Powerband

Ω It’s a little known fact that bouldering is more hardcore than mountaineering. This is evidenced in the following ways:

1. To train for superhuman feats on Pakistani peaks, tough-looking men like Bruise Dowrick go to Flock Hill (and mini-crags like the Upper Right Tier of Mt. Pleasant, which is bouldering on a rope).

2. The most hated, unpopular and belligerent characters on mountaineering internet forums are actually boulderers, not mountaineers. What they are doing there I’m not sure, but it may have something to do with waiting for skin to grow.

3. Mountaineering involves going without food and water for a short period while attempting to summit, mainly because the mountaineers are too wussy to carry enough with them. Bouldering involves systematically starving yourself until you are skinny enough to be an extra in Schindler’s List, as this is the only path to success.

4. Mountaineering involves a small but calculated risk of loss of fingers through frostbite. The very act of bouldering involves scraping your fingertips across blank bits of rock in an attempt to remove as much skin as possible. It also involves deliberate attempts to rupture finger pulleys through remorseless crimping.

5. These days, many mountaineers carry B.A.S.E. rigs or paraponts to lazily drift their way down from the summit. In bouldering you often simply jump down from the top of the boulder, in a way that no parachute device can assist with. How scary is that? Jumping with no parachute!

6.  Mountaineers take any number of ridiculous goosedown garnering garments to keep them warm, but in actual fact, they spend most of their time walking and generating body heat, so their insulatory investiture is entirely indulgent. Boulderers however, spend most of their time sitting around, and yet the vast majority carry with them only minimal cladding. This, in combination with point 3 above, is pretty hardcore.

In fact, I was the only person at Flock Hill on Saturday with two down jackets. I was informed, part way through the day, that I was in fact a mountaineer. This was somewhat of an epiphany for me, as it explained my systematic failures at bouldering (however, it failed to explain my systematic failure at mountaineering). Perhaps due to their unladen single-down-jacket states, all the boulderers present seemed to be doing rather well, despite the snowy conditions previously described.

The conditons meant that there weren’t a lot of problems on offer. But both Kester and JP gained ascents of Derek’s new sidepull problem which people are calling xxx xxxxxxx, but I refuse to call it that because its not a real name. JP should have flashed it but he forgot his spectacles and failed to see the victory jug (alzheimers I suspect). He cruised it second go.

The send of the day was Derek’s dispatch of the Psychosis project, which is the high line on the boulder to the right of Purple Haze. This problem looks hard and a little scary given the ‘landing boulder’ beneath it (and the dusty nature of the uncleaned slab at the top). Attempting this boulder problem promises a 54% greater risk of serious injury or death than summiting Ruapehu. We were all impressed by this ascent and JP has already graded it for Derek, much as James has already named it (thereby cleverly overcoming Derek’s recent reticence in naming and grading his first ascents). Nice job guys.

Late in the day, as the blizzard encroached, James, ZacAtak™ and JP all made good progress on Acapulco (though not good enough to get to the snow on the final hold). All up, it was an impressive and committed day at the boulders. Mountaineering news from the same day? Zilch. Ω