B² Productions | Climbing Blog

First off, apologies for the delay in the next few posts. We’re trying to catch up with the backlog, but it’s proving tricky. We’re used to using the driving days to catch up, but sadly, being back home we no longer have any. Our story will be finished though, I promise you this!

In the mean time, here’s a little treat for you. To prove that we haven’t just been sitting around, B² Productions have put together a new, short film from Hueco Tanks in Texas. It’s a selection of some of our favourite problems there. Don’t expect to see any big numbers go down, but hopefully you’ll still enjoy watching the problems we tried. You may enjoy the big send at the end though! We’d love to here any feedback you might have! Enjoy!

It was still raining the next morning. The clouds totally obscured the tops of the mountains. We were glad to be on our way again. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Boulder, but the near constant rain when you want to climb is pretty draining. I was excited for Moab though. The weather forecasts indicated a better outlook for our arrival. We packed up the car in the stare road rain, and headed off on the next leg of our journey. A new state beckoned (our sixth of the trip). We got out of the city quickly, and before long were heading up the winding roads towards the Rockies. I’d done this drive before, the previous year with Snoo. It is pretty stunning. The thick could cover took the edge off a little, but the higher we got, the clearer the views became. Before long, we popped out of the Eisenhower tunnel and started our descent down towards the state line. We crossed into Utah and the landscape totally changed! The lush, snow covered rockies were now far behind us, and stretched out in front was miles of desert. You could be forgiven for thinking that Utah is fairly unimpressive as far as scenery goes (and to begin with, it does have the same dull, southern New Mexico styling) but luckily, we had an ace up our sleeve. Pretty soon after crossing the border, we swung off the I-70 and, ignoring the protests from Tom-Tom joined Highway 128. We briefly pulled over to mount the video camera out of the sun roof in preparation for what was to come. The 128 winds its way slowly down towards Moab. It’s by no means the fastest road, but it definitely is the most scenic. Before long, we were down in the heart of the valley. Massive, red walls and pillars of desert sandstone soared up either side of us, getting more impressive with every bend in the road. I’d been down this way before, but it was all new to Benny. I remembered how I felt when we first drove down this way, and he seemed to be experiencing the same now. It still blew me away however. Like Yosemite, photos and video really don’t seem to do these vast landscapes the justice that actually being there does. We stopped a couple of times to take photos, and we pointed out various landmarks to each other. The silence and sense of space is incredible. I really like this area of America, and the 128 is exactly the sort of classic road trip road you want to be heading down.

The Beast on Highway 128 (Check out the sweet additions!)

We rolled into Moab and headed down the main strip towards our hostel. We’d been recommended this place by Aaron in Boulder, so we thought we’d give it a try. I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting, but it turned out I was expected a bit more than I got. To be fair to the place, it was fine, but it was most definitely a hostel, which comes as a bit of a shock after having been in hotels. What it lacked in quality, it made up for in value – it was dirt cheap! We decided to go with it, and crammed the stuff we needed into the room, stuck the AC on, and decided to make the most of the evening by heading straight out bouldering. The engine of the focus was still warm as we fired it back up and hit the road again. Moab, like many towns in the western United States, basically consists of one long strip of a high street, with a grid of residential streets crossing the main street. It’s a really cool, town and it has a real outdoors-y, bohemian feel to it. One thing that sets Moab apart from a lot of places is the lack of chain outlets. Sure, there are some (McDonalds, Burger Kings, Best Westerns etc) but largely the place seems very independently owned and operated. I think this has something to do with why I feel so welcome and at home there. It’s a little island of chill in a very stiff, starch, up tight state.

The view from Big Bend (Click for a larger version)

We made our way out of town and back down the 128 the way we had come, for about 7 miles. Big Bend is a great little spot. Sat right on the edge of the 128, in the heart of the valley with the river running close by. By the time we arrived the sun was just starting its descent into night time, and the temps were dropping to bareable climbing levels. It felt good to be back there. I had lots of nice memories flooding back of the previous year when Snoo and I had ventured down to see what was there. With no crash pad and no guide book, we just messed around on things that looked do-able. This time we were armed. We had pads and guidebooks, and we were fitter and stronger than the previous year. We began the session warming up with a few V0’s and V1’s on the Black Box Boulder. There’s some really cool problems on there, with all kinds of variations on the perfect, crimps and sidepulls. It felt nice to be moving across the rock with the sun on your back. Unfortunately, getting straight onto fairly heavy duty crimps without warming up is not the wisest of ideas. The middle finger of my left hand started the all to familiar bruised sensation of a strained tendon! Not the start I had hoped for. I tried to warm my fingers up the best I could, while Benny went and sussed out a cool V4 traverse called Trail Traverse on the Trail boulder. Starting from a sit start on good crimps, you make your way right, along a series of ok pockets with very little for your feet. Benny was making pretty short work of the middle section with some deft heel hooks and crafty foot work, while I found the whole thing a lot more difficult. My balance and positioning on the holds was all out of whack, and I soon found myself getting irritated and frustrated with myself. This is never a good situation for me to get myself in, so I decided to step back from it and just spot Benny while he gunned for the ascent. I didn’t take long. After working out an impressive looking, near horizontal reach through move, and some more impeccable footwork, he had linked up the trick moves on the pockets on the rail into the ending. A couple more attempts and he had the entire thing done! Excellent effort – he would do well on the desert sandstone.

Benny on Trail Traverse (V4)

We were both starting to feel pretty tired by this point after the long drive, but not too tired to check out the massive Chaos boulder which sits smack in the middle of the Big Bend area. We were drawn like moths to a flame towards a great looking line on the corner which a guy and his girlfriend were trying. The line turned out to be called ‘Circus Tricks’ (V4). The guidebook informed us that this problem had been “sandbagged” (graded lower than it’s difficulty suggests). Despite the fact we were tried, it certainly felt very tough for a V4! From the sit down start, you have to make a heel hook up next to your hands, before pulling up hard to the next couple of holds on the arete. As the muscles in my legs started it seize up, it was becoming increasingly hard to make the move, and to get my heel to stick in place. We decided to have a quick couple of burns on the moves towards the end. These were super hard too! The problem wasn’t too high, so you could work the ending quite easily. From standing you could get two good, deep crimps, and with your left foot up on a high, large ledge, make a big move up left to (sort of) undercling on the arete. There was very little there to hold, but with enough body tension, you could just about stay in place. I got this move after a couple of tries, but Benny found it a lot harder. The arete was just out of his reach, which meant he had to cut his feet every time. Holding the arete and the one remaining crimper became increasingly difficult here, and he was struggling to stay on. Although I could make the move, I was stuck with what to do next. There was a distinct lack of footholds after the initial good ledge, and I was finding it difficult to hold myself on long enough to move anywhere. It was becoming clear that Circus Tricks would allude us for tonight, and as the sun finally disappeared, we packed up and headed back to town for dinner in the micro-brewery called Eddie McStiffs (which would become our daytime home for the next few days) and some well earned sleep.

The clouds hung low over the mountains in Boulder again. Low, and incredibly threatening. We’d used our only real rain contingency plan the previous day with our visit to the Spot, so we weren’t quite sure what to do with ourselves. The clouds and damp were enough to put you off climbing, but they weren’t anywhere near as much of a hinderance as our now ravaged finger tips! I hate to sound like a broken record, but it was a repeating problem. A lazy breakfast was in order, followed by another stroll round the town. We drove out a little way to a open air mall type place which promised us another outdoor store. We wandered slowly round browsing in various shops with no real agenda. We sat and sipped at smoothies from Jamba Juice, and I found a pair of Sanuk-equivilent-Sketchers for a bargain price. The climbing store offered yet another poor range of climbing shoes, so we cut our losses and headed back to the hotel.

Ben chilling in Jamba Juice

As the skies opened properly for the first time that day, we decided to put our free time to good use. We’d been shooting all this footage, and I’d been managing to dump some of it over the course of a few evenings – it was time to put a new video together! Our new Ford Focus was fitted with Sirius radio. This turned out to be a God send! We’d managed to find an Elecrtronica/Chill Out station called Chill XM, which played nothing but pretty much constant climbing video music. We’d kept a pen and paper handy to note down all the new artists which we would usually have had to scour the internet for being delivered right into our laps as we covered the hundreds of miles between Hueco and Boulder. So, with new music sourced it was time to get to work. The fruits of that afternoons efforts has already been posted on here, but here it is again…

We were getting slicker now. Granted, the video is only six minutes long but I was still pretty impressed that we managed to turn it over and have it uploading in just over three hours. It was a rest day well spent in my opinion, and we certainly earned our slap up dinner at Red Lobster! After dinner, we got packed up and rounded the night off with a few games of pool in the hotel. As a full blown storm set in for the night, we were ready to leave Boulder and head on to our next destination – Moab, Utah…

It was a cloudy day in Boulder, Colorado. The clouds that had been threatening the previous day were still around. The decision was made for us – We’d head to the gym! Not just any gym though – The Spot. The place where big names like Daniel Woods and Alex Puccio regular crush the holds to dust. It was gonna be cool. Also, our fingers were wrecked. We were still suffering the after effects of Hueco Tanks, and pulling down on the tiny crimps and glassy, sharp pockets up at Flagstaff hadn’t really helped matters. The Spot offered nice, forgiving plastic. We had a bit of a lazy morning, before getting a late breakfast. Before we went climbing we decided to have a little bit of an explore round the town. Boulder proudly boasts the only flagship, dedicated PrAna store which was far too tempting to pass up, so we decided to make that our first destination. I was still on the hunt for shoes, so en route we swung into REI. Another disappointing selection of climbing apparel! We had a quick look round and then returned to plan A. We parked up near where we’d been the night before and wandered around the quiet, manicured streets of Boulder. Boulder had a really nice vibe, the sort of vibe which would be achieved if you injected a few hundred thousand pounds into the North Laines in Brighton. It was well scrubbed up and presentable, but still with an underlying streak of Bo-Ho chic. We found the store and wandered around, trying things on and generally feeling a little overwhelmed. I managed to find a T-shirt I’d seen online and subsequently fallen in love with. It’s been added to the collection. I also picked up a cool pair of lightweight climbing trousers. A pretty good haul I thought.

Once the shopping was done it was off to the Spot. We found the place without too much difficulty and it turned out to be not far from our hotel. After the general signing-your-life-away rigmarole, we were ready to go. We’d been in touch with Aaron from the day before, and he came down to meet us. The previous nights fun and games seemed to be wearing heavily on him though, and he was a lot more lethargic than the previous day. The Spot is a bouldering specific centre (with a few token top ropes thrown in for the kids), with a couple of cool, freestanding boulders in the centre. A long wall runs along the back which finishes up with a pretty high cave roof. There were holds all over the place, and it took a while to get our head around following the coloured tags from the holds instead of the colour if the holds themselves. I liked the Spot instantly. It was chilled, the staff were friendly and were playing good music, The problems were fun and they even had a slack line! However, my one huge gripe was the convoluted grading system. I don’t want this to turn into a grades rant, but seriously, there’s enough systems in the world to contend with without adding a new one into the mix – especially one that seems (to me at least) to make no real sense! For bouldering, I think America have got the best, most consistent system with the V grades. All crags in the states use this, and even the Castle has now moved primarily over to it from the British Technical. The Spot seem to have created their own which, possibly unsurprisingly enough, involves the use of spots with pluses and minuses, and a variety of initials to dictate the use of features etc. The ranges started at 3 spots for a V0/4A or B up five +’s with all kinds of variations in between. It really isn’t a big thing at all really. I’d like to reiterate that the problems were super fun, there was no problem there, it just struck me as odd to complicate things with a new system when a more reliable system is already in place and I’m sure used by all the staff whenever they head out to any of the great climbing spots around Boulder.

Benny on one of the freestanding boulders in The Spot Gym

All thoughts of weird grading systems was soon eclipsed by one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a climbing gym I’ve been to: Boulders you could top out on! It’s nearly impossible for me o go to any climbing gym and not compare it to The Castle – it’s my frame of reference, but The Castle could REALLY do with one of those boulders! Top outs are one of my weak points when I get on real rock, and it would be so cool to have some way to train for that! The Spot has exactly that! The boulders are featured, but not too heavily which is good, and they are also pretty high, which helped to over come some of the fear of topping out high off the ground. After working around some of the cool problems we saw on the back wall (not completing many due to fatique, but still having a good go) we moved onto one of the big boulders. We found a cool project straight off. I’d say it was around V4 or 5 (I have no idea what it was in Spots). It started by getting established on a couple of pretty good crimps, before making a big move up to jug. The next couple of moves felt totally impossible to begin with – A reach back to a high gastone with your left hand, then dropping your weight onto that arm, and catching a side pull underneath. Benny was pretty solid here from the start, but I kept popping straight off! Soon though, it started coming together. The key was a mix of body tension and footwork which took some figuring out. Projecting boulder problems is one of my favourite parts of climbing. It can be hugely frustrating too, but we were making regular progress so the excitement remained. Benny made the next big step – basically a backwards dyno to a big sloper with a little SOS on the top to catch! His feet swung right out and it took a lot of effort to hold it. I tried the section up to there and managed to make the move too – The next part was tricky though. We began linking up to the dyno from the start, but holding it took a huge amount of effort, and close as we came, we’d have probably needed another, fresher session to link through the last few moves to the top. We decided to leave that problem after working it for about half an hour. We didn’t move far though. Benny found a cool problem on the arete just to the right of where we had been. This was really fun too, but very different in style. From an easy sit start, you worked your way up, either side of the arete on slopers. It was super fun as well, and right up my street with a load of big, throwy moves between slopers. We didn’t manage to top this out either, sadly, but it was fun to work all the same.

After that we were pretty spent. We did a few easish problems to warm down and then made our way back to the hotel. By the time we’d chilled out, we couldn’t be bothered to go anywhere else. We decided to explore a bit more of what the Boulder Outlook Hotel had to offer. We donned our trunks and headed for the pool. The hotel had a cool leisure area in just off the lobby, with a pool, spa and most impressively of all – a climbable boulder! We didn’t really make the most of it though, as we were too busy splashing around in the worlds coldest pool! To balance it out though, they also had the worlds hottest spa. We alternated between the two until we couldn’t take any more and went back to shower, change and return for some dinner and beers in the bar, and the first of what would become a regular event, a pool marathon (my pool skills have certainly improved over the course of the trip, even if my climbing hasn’t…).

We had to hit the road early, we had big miles to cover to get up to Boulder, Colorado. 740 long miles. It’d be our longest drive so far. We said our goodbyes to Charles and bought our token Hueco T-Shirts. It was sad to be leaving, we had enjoyed the freedom of the ranch and we’d be back to the confinement of hotels for the foreseeable future. We hit the road west back into New Mexico, we’d been told that there were often border checks on the roads out of El Paso but we didn’t come across any. We turned off the highway a few miles into New Mexico and headed north towards Albuquerque. The miles ticked by slowly, the barren desert passed by the window. We laughed at a town called Radium Springs. We drove. About an hour into the drive we hit slow traffic, cars ahead were being diverted through a building on the side of the road. What’s going on? We crawled up the slip road, past ominous looking cameras and sensors. Ah, border control – not where we expected it, but shouldn’t be an issue. Shouldn’t be, but it was. Most of the cars we could see in front passed through without issue, the cop stopped us however and instructed us to wind down the window. “Documents?” in a thick Mexican accent. I handed him my EU driving license. “What’s this?” he spat. I thought he was going to chuck it on the ground. Our passports were in the trunk, it’s fair to say that there was a bit of a communication break down at this point. We got out of the car, unloaded our cases onto the floor, I caught a glimpse of the tailback now forming behind us. I couldn’t see where it ended. I found my passport pretty quickly and proudly handed it over. The cop inspected it, and told me to take my hands out of my pocket. Ben couldn’t find his passport, and by now all our stuff was spread out on the road. The cop had a sudden brainwave and instructed us to pull into a lay by next to the office, we repacked all our gear and moved the car. I waited whilst Ben again rummaged around for his passport, this time with the company of two other burly and surly cops. I’d like to say this story ended happily, but as I write this from a filthy Mexican prison, it’s hard to do so…

I jest, Ben eventually found his passport and we pushed on towards Albuquerque. Ben’s laptop had broken the previous day, so we planned on swinging by the Apple Store there to try and get it repaired. The rest of miles where predictably boring, broken up only by a fuel stop in the ‘Chili Capital of the World’. Albuquerque soon appeared over the horizon, and first stop would be a geek stop at Starbucks to get some wireless so that we could find the Apple Store. Turns out that in Albuquerque getting an internet connection is not as easy as just rocking up to a Starbucks, but rather involves slyly parking outside of an Arbys and stealing their connection. We got the address and where on our way again. We found the Apple Store easily enough. While Ben and one of the very flamboyant Apple Genius’s got better aquatinted I checked my emails and had a browse around itching to get on the road to our actual destination, Santa Fe, about 70 miles north. I was soon informed by Ben and his new friend that I’d now be staying in Albuquerque that night instead. Ben couldn’t get his Mac looked at until the next morning at 10am. We used the Apple Store internet to book a hotel for the night and headed up to the Best Western.

We passed Santa Fe the next morning, Ben now had a working laptop, the sun was out and we were still a good distance from Boulder. Winding up into the mountains, it was immediately obvious that the north of New Mexico is quite a contrast to the south. It’s really lush and mountainous. It does make the drive easier when there are nice surroundings to gaze upon. Rest break. Springer, in hindsight not the best choice. A one horse prison town with a weird petrol station. We stocked up on doughnettes and water and made a hasty retreat, vowing not to stop in any other strange towns.

We didn’t stop at any more strange towns. But we did stop. In a massive traffic jam, pretty much from Denver to Boulder. Just what we didn’t need after a day of hard driving. We crawled a snails pace towards Boulder, the rain was on and off, massive storm clouds coming in off the mountains. It took us about two and a half hours to crawl the 30 miles or so of highway. We drove in to the carpark of the Boulder Outlook hotel tired and hungry, and got checked in. The Boulder Outlook is actually a pretty cool hotel, at least it’s the only hotel that I’ve been to that has climbing boulders next to the pool.

The next morning, we drove up to the climbing shop in the hope of tracking down a guidebook for the area, Colorado was a bit of a wild card in our travels in that we didn’t really know where we were going to climb. We’d probably just pay it by ear. The climbing shop was closed, we were there at 9:30 and it didn’t open til 10. We decided to head across the parking lot and pick up some water and snacks. Heading back across the car park we saw a familiar sight, bouldering pads and a couple of guys hanging around waiting for the shop to open. We approached them and asked where they were heading, they replied that they were heading up to Flagstaff up in the mountains. They said we were welcome to join them and we jumped at the chance. We hung around until the shop opened, bought the local guide book and followed Aaron, Adam and Chris up into the hills. The first spot we hit was a small area with one massive rock and a few satellite boulders scattered around it. We started off on a smallish

Aaron's Dyno

boulder with a few easy (but sweet) V0’s and 1’s that Aaron recommended. We then moved over to the large rock, which has a big long high face with quite a few problems on it. We had a go on a great V3 called ‘Consideration’, I felt it was tough for it’s grade and it took me around 5 or 6 tries. The top out was pretty dicey as it was quite a lofty problem. Ben had a few attempts but got shot down in the same place each time on one of the crimpy moves near the top, meaning pretty scary falls each time. Next up was a small roof problem called ‘East Overhang’ (V2) with a juggy start and a really technical top out. Next door to this was a crazy dyno, not in the guidebook, but previously sent by Aaron. Aaron gave us a demo and stuck it on his 3rd try, it looked awesome. He was also trying an extension to the problem by starting on ‘East Overhang’ and traversing around the corner to get set-up for the dyno. However it seemed the initial traverse sucked that extra bit of power that he needed for the dyno, and he couldn’t quite stick it. Ben and I had a fair few goes on the dyno with Ben coming really close to sticking it, and me a bit further from sticking it. Had we both spent a bit more time on it, I think it would have been possible.

Aaron wanted to show us another area further up the mountain, so we walked back to the car and headed further up the twisty mountain road. Occasionally through the trees we caught glimpses of the stunning view looking down towards Boulder and Denver. The next spot looked really cool with big imposing boulders scattered around on a steep hillside. We walked up towards the first rocks and one problem immediately caught my eye, a crimpfest up a near vertical spotless face. Aaron told me it was a V8, a bit outside of my grade, but I had to give it a go – so he gave me the beta. Ben and I gave the sit-start a go, and whilst it was intensely hard it came together pretty quickly for us both. The next move would prove to be the first crux though, whilst crimping a small edge with the left hand you need to make a huge static move out right for a tiny side-pull edge. Using a crazy high left foot I surprised myself and managed to stick this move, it was a pretty scrunchy move so Ben started to look for another foot placement for this move. After this, the problem is straight up on another couple of terrible edges to a good edge right below the lip. I felt excited now, it seemed possible. After another couple of goes and I was on the upper section, searching for a foot hold to make the move up to the good edge, if I could just get a good enough foot placement. Damn. Back down on the ground. I had a few more goes, getting slightly higher each time, and it felt like it was within spitting distance, the crimps had taken their toll on my right index finger though, gradually slicing it’s way into the flesh, which was now bleeding. The marginal edges would have been impossible with tape on, so I had to give up. I was a bit gutted, but at the same time I had made some good progress on a V8 and it really felt like it might have been possible.

Benny on the V8 in Flagstaff

The storm clouds were beginning to roll in off of the Rockies by this point as they often do in early summer, so we headed further up onto the hillside to a juggy lowball boulder with some easy fun traverses and straight-ups. I think the altitude had gotten to us by this point as we were both shattered, and even the easiest problems were feeling difficult Aaron told us that it took him months to get used to the high altitude when he first moved to Colorado. We arranged to meet Aaron later that night for dinner, said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel. It had been a good morning.
We drove down off of the mountain headed back to the hotel. We swung by The Spot on the way back for a quick look around and vowed to head there for some indoor climbing the next day. After a bit of relaxing back in the room, we walked up to Southern Sun, a nice bar/restaurant with it’s own microbrewery to meet Aaron and Chris. I won’t go into great detail, because I don’t have much memory of the night. But it involved a lot of food, even more beer and a long walk. Everyone was going to be a bit worse for wear the next day but I was pleased to be in Boulder as I fell asleep that night.