To each his own

Tuesday was the first day back to stripping at Bridges Rock Gym after a two week hiatus. It felt good to set some boulder problems again, even if it's not that many days of work. I love it. I get to work with home boys like Ben Eastman, Chris Bloch, Rowan Jímenez, and crew of others. We've been doing this for about one year solidly, and we have improved vastly in a short amount of time. We've learned how to flow better and more efficiently over terrain. I never thought I'd get to work along side a talented group of people who put their passion in creating things for others and giving people amazing routes to test themselves on. The feeling of giving back to the community some problems to train and climb on and seeing them charge on problems is...well, it's rad. I understand that this is JUST plastic pulling, but it's part of the climbing community. Sometimes it's easy to forget that tucked away in a building (and not outside) is a part of the climbing community. People get so caught up in going outside and JUST climbing for numbers (at one point or another we are all guilty of this). I've been stuck inside for months at a time at times, and it can make you dull. I was mentally breaking down the days I was not setting. Setting made me focus and psyched again and calmed down. I was getting angry and frustrated. Not a good place for me. Socially anxious when some people showed up too.


My hands get wrecked after many hours setting, forerunning, then climbing till closing.

Last call problem at Bridges (3/3/2010)

Let's talk about something I feel is getting out of control: grades. What the f**k people? When did this become such a problem for us to grade BOULDER problems? Thanks to the internet, all I'm seeing is talk about how one problem is this grade or not, and how the "equation" (which I fully do not understand and probably won't because of the time it would take away from climbing to learn it) works or doesn't. It's a bunch of shit that neither right nor wrong, but certainly has no place for discussion as the riffs it creates between sides. My personal opinion on grades are they are they to track progress and this sport is all about progression, more than ever. Grades do not land sponsorships SOLELY, they don't make you a better person. Everyone needs to remember, CLIMBING IS SUBJECTIVE. That's it. It's just rocks. Climbing is fun, but reading internet forum arguments about grades of problems the chumps who are arguing will probably not do is getting ridiculous. You wanna play with the big dogs you can't piss like a pup.

Chris Bloch summed it up good with this quote from his Hueco Showzen:

"If you can do it, it's hard. If you can't do it, it's really hard."

Off that topic. Good session at Bridges Rock Gym Thursday. It was intense! Everything is we set is hard, or a touch harder than we originally thought (again, the grade bullshit! FUCK!). I think it's cool because it encourages people to get on it more and try hard. That's all that matters in climbing. If you tried hard and came close that counts but when you try hard and succeed it's the best feeling in the world. I have so many projects in the cave. I need to get some new shoes before I blow through my Dragons toe. I'm so psyched on doing these cave routes to get my strength up again and try hard. It's been a long time since I've felt that I've tried hard to send. The feeling is...indescribable. It's the best feeling to try hard. Even when you come up short you're psyched and when you send it, you're super psyched.