so much Top Ramen and tinned Tuna you can consume.

Anyway, after some resting days midway through the trip (which in the end, turned out to be not resting at all, just effectively not climbing on El Cap), we decided it was time for one last push, one last free attempt on The Captain. We had gone to The Valley with a goal of wanting to free 3-4 big walls and attempt to flash one of them. I guess quite a big undertaking for someone who hadn’t climbed a Wall and someone who hadn’t freed a Wall, but Tom and I always come up with seemingly ridiculous goals and just throw ourselves at them with full force.

The route that was going to be most realistic this late on in the trip was Golden Gate. We’d climbed the bottom section before on Freerider, a few of the top pitches as well on Corazon, so it only left the middle half of the route unseen.

The Big Wall packing and preparation actually went pretty smoothly and we seemed to have learnt a lot throughout the trip about how we were going to approach different situations. The main thing that was going to be the biggest factor was fatigue. As soon as we started on the easy approach of Freeblast I could tell I was tired. We were both tired. It wasn’t ‘oh my forearms are achey’ or ‘my shoulders are tightening up’ or even a deep tired body ache. It was just general fatigue from an accumulation of climbing and living on the wall continuously for the last (nearly) two months. Just generally feeling slugglish. I knew from the beginning, (even though we’d covered a lot of the pitches before), it was going to be very challenging.

After Freeblast, Tom decided that he wasn’t going to try and free Golden Gate. I think the trip and exposure of being on the wall for so long had built up gradually and was starting to affect his climbing a little, and so he decided to pass the free climbing baton to me and do all he could to help me get up there. It was absolutely mega that he still wanted to come up the wall with me as we could have easily called it a day there and then.

After day one to El Cap Spire, I generally just felt exhausted. The climbing seemed to actually go better up to this point then it had on Freerider, but overall everything seemed like it was taking its toll. I had deep tired aches running through my legs and all I felt like doing was lying down and falling asleep, and it was only 5 o clock! It was a little worrying that I felt that wasted as day two was where the crux lay.

Dawning on day 2, I jugged to my highpoint above the Spire and set off on a notoriously tricky 5.12c downmantle pitch.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]5.12c downmantle, not going well!![/td][/tr]

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Falling again, and again, and again I just couldn’t do the pitch. The sun had come round and spoilt the holds, yet I kept trying and not surprisingly, kept falling. Massive amounts of frustration kicked in as it had gone midday and I still had another 8 pitches after this (including the crux pitch) to get to our next bivvy (no portaledge). After ringing 2 Brits and texting 1 for beta, none of which were very useful on the beta front, but all very encouraging phone calls (thanks J), I finally realised I was doing the sequence wrong, what a massive waste of time! Having very sore skin and tired legs from down pressing over 50 times previously, I somehow managed to fall my way down the two mantles and over onto the belay ledge below. I was very relieved  I didn’t have to resort to tactic two which would have been, just launch myself ‘Czech Tower Jumping’ style over onto the ledge below and right.

Day 3 started 8 pitches behind schedule, but I seemed to wake a little fresher after having a half day rest the previous day. Pitches seemed to fall effortlessly today and I even managed ‘The Move’ pitch, the crux of the route, first redpoint.

I mantled out onto our bivvy ledge with 45minutes of light left and was depressingly disappointed at how it looked. Having walked across ‘Tower of the People’ on El Corazon I remembered it being a lot flatter then it currently looked.

After a lot of jigging around we finally got a system sorted that stopped us rolling off the edge of the ledge and helped us get 20 minute bursts of sleep without waking up.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Working 'The (big) Move' pitch.[/td][/tr]

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Day 4, The last day, only 7 pitches to flat land, I knew I could do these pitches, it was just whether my body would let me. Only 2 13a’s were what stopped me. On Corazon these pitches had left me with no trouble whatsoever, however today was completely different. After falling off the ‘Golden Desert’ pitch I felt like a goner. Mustering up some energy for my second attempt, I scraped through the crux section by the skin of my teeth and completely boxed out my mind got every inch of rubber and skin in contact with the wall to get me to the belay. I couldn’t believe how much of a difference it was from the first time. Almost a different pitch entirely. The A5 went without any problems and I proceeded to jibber my way to the top of El Cap getting very pumped on every remaining pitch.

I finally hauled my aching body over the top, and with great relief gave myself a little smile and told myself ‘I’ve got to be happy with that’.

All free routes were great and totally different experiences, The first being a technical learning curve, with big wall systems and logistics

The second being, self pressured at not wanted to fall on a pitch

And the third being massively hard work from doing the other two and having to grind it out and break it down.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]East Ledge decent, gunning for the village store and an 'It's It'.[/td][/tr]

[/table]

Tom was an absolute hero on Golden Gate, helping me get up it, bringing out the bad jokes and supplying great big wall fancy dress. No way could I have done this one without him, so thanks very much J

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Big Wall Banana on Tower of the People[/td][/tr]

[/table]

Also nice one, Dan, Reeve, Petter, Stefan, James, Caff, Calum and Hazel for knowledge on the routes, all a fantastic help, cheers J

Source: Wide Boyz Blog

[comPiler]

Wide Boyz IIII The Quadrilogy
17 December 2015, 5:52 pm

Wide Boyz blog is up and running again! This is mainly as we’ve both finally finished our respective solo missions for 2015. Tom has emerged from his dirty cave in Devon (standard behaviour) and Pete has completed his set of surprisingly easy moves in a bold position on El Capitan (standard behaviour)

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Dark, dirty, Dank, Randall Emerges

(c) Chris Prescott adventure photography[/td][/tr]

[/table]

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Surprisingly easy, hideously bold[/td][/tr]

[/table]

The reason why our blog is up and running is because we’ve found unfathomable amounts of motivation to start preparing for another big project together. Something more than we think we really can chew and definitely an adventure that’s going to cause some pain and suffering. Wide Boyz IIII “The quadrilogy” (is that even a word?? it is now!) might just be kicking off in a dingy cellar in Sheffield very soon…

First there was “Wide”, where we went for a mega first ascent on Century Crack, second and third we went for “Gruelling” with difficult repeats and endurance challenges. Now, we’ve gone full circle and are heading back to our roots and one of the reasons we started climbing together. First ascent projects! Places where no other climber has dared jam their fist before. Or something like that?

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Wide Boyz I

Randall riding a wide pony (c) Crusher Bartlett[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Wide Boyz II

Pete taming the Cobra (c) Hotaches[/td][/tr]

[/table]

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Wide Boyz III

Endurance based challenges in ridiculous outfits[/td][/tr]

[/table]

First ascents are what inspire us both the most, as doing them at the cutting edge of any discipline makes the climbing all the more challenging, adventurous and difficult. Add into the equation trying to break levels of difficulty that we’re not sure are very doable and you get a whole new experience.

Stage one, the credit card has been out and the first USA trip is booked. Stage two, release the power tools in The Crack Cellar and garden. Stage three, don’t have a Randall/Whittaker navigational shambles. Stage four is unknown.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Randall with his tape job and building equipment[/td][/tr]

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Source: Wide Boyz Blog

[Fiend]

^^^ says it all. You guys are wrong uns 

[comPiler]

Hunting for The Unknown - The Holy Grail of Crack Climbing
11 May 2016, 6:39 pm



When we arrived in the US, we’d committed to one of the more idealistic plans of our climbing careers so far - go hunting for a first ascent project that might not exist. Strangely enough though, the more people we told about this mission, the less we thought it was naive and wildly optimistic.

“Yeah that’s a great idea guys! You’re on the look out for another Century Crack, right?”

Well….. not exactly. Much that it’s been nice to have been pigeon-holed as the Wideboyz and it’s associated wide crack climbing, both of us have been aware that projects that make Century look like a warm-up are pretty unlikely to be in the form of a 5-8 inch splitter. This is V5-V8 territory and we needed V11+ for the crux and some kind of decent endurance element to it as well. Something to make us think that maybe it might not even be possible?!

“Oh, you want a crack project that has V11 or more climbing on it? Dude… I don’t think that exists. Good luck though, I’m sure you’ll find something!”

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Wideboy, truck and a map. What can go wrong?[/td][/tr]

[/table]

So, there we were after just 2 days in Utah, driving back onto the White Rim on a wild goose chase. A Chevy truck packed full of supplies, gear and psyche was in our favour, although we’d already lost our friend Mike Hutton who was a victim of harsh border control standards. We had google maps with potential projects ear-marked (you can see the big roof cracks on satellite image) and a plan to try and mix up map based guessing, with visual on-foot exploration of over 100 miles of White Rim.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Pete pacing out The Rim underneath some cool clouds[/td][/tr]

[/table]

TRIP 1 - Week 1 (East Side of White Rim)

I guess we were pretty nervous on our first trip down as we’d been training back in Sheffield for a project we hadn’t yet found. That said, we did feel confident of a good outcome because the area seemed to have so much geological potential.

After passing the first few canyons, we’d seen roof cracks from 40 - 60 foot long, but this was not what we were after. Most of these cracks would blow even the top roof cracks of Europe today out the water, but that was not enough. We had high expectations. we didn’t want a ‘King Line’ nor a ‘Emperor Line’, what we were after was ‘The God Line’.

We came up with 5 characteristics that would be the make up of ‘The God Line’

• Big - this roof crack had to be big, much bigger than what is currently out there
• Architecture - it had to look the business. Grand, impressive and bold shapes.
• Grade - really hard. Difficulties had to blow other cracks we’d done or tried out the water
• Size - we were more flexible in this department with an allowance of a mixture of sizes. All crack techniques would be needed to get you up this thing, no one trick ponies.
• Cool - this roof crack had to be cool. No dirty 40ft caves with low exposure…  

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Checking out another "disappointing" 5.14, (c) Andrew Burr[/td][/tr]

[/table]

We got deeper and deeper into Canyonlands and on The White Rim trail. Canyon after canyon passed and each time we abbed into another cave, something wasn’t quite right. ‘too small’, ‘not cool’, ‘full of massive hand jams, too easy’. It sounds like we were being picky….we were.

If something didn’t fit one of ‘the 5’ we had to walk away. We walked away from some of the best splitter 5.13s and 14s you’ve ever seen. Each time we would jumar back up to the rim and  walk away from yet another crack with “the greatest glory corner finish” or “100ft of perfect horizontal splitter hands”. We had to leave these because they didn’t fit ‘The God Line’ definition we’d set for ourselves. It was hard to do, but we’d set the standard ourselves and we had to live with that.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Maps, techno and shoes filled with sand. Life is fairly simple down there![/td][/tr]

[/table]

After completing The East side of the Rim we had yet to find what we were looking for. However we did now know where all the coolest roof cracks on the planet are in-between these standards…a list to keep any crack obsessive happy for a lifetime!

TRIP 2 - Week 2 (West Side of White Rim)

After failing to find a mega project on the East Side of the White Rim, we pegged all our hopes on The West Side. Crusher Bartlett who’d joined us on our Century Crack visit had given us the tip off that this could be the motherlode. The Rim is much thicker here and thus the features that form are much bigger - maybe 100ft roof cracks would be 400ft roof cracks over there?! We certainly hoped so.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Big features on the West Side = Bigger Cracks?![/td][/tr]

[/table]

We explored the West Side with photographer Andrew Burr, who’s ace to have along on these kind of adventures as he’s a proper desert rat. He loves everything about the landscape, the exploration and the vibe of the whole area. In addition, we knew he’d have some insight into some of the features and formations that we’d be exploring and also could dish out plenty of motivation for two Brits who were booming increasingly sunburnt, lost and worried that Century Crack was the only really hard thing in the area.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Yes please... 1000ft split in The Rim. But nothing below...[/td][/tr]

[/table]

To start with, we found absolutely nothing. The Rim was so thick that caves weren’t hollowing out underneath the harder geology of the rim and we passed miles and miles of cliff that on the google maps had looked good, but in fact were red herrings. Even the gigantic splits in the White Rim on satellite turned out to be either chimneys or nothing at all. Dejected, we paced out mile upon mile of the West Side on foot and by truck. It wasn’t until we started to get close to the mid point of the whole journey (where we’d actually meet up with our end point from trip 1) that we started to find some interesting features. Unfortunately, these turned out to be too big. Can you believe it?! A couple of caves we dropped into were much deeper than our 60m ab line and as a consequence had created 3 pitch epic roof cracks. Whilst this hit the “cool” part of the list, the macro-size of the features tended to mean they were wider and hence most stuff was still in the 5.13d to 5.14c territory. Yet again, we were close to finding something, but it wasn’t quite perfect.

As we drove out continually eastward to meet the Shafer trail and having explored 100 miles of the Canyonlands cliffs, we were utterly depressed. We kept asking ourselves how this could have happened. The mecca for mega roof cracks, yet in days and days of exploring we’d not found a single project to match our expectations. We talked of visiting Indian Creek, of trying the crack we’d seen “with no holds” and of maybe just going climbing “for fun” to put up some easier first ascents.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Another cool project, but... not quite cool enough! [/td][/tr]

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It wasn’t until we were halfway round our exit loop of the White Rim that one of us suggested that it might just be worth checking out a cave we’d previously seen the week before but ended up dropping a line 100m to one side and consequently missing it (standard Randall/Whittaker navigation). It almost didn’t seem worth it, as by our high standards, all the other caves had been disappointments. But as we always said… ‘its always worth checking round the next corner’. There really wasn’t much else to lose so we parked up the truck one last time…

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Praying for salvation. He's beyond help. [/td][/tr]

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Source: Wide Boyz Blog

[comPiler]

The Crucifix Project
16 May 2016, 8:31 am

“Holy mother smoking pancakes, that thing is freaking massive.”

Just pacing out the top of the crack made you shiver with the sheer size of what lay beneath. The roof was around 180 foot in length. This was the very last cave on The Rim that we were checking out and we’d hit the absolute jackpot. All the abseiling, jumaring and legging it round the desert in the blistering sun for the last two weeks was worth it for this one. Essentially we’d found a mother-ship of intertwining roof cracks running from left to right and weaving in and out of cave systems. Right in the centre was ‘The God Line’ that we’d been looking for. A full 180 foot, straight from the depths of the hollowed out cliffside piercing right through the centre of the cave and out to the lip. Strangely enough, it was also bisected by another crack which gave the appearance of a giant Crucifix in the ceiling and seemed to bring about a theological context to our subsequent days and thoughts on the line. The next question was, ‘is it climbable?’

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Quite psyched! (c) Andrew Burr[/td][/tr]

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With both of us pacing around underneath the crack, it was hard to contain the excitement but also the doubt as we’d already viewed so many potential projects that turned out to be “not quite right” in terms of difficulty, quality or style. The first thing we needed to do was get on the route and start aiding through the sections. Many parts of the route were immediately obvious as doable, but both the first half and the final 30ft section looked very thin. Maybe too thin?

The first section we committed to aiding (and possibly shutting out all doubt that this was yet another disappointing “could have been”) was 70ft of fingers, thin hands and a couple of wide pods. The first 30ft seemed ok - we guessed 5.13c/d, but the next 40ft looked totally next level. It was like London Wall or Cosmic Debris turned into a horizontal roof with not a single good foothold. Even thinking about doing a single move, might have been the hardest crack move we’d ever imagined. And there were at least 8 of them in a row! What had seemed like quite hard climbing on The Kraken, V13 in Devon, now seemed a bit of a joke compared to this.

KEEPING FAITH

Neither of us are religious, but somehow this project took on some of the key elements of faith. It’s not because we find religion particularly helpful in climbing, but more that some of the mechanisms of faith and religion are incredibly useful - there’s a reason why some of them have been around for thousands of years. The critical moment came early on trying the moves, when we knew some of it was doable, but other parts seems laughable in their plausibility. Seriously, is it really realistic to campus multiple mono-locks in the roof? Cobra Crack was hard enough doing a single one on a 45 degree bulge! How is it then realistic to do all these and finally enter a crux that’s harder than anything either of us have done on a boulder problem on the ground? Ever? Suddenly “possible” very quickly became “impossible.”

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Pete working this last quarter of the roof[/td][/tr]

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Needless to say this heavy hitting realisation was like a punch in the face of motivation. What the hell were we doing? No one is ever going to do these moves, and even less us. We’re just too specialised in doing long endurance things… even pulling on is at 100%… and that’s when the idea struck. The hangs! The Holy Hangs! Then and there, we decided that “moves” were a million miles off, so we’d motivate ourselves with trying to complete the 5 Holy Hangs. It seems silly, but it was something achievable. It was progress tied in with motivational force. We hung on to it with every ounce of commitment.

Within a few moments of this concept being born, a project that basically seemed so hard we may as well write the whole thing off, became a route where we could actually try something. We were thinking too big before. Way too big. Doing a move was completely unrealistic. The concept of simply hanging the holds in the crux section was a saviour. We started to get giddy with excitement when one person would grab two of the holds and do a pull up, (not even place their feet in the crack), then let go. It would look so pathetic to an outside viewer on this process, but to us it was something to desperately grasp at. The belayer would get so excited they’d just start chanting, singing or pointing randomly in directions that had no relevance to anything! Whether you were on the rope trying the moves or on the belay, you had an equally important place in the team and the synergy was pretty cool. After a couple of sessions The 5 holy hangs had been completed. Minuscule progress, but progress none the less.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Motivational words in the warm up board. Breaking it down[/td][/tr]

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The next goal beyond ‘the hangs’ were the ‘7 Sacred Shoe Shuffles’. This meant we would pull up on the holds (i.e. complete a Holy Hang), then do all the foot shuffles that revolved round these holds. The final goal was the ’13 Disciples’. These are the 13 moves which make up the crux section of the route. Slowly but surely, we were able to start to piece together, Hangs, Shuffles and Disciples.

We have now ticked off over half of the Disciples and even linked a few together. The middle ones revolve around some hideous finger locks and atrocious foot jams have been ‘seen in concept’ but yet to be ticked.

From our first aiding session on the project, to now, we have come a reasonably way in a short space of time. To an onlooker it looks like we are hang dogging all over the thing (we are), but from our point of view, we are starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The end goal seems so unachievable right now, there is no point in thinking about that. ‘All ya gotta do’ is break the sections down and piece them back together again. We like to think of the route as a jigsaw. Lots of little pieces you have to put together to complete the bigger picture. If the jigsaw was completed when you got it out the box, it would be a pretty pointless puzzle.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE?

This project is exactly what we were looking for, it fits the 5 characteristics perfectly. It is a whole new level of difficulty that we’ve never tried (around 9a+ route and V14 crux). Neither of us have even looked at a route this hard before never mind try and climb it. The training that we did before coming away looks pathetic to how good we need to be to be able to climb this monster. We were looking for next level, and we found it…just.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]No more hunting for now. Project...project...project! (c) Andrew Burr[/td][/tr]

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Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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How to “Climb Clean” in The Canyonlands National Park
14 October 2016, 5:12 pm

Developing areas for climbing - new routes, repeating test-pieces and cleaning boulder problems obviously has its upsides, but there are also a few potential downsides that possibly could affect many of our climbing days out in the future. We’ve been visiting the White Rim in The Canyonlands National Park since 2011 and when you ask many people about our activities, they straight away think of Century Crack. This route however, is just one of a number of incredible lines in the area (unfortunately for most they’re all in the somewhat elite 5.13-14 grade range) and detracts from the amazing efforts that others like Rob Pizem, Peewee, Mason Earle and Matt Lazenby have put into creating a legacy of great routes for desert rats. The downside to this “positive” of amazing routes for crack addicts, is that more people will visit the area and the effect on the environment and park will become greater - especially if certain guidelines aren’t stuck to.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Modern technology trying to fit into a fragile environment[/td][/tr]

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It’s on these specific rules of park activity that we want to write an informative blog post - mainly because some of them we weren’t entirely sure of ourselves. Hopefully if we have them laid out here, we can all continue to use the White Rim in the best possible manner and ensure that the rock and earth stay in fine shape - I know it’s very hard to argue that climbing is of no effect whatsoever - it’s just about doing things in the right way!

Below are described some of the main areas of concern for us climbers - stuff that we need to be hyper-aware of and rules that cause some significant problems when they’re broken again and again. We’re certainly not paragons of “perfect behaviour” but we would like to help clear up the ambiguity that some of us all feel when it comes to how to operate in this zone.

Bolting

In canyon lands national park, there is now a “no bolting” policy. Bolting has been allowed in the past, however there is now a ban. Bolting has been used in the past to, help protect a route, for rappels off the top of towers, or to help access to get to the base of a routes.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Cams, wires and threads can be found all over the place on the White Rim as there are so many cracks (c) Andrew Burr[/td][/tr]

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As this isn’t allowed, natural anchors should be used, so cams, wires, slings, etc. We've done a lot of exploring, rappelling and jumaring in Canyonlands now and have never felt the need for a bolt. Some times you just have to get a little creative and tie off multiple bushes, use smaller cracks and do duel rappels off the top of towers. We heard that local hero Crusher Barlett, rigged up some wooden lever system that could pulled down from the top of the tower when you were at the ground, preventing the need for a rappel bolt.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Trees and bushes when used properly are much safer than they appear...[/td][/tr]

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If you feel like a bolt would benefit everyone and not cause an impact, you can actually apply through the park service for a bolting permit, which they can then either accept or decline.

Camping and staying on the White Rim

For a good number of years now the few climbers that have visited Canyonlands (and have wanted to stay in the park for longer than a day) have used the backpacking permit system. Climbers have generally used this as the designated camping areas are often pre-booked a year in advance by biking tour companies. Therefore they’ve driven down in their 4x4, parked on the side of the trail then backpacked ‘into the wilderness’ to camp and climb.

Unbeknownst to most climbers (including us, until recently) in the park rules you aren’t actually allowed to have vehicles on The White Rim Road overnight and not in a designated camping areas. In the past this has been glossed over and even missed by the park service but from now the rule can’t slip and unless vehicles are parked on a campsite over night, they are not allowed on The White Rim Trail.

The options are;

1 You can get day permits and go in and out of the park in 1 day

2 Do real backpacking and walk into Canyonlands, with your supplies from the tarmac roads above, and make sure you camp 1 mile from any dirt road and adhere to normal backpacking/wilderness rules about waste, campfires etc etc.

Chalk - eco chalk / coloured chalk.

When we climbed on the White Rim this year we were under the impression that stuff like the Metolius Eco-Chalk was an accepted medium for drying our hands whilst en-route. However, this isn’t quite correct as the chalk might be “eco” but it’s still quite a bright colour against the rock. This means that coloured chalk is necessary for climbing and fortunately is very easy to buy in local climbing shops in Moab like Gearheads and Pagan.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Coloured chalk and natural protection[/td][/tr]

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So there you have it. A few simple guidelines for climbing clean in the White Rim. Yes, we can all spend hours and days arguing the merits of how these are implemented and decided upon, but for now, it’s good to get a starting place.

If you’re planning a visit to the area to climb, then we recommend getting in touch with the park service - and in particular if there’s any concern then Jason Ramsdell is the ranger who’ll sort out most issues - he’s a climber and knows the deal. Likewise if you prefer to talk to us, then we’re always happy to answer blog post questions if that helps!



Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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Cruising for a Fix - Journey to The Crucifix
12 September 2017, 6:39 pm

Arriving back in the USA in 2017, it feels all very similar. We land in Utah in a state of jetlagged psyche, locate a 4x4 vehicle (thanks so much Danny!!) and then make the drive down to Moab to prepare for another season on desert roof cracks. So far, so good?

Well, this year needs to be a bit different as we’ve both put quite a bit of effort into our training around the mono strength needed on the Crucifix Project – the crux sequence of 10 moves or so requires multiple moves in the roof where you’re lucky to get second joint deep on a mono-jam. It’s painful, it’s powerful and it’s really isn’t very good for the joints!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]One day. One it will happen... (c) Kyle Berkompas[/td][/tr]

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We’re psyched though. Yes, we might moan a bit about the difficulty, but the chance to put together over 7 years worth of crack climbing obsession into one single route is unique. We’ve done quite a few of the classic test-pieces around the world and although it’s really tempting to continue repeating even more of them (they’re really freaking good!!) we’ve decided to make a real commitment to stick with what seems an unfathomably hard process.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Dogging around, trying spins, losing skin![/td][/tr]

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 So what’s the difference so far?

We’ve improved our mono strength this year, our upper body strength and conditioning has moved up a notch and things that felt hard a couple of years ago are finally starting to not be the living end.

Has that played out on the route?

Good question! We’ve completed our first 4 day stint back in Canyonlands and split our time between the crux sequence and trying the key “training link” project on The Crucifix. The mono section has been a bit of a mixed bag – probably no surprise – as some moves are getting easier and others have annoying habit of ripping flappers quite quickly. We’ve now identified that “The Bolt Move” is the one we have to have dialed, as there’s two of them on the crux. It’s similar to a Rose Move, but you’re doing it on monos in a roof and you end up looking like Usain Bolt at the end of a 100m final! It’s a great move and it’s very trainable. In addition to that, we’ve refined the last couple of moves into a better method, which feels a grade easier than before…. Although….. we’re yet to do it. Yup, it’s really hard!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Pete working the original sequence at the end of the crux (c) Kyle Berkompas[/td][/tr]

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 In between resting the skin and mono joints, we worked on what we called “The Cruzifix” which is an easier version of the real project. It’s a link of the first half of Crown of Thorns 5.14 into the end of The Crucifix. The difficulty isn’t mind blowing, but it does cover a huge amount of the ground we’ll do in the final redpoint and therefore it was a big confidence boost for us to link this together. It also, importantly, includes the final massive runout on The Crucifix which always plays on your mind as one of the key holds on it appears a bit fragile…. not the most ideal when you’re absolutely bricking it!

The route breaks down as:

Section 1: The Stigmata. A nice long and dismayingly pumpy hands and fists roof crack of around 70ft. The best and worst thing about the start being that the crack is offset so little that it offers very little for the feet but constantly scrapes down one side of your body - exfoliation treatment! It's hard to overestimate how good this section is as it'd be one of the best roof crack pitches in the world even on it's own. Mega, mega!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Gogarth E6. Sort of. [/td][/tr]

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Section 2: Gogarth E6. One person came up with the nickname and the other said "that's not bloody E6 in a million years!" The only excuse is that this 70ft section looks like a chossy N Wales pitch... but once on it, it has a few surprises in store. Pumpy, weird, loose, sandy and sequency is the name of the game.

Section 3: Whipping of The Cross. Finally you get 40ft of fingers roof crack that cinches down to nothing but a perfect sandy pinch in the middle of the last section. There's a bit of small gear on this part, but a fall last year where the rope went to the sheath in about 1 second made us conclude it was better to run the entire thing out and think positive. Kind of fun, kind of alarming.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Spot the climber?! Runout starts from the bisecting crack on the right. [/td][/tr]

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We're off for another 5 days now. More monos, more time "resting" on FA projects on the side and of course, a whole lot of being silly and not taking things too seriously!



Source: Wide Boyz Blog

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Bloody hell 

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Bloody hell.

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Big Cracks and Monster Storms
20 September 2017, 5:40 am

Heading back to the White Rim for the second trip this week we had two main objectives: make further progress on the crux section of The Crucifix and get what we called "The Rail Project" done. As we've explained before, it's really good to try two different things in the caves under the White Rim so that motivation stays high, skin keeps relatively fresh and the body doesn't get injured.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Tom on the first ascent of Bigger Than Your Boyfriend (c) Mary Eden[/td][/tr]

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We arrived late on what was supposed to be Day 1 and got some Friends in the cracks and ropes and camping set up sorted (you have to camp and eat at least a mile away from any dirt tracks, so establishing a bit of a cooking/sleeping location in the area is very beneficial!). As Day 2 dawned, it became apparent that the weather was looking a bit risky, but rather than prepare we jumped on the smallest holds to take advantage of cooler conditions!

Some time into the afternoon, I was working a section of the route and a serious bit of weather rolled in - it's not exactly epic in British proportions, but the repercussions were a big learning point. As rain poured down outside, there appeared a few trickles of water from the crack above my head.

Pete: "Tom, I'd probably come down. It's not worth it and you'll get wet soon"

10 seconds pass and in this time the water turns from a trickle to the equivalent of someone pouring an entire hotel's worth of bathwater down the crack - it was a bloody waterfall!

Pete: "Holy crap! It's a river! You're coming down.

In just those few seconds, we were utterly drenched, the floor we were belaying from turned into a small river and every item in our possession (chalk, bags, passports, ropes) doubled it's weight in water. Although it was pretty annoying to loose the rest of the day to sitting in the cold and damp, staring out at the storm, it was fascinating to see the Canyonlands in the middle of a flash flood. Waterfalls appeared everywhere, dry gullies became ranging mud rivers and each crack showed us how water was the primary action in it's creation. An amazing day!

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]That is one moist crack...[/td][/tr]

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As you might imagine, the next few days were spent trying to find dry sections of rock and avoid any possible risk of breaking holds on our project. Even the loss of a single crimp in the middle of The Crucifix crux would be game over, so we had to play the waiting game. Boring, but safe.

On one of the "waiting days" we were joined by some Moab friends (Sadie, Mary and Jesse) who came and tried some FAs with us on the wider stuff as it dries way more quickly. Going out and trying these 3-star roof cracks of 5.12-5.13, onsight, with no cleaning is ace. It's like a proper session in the cellar, but on real rock and you get to establish a quality new lines. "Raining Scorpions" 5.12+, "Bigger Than Your Boyfriend" 5.12+, "Suck it Up Buttercup" 5.7 and "Jessie's Big Guns" 5.11 were all established in good style and by a very psyched team.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Mary making the first ascent of Suck it up Buttercup.

Can anyone fit through here apart from Mary!? (c) Mary Eden[/td][/tr]

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All in all, you might think that the last 5 days were a bit of a disaster, but we're taking some positives from it:

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Piz the founder of roof crack climbing on The White Rim, beneath the Crucifix[/td][/tr]

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1. The next 5 days have primo weather. Clear, low humidity and low temps!

2. We didn't break anything on The Crucifix

3. Pete's underwear is all dirty or damp now, so he's commando. Light is right.



Source: Wide Boyz Blog