Reel Climbing

Saturday night Trevor Harris and myself hosted the Reel Rock Tour here in St. John's.  The night capped off a week of steady work that saw me spending evening after evening in my classroom.  The marks for report cards are due tomorrow.  Tomorrow the work becomes more manageable as my fear of criticism from students and parents alike gains momentum.

We never did this tour to make money, and were actually okay with losing a bit.  The real impetus for this thing was the idea of doing something for the climbing community, getting everyone together, watching some climbing movies, and hopefully getting inspired to get out and do some climbing.  Low and behold this weekend saw the God of high pressure systems grant us mercy and this weekend allowed us to do just that.  The cold abated, the rain ceased, and the sun came out.  Everyone shook off the effects of the after party (thanks Danielle and Phil!) and went climbing.  It was a perfect day for putting hands to rocks.

I probably knew only half of the one hundred people that bought tickets for Reel Rock, but I knew everyone who went to Main Face today.  It was warm but crisp, a seemingly oxymoronic blend of conditions that produced one of the best days I have ever had down at Main Face.  I was even fortunate enough to take advantage of the situation and finish off a beautiful little route that I have been focused on for the last month or so.

Work and especially conditions kept me from giving it a solid lead attempt, but today I grabbed my widest gear and scummed up a beautiful hands and wider corner that tops a short crux inducing roof.  The nerves turned to a nice focus and the route felt two grades easier than the initial top-rope attempts seemed to suggest.  The offwidth sections make this climb unique to the area with serious shoulder, arm,  and hip scumming being a necessity for anyone else that wants to thrutch up that amazing corner.

Strangely I had climbed this section of rock before.  Years ago a sport route wove up a beautiful corner.  Scary freeze and thaw action pulled the corner apart producing my first real trad project, a tight hands thriller that skipped the bolts.  Last season the corner was pulled apart three inches farther and voila: an offwidth sprung up. Next year it might be gone and only a few of us will have ever climbed on what I consider to be one off the better climbs in Flatrock.

It is a completely different climb than the one that used to occupy that space.  I am calling it Ozymandias and giving it 5.10c.  In the guidebook an arbitrary name of Who the Frack Bolted that Crack? was attached to this section of the cliffband.  If the name sticks so be it, if not...hell, the whole thing might fall off over the winter.

A few photos from the weekend.

Game Time

Autumn is here, you can feel it.  Some mark it with by the leaves changing colours or the fact that the calender says "October" but  have always found Fall to be something more intangible.  It's that crisp cold, the one that brings a smell that they'll never try to replicate through scented candles.  The humidity is leaving us, you can see farther on a clear day; and maybe you can garner just enough friction to send a project or two.

Temperatures that are a shade too crisp for the sustained exposure of rope climbing are perfect for pulling on pebbles.  But crisp is soon going to turn cold.  Below is a video that demonstrates what crisp conditions, natural talent, and an unwavering desire to hold on can bring.  The Game V16 is one of two problems considered to be significantly harder than anything else out there right now.  Both it and Lucid Dreaming V16 will be featured in (shameless plug) the Reel Rock Tour on November 6th.  The short film "The Hardest Move" chronicles what it takes to boulder at this level and profiles the only two climbers currently doing so, Paul Robinson and Daniel Woods.

Some big news regarding the tour will be forthcoming this week.  Enjoy the video.


The Game, World's Hardest Boulder Problem? from Cedar Wright on Vimeo.

Broken Shoulder, Social Scene

Hurricane Igor has kind of put an exclamation point on the ending of the climbing season here on the Avalon.  A strained rotator cuff and the fact that getting on a rope now involves some serious logistics has left me on the low end of the motivation scale.  Already my thoughts are turning to the possibilities next year could hold.  Along those line I have some pictures of some tremendous looking possibilities I discovered recently on a pre-Igor road trip.  My phone is being saucy though and refuses to share with the computer.

Lately I have found myself being much more social in my climbing than ever before.  I can't climb super hard in the short term so I have been enjoying the casual process of sending a few moderate boulder problems with good people.  Much of this enjoyment stems from the latter part of this year's road trip. Once Phil headed back to NL I met up with an amazing crew from LA.  They were psyched on bouldering, I was psyched on not having to troll for partners in the parking lot.  The social experience was even better than the bouldering and this is in-spite of the fact that I had several breakthroughs in terms of my own climbing during this time.

This crew included some of the very best people I have met in a long time.  Everyone was supportive, as psyched to see a friend send as they were to top out their own projects.  When it got hot we climbed at night, headlamps and attention focused on each person in turn as we flailed, yelled, tried hard, and occasionally succeeded, all the while laughing far more than anyone can deserve to.  Days were spent swimming, laughing some more, and taking occasional trips into town for WiFi and copious amounts of organic chocolate milk.

So for the time being I am attempting to rest, heal, and trying hard not to compare the bouldering scene here with what I had out that way.  One of the side benefits of climbing with this particular group was the fact that Jeremy was an incredibly talented photographer specializing in celebrity portraits, and Liz was a really talented photography student.  Liz recently completed a photo album of our time camping and bouldering in the forest.  Check it out.

TIS WITCHERY!!!

In the past two days I have pushed more buttons on Facebook than I have in the previous five years.  We are in the marketing stages of the Reel Rock Film Tour and the majority of our marketing efforts will be of the online variety.  Of course, for someone who knows how to do little more than post photos the learning curve is Himalayan steep.

Watching the real time response to information you have put out on the net is creepy fascinating.  Within hours of announcing the show I was receiving texts "Dude! the reel rock tour is coming here!"  People starting confirming their attendance to the showing, more people got invited, some declined.  I watched it all; cell phone by my side, email open in a separate window.  I was the very definition of "plugged in" and stayed so for far longer than was healthy.   The next morning I paid for it with a massive headache and the effects of basically sitting on a couch for eight hours eating granola bars and hitting the refresh button to a degree that, in theory, might prompt medical professionals to prescribe a variety of behaviour altering substances.

The climbing community, once known for its roaming "cities are death" mentality has now embraced technology, social networking, and all things that come from those three magic bars of a WiFi signal.  Next day video has replaced Long later written accounts of superhuman feats from the cutting edge. These videos do cut away the hyperbole, we can see routes or boulder problems for what they really are.  Personally whenever I used to picture the latest project to go down I thought of routes that were longer than any rope would allow and boulders that had no moderate moves.  Still, there is an elegance to well written accounts of truly great feats. Which is better is a personal opinion, pros and cons to each and all that.

One undeniable benefit of modern technology is experienced solely by those who try to document such feats.  Check out the video below for an example of leading filmmakers using leading technology to bring us cutting edge climbs.


GOAL ZERO Behind the Scenes: Peter Croft and Lisa Rands take on the Incredible Hulk from GOALØ on Vimeo.

News

My apologies for the stuttered start to this thing, it's been an eventful few days that were actually set into motion by the post on the Reel Rock trailer below.  After finishing my tea and watching said trailer a half dozen more times I checked out the tour schedule.  My previous outdoor film festival experience being limited to the Banff Mountain Film Fest, I assumed Reel Rock would be similar; someone travels with the films and presents them yada yada, big deal, blah blah.  No sir, many of the venues all seemed small and random.  There were five shows in Quebec and none in BC.  Weird.

It seemed like the show was available to anyone who stepped up and wanted to host.  So I sent off on email thinking that maybe next year would be a possibility.  To make a long story short the Reel Rock Tour will be coming to St. John's NL, but it won't be next year.  Instead we are going to put this show in a little less than two months.

The Reel Rock Tour will be showing in St. John's on Saturday November 6th at the Inco Innovation Centre at 7:00 pm.  Tickets will be $10.00 in advance, $12.00 at the door, and we are giving the little ones a break by letting kids under 12 in for $8.00 cuz you know, recess snacks and juice are expensive.  More information, including where you can pick up advanced tickets, will be forthcoming in the next few days.  I would like to sit on the selling details until we actually print the tickets and hand them off to ticket agents.

More information about the tour and this year's films is available at their official site, which can be found here. There is also one Facebook page for the entire tour that can be found right here.  I will also be posting much more info and news in the coming weeks.  I hope everyone is psyched, and if you're not, click on the trailer below a few times.  Usually does it for me.

Trailer

I ran across this little gem while enjoying my morning tea.

The Reel Rock Film tour is an annual tour of the best climbing related films.  With no headlining film this year those lucky enough catch the show will have to make do with six short films that cover everything from Daniel Woods and Paul Robinson doing some extreme pebble wrestling to Uli Steck treating extremely large mountains like...well I have no frame of reference, I can't think of anything that I sprint.  

When I first saw this trailer I thought "how many years till St. John's could host something like this?" Then I looked at the schedule and noticed they are doing many smaller shows in Quebec and none in BC.  It seems like if someone steps up and wants to host a show Reel Rock is onboard.  I just finished sending an email to them with a few inquiries.  Obviously, it's a little late for this year but next year... Would this fly here?

Blogging

A year ago I started a blog to avoid sending mass emails to update my family as I climbed in Squamish BC.  Two weeks ago I returned from another trip to Squamish during which I realized just how much I missed the process of writing and documenting.  Years ago I went down to swing my feet free on the moderate overhangs of the Shawangunks in New York.  I didn't take a single picture.  Every now and then I am reminded of some event or circumstance from that trip and a rush of memories flood back, but I can tell that the memories are fading and will continue to do so. Hindsight eh?

The whole point of this little corner of the interweb is more personal than it is communal.  It helps me remember good climbs, good people, and especially good moments.  Climbing continues to be the medium through which I experience uncommonly tangible moments of growth in both the narrow scope of my climbing and the overarching realms of perspective and personality.  

This blog is a way for me to track that change, remember those moments, and become inspired to do it all again.  Thank you for reading.