B² Productions | Climbing Blog

We were greeted by another cloudless, California morning when we awoke from a good nights sleep in our modest Super 8 room. It was a fleeting stop over in J-Tree (Benny and I were getting good at these one night stands); we got dressed, packed up our stuff, hauled it into the back of the car and went to grab some breakfast. It was during said breakfast that we made a startling discovery. We’d been eating a lot of Raisin Bran (when available) as we had assumed that it was the healthiest breakfast cereal choice on offer; similar to Fruit & Fibre in the UK. It wasn’t until closer inspection that each humble raisin was covered in sugar, for reasons totally unknown to us. I dread to think how much additional sugar we’d unwittingly ingested on our trip! No wonder I felt so heavy on the rock (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking too it). Still, mountains of sugar or not; the Raisin Bran was still infinitely preferable to the ironically named “Fruit Loops”. They appeared to be made from small circles of raw plutonium, and stuffed into a box. From the looks of them, the closest they’d ever come to fruit was being situated five feet from bowl of apples and sorry looking bananas on the adjacent table.

Snoo on 'Gripper's Traverse' (V0+)

Anyway, with the breakfast rantings over with, it was time to head back into the park for few hours bouldering before it was time to push on again. Benny had some things in mind for the day: Namely repeating and attempting problems from his previous visit. With no real agenda, Snoo and I were happy to go along with this. The first stop was ‘Grippers Traverse’ (V0+). Intended to be a warm up, it ended up being trickier for Snoo and I than hoped. Starting with a sit start on the left hand side, the traverse follows an obvious, thin crack right for around fifteen feet. Snoo, who loves a good traverse, was keen to give it a go. It must get a fair amount of traffic as the thing felt awfully greasy and I came a cropped a couple of times as the tenuous crimps totally gave out beneath my fingers. Benny made a quick repeat, and once I had the sequence sorted, followed close behind. Snoo kept getting stuck on a couple of big, awkward moves but was making good progress. However, after some good attempts, she was getting pretty tired so we got back into the car and headed to another problem Benny had tried the previous year.

Benny on 'Velvetta' (V2)

Another short drive lead us to ‘Velvetta’ (V2). A vetical, real, sharp crimp-fest of a problem. Starting from a high start from side pulls, you make a couple of deadpoint moves on more small crimps before a big slap for the lip. The sun was baring down now. It was approaching midday and it was hot. We weren’t to be deterred though. As Snoo made herself comfortable and watched us from the ever decreasing shade, we started to piece together the beta and made a few tentative attempts. After a couple of goes, I’d managed to link up to the last move, but was struggling to see how make the reach to the lip. After some close examination, and cleaning of holds, I found a wide left foot which looked like it could work. I managed to get into the position again, and found the foot hold. I was pretty stable now, with my left up on a high gastone crimp, my right on a low side pull and my feet planted, I made a near full span bump with my left hand and got my finger tips over the lip. Unfortunately, I hit totally the wrong place and ended up slipping off. I was convinced it would work though, and on the next attempt, I stuck the move and made the easy top out! The move felt big for me, so I wasn’t sure if Benny was going to be able to make it. Looking back now, it was pretty foolish to think like that. Benny is nothing if not a dynamic climber and after a few attempts and some liberally applied tape to his now raw finger tips, he managed to stick the move! Two for two on ‘Velvetta’, and with the razor sharp rock beginning to take its toll on our fingers; not a moment too soon.

It was getting near time to leave, but before we could go, Snoo was determined to give ‘Grippers Traverse’ another try. On the way out of the park, we swung back into the parking lot right by the problem, and Snoo got prepared to try it again. The problem was more in the shade now, and it felt noticeably cooler, and the friction was definitely better. Snoo had a few isolated attempts on the crux moves that were stumping her previously and made them with ease. It was now or never, so she got back and went of the send! She came really close on the first attempt, but again, came unstuck on the awkward, wide crux move. The second time however, she sailed through it, and with gritted teeth edged her way along the final, overhanging, crimpy seam to the end of the problem! Success! We’d all done problems we were happy with, so we decided to leave things on a high. We packed up our stuff, loaded up the car and headed out of the park, and out of J-Tree again. Before long we were back on the I-10 heading west towards LA. It was only a short drive (especially by our recent standards) to our next stop over: Valencia, CA…