Ω In a shameless assault on an old warhorse’s prowess, young whippet JJG cut Ivan ‘Beast from the East’ Vostinar’s lunch at the Rak on Sunday. Fresh from spying a sneaky link up of Brassneck 7b into Vision Thing 7a+ on the Martini Roof boulder, the Vos was ‘Ready, Set, Go Danny’ for the glorious ticker tape honours, when seemingly from nowhere (perhaps standing sideways behind a flax leaf?) JJG unleashed the fury. No sooner was he on the problem, then he was off it again, having exited up Tricky 7a to create Loki The Trickster soft (according to JJG) 7c. Cheeky monkey then had the nerve to downgrade Ivan’s low start to Whip It Good, to a lowly 7b+. Ouch.
Meanwhile, at the crucible of Auckland bouldering, another strong-fingered acronym was laying the smackdown on some pure eliminate or other. GEJ (Glenn Erik Johannessen) reports thus:
“Another great pure eliminate at the hub of hard Auckland bouldering. Stand start at base of arete (right of Red Arete) no left or rights cracks/sides. Pull on and grimace your way through tiny 2 and 3 finger crimps til you get to the crux, hold nothing and crank to positive holds, top out arete (quite high and positive). Love it, short side rocks!”
Never mind that the crag is closed.
And last but not least, Mr Oliver Miller, best known for climbing 8a while pissing blood in Hampi, has been rampaging through Castle Hill with his didgeridoo. He climbed a bunch of quality lines including the Joker 7c before being evicted from the Craigeburn DOC campsite for impecuniosity.
Ω From the top’o the north, Stuart Kurth reports on his self-titled website a fine new problem at Wairere: check it here. Good to see Stoo taking up the challenge of developing this enclave of moss and radically shaped volcanic chunder Ω
Ω I have a new theory, much better than the Super Position Theory: V11 + V12 + V8 = V15/16, unless you think the first bit (V11) is actually V12, in which case the slash grade is halved and divided by the grade of the second bit (V12 unless you think its V11). I call that PROBe Theory.
“Cliff sent the Leftism project! (NZs oldest I would think). At the location that cannot be mentioned, in the dead of night yesterday with FM and I spotting. Over 12 months and hundreds of tries with 3 days to spare before he goes back to the States. Was getting desperate there!”
“Actually just worked out he spent over 15 months working it”
“It was the totally pure version that everyone has always talked about being THE problem. No left crack all the way, no right arete including the broken ledge sloper. Just the middle of the face. ‘Ghost Face’ because it was mostly worked and sent at night, no head lamps even. Amazing effort.”
“Hi John, what are you wearing? I’m lonely”
Actually I made that last one up. Nice job Cliff. V12 is the rumour….which one of the Auckland mafia will nab the second ascent? Ω
