Here is a short clip of myself and fellow Flashed athlete Dave Heerema prevailing over gale force winds and sending the Moe’s Valley classic Show of Hands V11. Make sure to watch the entire video for little technical difficulty blooper at the end.

Later that day I was also fortunate enough to flash Dead Rabbit V10, a very fun sustained crimp line on Joe’s Valley type rock.

These two sends along with a few other quality moderates, made for one of my best climbing days to date. Plus having Dave there to push me and vice versa made the day trip even more memorable.

Ironically, the beginning of the day tested my patience to its absolute limit. Sunscreen exploded all over my bag and soaked through a pair of my shoes leaving the laces and parts of the rubber greasy to the touch. Rain threatened, fell and dried up all in an hour. The wind knocked over the camera and emptied the chalk bag. The list goes on, but somehow we were all able to rally and steer the session back from the brink.

The last month or so has been a very busy one comprised of lots of training, a day trip to Squamish, Western Youth Regionals and a 2 week trip to Joes Valley!

After training hard for a long time I saw a break in the Squamish weather report at the beginning of March. I was psyched to get one more chance to send my project The Reckoning prior to Joes Valley and Western Regionals. I caught an early ferry and met up with a friend Jan to head to head over to the problem. I made quick progress and stuck the crux move that I had failed to do last time, while starting from there. I then started giving burns from the ground and eventually stuck the move. It ended up being really hard to get out of the position that I got into. A few tries later I got there again and this time turned my heel to a toe and quickly cut my feet and repasted them, it worked! However i went on to fall a few moves later as I was too tired to finsh off the last few moves of the stand. That ended up being my best burn however I did pull through the crux and into the stand a few more times. I’m definately satisfied with getting as far as I did though, as it confirmed that this problem will go down. Here are some pictures!

Next in the timeline was my trip to Joes Valley. I had been there a few years back but I just wasn’t climbing strong back then. This time I had intent to head there and get on some of the hardest and crimpiest lines there were. This turned out to be a bad idea due to the sharpness of the rock, the dryness of the climate, and the fact that I had no skin when I got there, from excessive training. Day 2 of the trip, after cutting my finger on day 1 climbing Fingerhut V10 and trying Fingerslut V13/14, turned out to be a highlight of the trip. I felt strong and decided that it was an appropriate day to try Black Lung V13 with the temperature as freezing as it was. I made quick progress and after only a few hours I managed to stick the last slopey pocket and only fell as my foot popped. I went on to fall on the move to that pocket a few more times before calling it a day, with battered and bloody tips. I felt satisfied with my progress however I know that if I wasn’t using tape it would have gone down.

3 days later, I returned To New Joes in hope that Black Lung would go down quickly. Unfortunately I just didn’t feel as strong and the tape I was using just hindered me more. Climbing and camping in the dessert takes it’s toll on you much more than yould think! I quickly fired off Freak V10 and decided that the best thing to do was to take some rest and approach it a few days later. Well a few days later, we ran in to a friend Jamie Chong. He was very psyched on climbing Ghost King so I decided I’d try it before giving black lung some more effort. I was quickly distracted by a crimpy V12 to the left called Ghost of war. After only a few tries I found myself throwing for the last jug. For some reason I just couldn’t get enough pull to throw far enough and ended up falling. I got on again and fell on the same move once more. I then noticed that my middle finger was bleeding through the tape and decided it was time to stop… I had ripped the entire tip off that finger, which marked the end of hard climbing this trip.

Overall, the trip was really good and Joes Valley offers some of the best lines anywhere. Also important is the near flawless rock quality boasted by many problems. It was definitely humbling to realize that in the desert, I could not pull on all the sharpest holds and expect to be climbing at the end of the trip like I would in Squamish or another moister climate. My fingers dried out too much and cracked very easily… Worst Case Scenario V9 is one of the coolest lines in Joes and is defidently worth not missing.

With skin issues aside, everything else worked out really well. We were set up amazingly for mats as Aaron had an older, giant flashed mat and another highball mat, while I had An amazing and light, blue shogun mat. It was by far the easiest mat to carry around while still offering amazing protection!
Here are some Pictures of our trip! Also we are working on a short video of our trip that will also be ready soon.

Finally, upon arriving back from Joes Valley was the Western Youth Regionals, an annual sport climbing comp to be hosted this year at The Boulders Climbing Gym in Saanich.  The event was put on very well from the great setting to the amazing organization.

Thanks flashed for the awesome gear, the shogun work excellently in Joes Valley and was also very light to carry.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go to Joe’s Valley to do some bouldering. Never having been to Joe’s Valley before, I didn’t really know what to expect. At the beginning of the trip, I instantly fell in love with the sandstone in Joe’s valley.

Our first day in Utah we went to New Joe’s. I was overwhelmed by the amount of boulders everywhere. We started on the Closet boulder. This is where I climbed my first problem in Joe’s Valley. After we warmed up, we went up the hill to climb Chips and Planet of the Apes. Planet of the Apes was very enjoyable. This is a compression problem which is mildly overhung. Having sent those very quickly, we went to go climb some easier stuff which everyone would enjoy.

On Saturday, our second day climbing, we warmed up on the Bowling Ball then went to Wills of Fire.  This climb was the highlight of the trip for me. This was a very tall boulder. This problem was taller than twenty feet tall. Also, this problem is one of the most classic sandstone test pieces in Joe’s Valley. The crux of this climb was at the top. In fact, it was the last move before the top-out. As I got the this part of the climb, I got a huge adrenaline rush. After I topped this boulder, I knew I would leave Joe’s Valley with a felling of accomplishment. After I sent this, I started losing a battle with my skin. We climbed until our fingers bled, then we continued to climb more.

My trip to Joe’s valley was one of the most enjoyable climbing trips I’ve been on. I didn’t focus on the grades of the climbs, which was hard for me. Rather than doing that, I just focused on having a fun trip. If you haven’t been to Joe’s valley, I would highly suggest it.

On April 14th and 15th, the Centre Vertical d’escalade hosted the MEC Canadian Bouldering Championships. I was fortunate enough to be asked to be a part of the route setting team alongside fellow Flashed team member Dustin Curtis, Adrian Das and chief setter Jody Miall. We also had the help of Sebastien from Vertical and several of his staff. Although this made for too many cooks in the kitchen, it worked out nicely and allowed us to get everything done, both qualifiers and finals in a timely manner. Our master plan was precise and easy to follow, as you can see below.

Very quickly, we found out what our one major issue that we’d have to deal with would be – the unfortunate fact of missing t-nuts. Large portions of the walls were completely barren of t-nuts, making hold placement extremely frustrating. Volumes were used to help with this fact, but in the end, when only a hold would do, we grabbed the countersink bit and started piloting screw holes in the holds we wanted.

I was given the task of setting one of the qualifying problems and two of the final problems. My qualifier was men’s #3, an overhanging open book that had a stem start to a dyno, followed by powerful, dynamic climbing that snaked it’s way up the wall to the finish. The dyno off the start wasn’t hard, but it was precise enough to throw several competitors off before sticking it. The next couple moves were easy, but then you had a hard, tensioney cross to an undercling before jumping to a sloper, then the finish.

Men's Problem #3

The women’s final that I got to set was problem #4. It started under a small roof and pulled a couple burly moves before getting the women onto a slightly overhanging face. From here, they had to grab a big undercling, hike the feet up super high and drive the body up, taking the undercling down as close to their knees as they could to reach the finish hold. The powerful nature of this climb was definitely out of the comfort zone for the women, but it’s always good to push competitors past their limits.

Iyma Lamarche crushing women's #4

The other final I set was men’s #4 and it climbed out another steep section of wall on Teknik edges. The design of this problem was to separate the middle to bottom of the pack and to tire the guys out for the final problem. After a shouldery start, long pulls and lockoffs were the name of the game on men’s #4.

Sean McColl making it look easy on problem #4

After qualifiers, there was only one tie, and that was between Sean McColl and Alex Johnson. As a setting team, we reviewed the finals problems and made one minor tweak to one of the men’s problems. We were fairly confident that the variety of climbing styles that we had incorporated into the finals problems would be enough to break the tie, but it’s always nerve wracking until the tie breaks. Once finals was over, it was clear that we did our job – there wasn’t a single tie across the men’s or women’s field; perfect division.

As much work as comp setting is, it’s a ton of fun as well and I can’t wait to do it again…

Hey everyone! Here is a video I put together recently of a Red Rocks anomaly: the sandstone roof. I love roof climbing so you can imagine how I felt when I heard there was 15 move roof right in my backyard. This line was first done in December 2010 and is sure to be a neoclassic. I hope you enjoy the video, and if you find yourself in Vegas itching to get on this line I’d be happy to take you out there as it narrowly missed guidebook publication.

Here’s another video I just finished highlighting a couple more problems that are not included in the current guidebook.

The first line, Shark Tooth V9, was put up by Paul Nadler a couple years ago and has seen one other ascent that I know of by my buddy Andrew Spencer.

The crux involves holding tension and body position on smooth sloping holds that see sun all afternoon. Definitely a temperature dependent boulder, but a tough and satisfying problem regardless. We got lucky with some overcast weather and a cool breeze on the day of filming.

The second problem is one that has been bugging me for a while. Ever since heading out to Andrew Spencer’s neoclassic Spittin’ Vemon I have been looking at the arete to the right. Two years ago I was able to do it from a lame crouching start that felt forced and since then I have always wanted to take some time and figure out a full sit start.

Two days ago I sat under the arete again and found a highly improbable sloping mono dish that I began using as a joke, however once I found the right feet and body position I was able to utilize this little guy for the first ascent of the full sit start! I named the line Poison Control and have no idea how hard it is. It felt around V9, but I’d love to hear some consensus. Get out there, grab the second ascent and know what you think. In the mean time enjoy the video!