What a Way to Wrap Up the Season!

Winter is definitely here!  The snow outside squeaks underfoot, and the air makes my face hurt.  But before winter hit, so much was accomplished!  Jimmy Webb made a visit to Neverland.  Davin and Bryan gave him a tour of some of the hardest projects, and he sent two new V14s "The Multiverse" and "Komodo." One of them is now Wyoming's hardest boulder problem, and the other one is the second hardest.  Kasia Pietras made the first ascent of "Triple X" which was also a long standing Neverland project.
Then news came out that Jamie Emerson finished off the Mega Mega project at El Dakota.  He named it "The Hunter," rated it V12, and I recommend reading his well written account of it at B3bouldering.

Bryan, Davin, Mike, Brian and Jamie working at what was still the "Mega Mega Project" last July.

As the famous unfinished lines kept appearing on my Instagram feed with names and grades on an almost daily basis, for a moment it started to seem like all the hard projects in Wyoming were suddenly complete.   But with just a little thought, a bunch more came to mind.  And with so much good rock, I'm absolutely sure that new, never before seen, world class Wyoming lines will show up on Instagram by next year.  Even in my guidebook, there are still quite a few impressive undone projects listed in the V12-15 range.  And it isn't out of the realm of possibility that the Rock Shop could have the most difficult problem in the state if a strong enough climber visits the area.  Hopefully a few of the projects in the Lander area will get attention, now that the quality of Wyoming bouldering is becoming more well known.

With my teaching and family schedule, I wasn't able to make it out to Neverland to see all the strong climbers who visited over the last couple weekends.  But that's alright.  I got to climb in empty beautiful places, in amazing weather.  Here are some photos of Sierra and Matt from a recent trip to Torrey Valley.

Sierra climbing The Good Earth East Face V2.

 Matt on the Mead boulder.

 The fine grain Torrey texture on "Gold's Gym."

 Davin showed me "Gold's Gym" on my first trip to Torrey Valley and called it V5.  Matt and I might have been starting somewhat lower than the original line, but it felt really hard to me.

Matt sent it.

 I didn't.  But now I know what to do, and I'm excited to get back to it!

It's been one of the most exciting couple weeks ever for Wyoming bouldering as a spectator sport.  But as a participant, my last two weekends were exactly the same as they've been for many years.  Just wonderful days in vast lonely spaces, playing at getting up rocks, trying as hard as I can, with family and friends.  The types of days that I've become very accustomed to, yet seem to appreciate even more as time goes by.   So it's wonderful that some of the world's strongest boulders are making visits and putting up amazing lines.  I'm excited that it's finally happening.  As a Wyoming bouldering developer it's good to get some validation and recognition that these areas we have really are as amazing as we think they are.

But it's also good to occasionally ask the question "Is any validation actually necessary?"  I've finally come to realize that it isn't.  When you've got boulders you're excited to climb, that's really all you need.


Who knows when temps will be warm again?  Not by this weekend.

Luckily, there will be a bouldering comp at Elemental on Saturday.