Tag Archives: Bouldering

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first climb of the year

Something I’ve been planning to do for a while, especially considering the weather for most of the last two months has been more than adequate for scruffing around outside. It would have been sooner too, except for my idiocy trashing my knee doing yoga. It seems though if I exercise some restraint and care (harhar) it’s possible to do many of the things that I would normally do for pleasure (for values of pleasure involving some trauma).

I wandered around the corner and around two more to arrive at the path between an old people’s home and some kind of hospital-ish thing where my own personal almost 15 meter long by 6 meter high (I’m very inaccurate at measuring by eye) wall of rough ashlar sandstone. Much sun and occasional passersby wondering what I was doing.

The winter and frost has weakened some of the smaller edges, and being decided careful as well as weak in strength and skin thickness, I didn’t go past the half-way mark – where hard becomes very hard. Still, happy to be back doing this, and really wanting to make this year one where I find some long multi-pitches somewhere remote to wander up.

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Klettern Iranische Wand

I thought I’d written about this before, but … it seems not. Some time last year, or perhaps earlier this year, Dasniya and I went for a wander through Wedding. Up a street, along another, down a path, there to find on one side, the face of a building dressed in cleaved stone blocks, some 15 meters long and a bit over 5 high, vertical with each end a gentle overhang.

Just like my old favourite walls in Balaclava I’d spend the weekend on before retiring to The Wall to drink my one coffee for the week. I am drinking a coffee now, my second of the day. A celebration perhaps.

After discovering this wall, and having really not climbed at all in the last couple of years – though having refound my love of it last year – it took some months before first visiting. I expected it to be tough, and it was. I also expected torn fingers, blisters and the peculiar numbness that comes from grimacing on small edges, leaving each fingertip encased in a small callus.

It took some weeks, returning once or twice in each when I was in Berlin, before I could even do most of the moves and think about stringing them together. And once my fingers had been taught a lesson, it was time for my forearms to be traumatised. In the four and an half months since my first visit, I’ve been there perhaps fifteen times – less than I thought. Each time climbing a little more, longer.

It’s somewhat unpleasant an area. It could be pristine. Opposite is an old people’s home, the wall itself is beneath a large tree on a wide path. The people who walk it are locals who once in a while stop to watch or comment. If I said the corner end beneath the tree had the sweet smell of an alcoholic who’s pissed himself, it wouldn’t be a metaphor – the piss really is there, and once even, shit and toilet paper.

And the dogs not wanting to be left out line up on their leashes while their owners diligently add to the 35 tonnes of hundscheiße laid down across Berlin each day. When not raising a hind leg to spray.

I have small dreams of laying down my own concoction which would terrify the dogs into scampering home and crapping on their master’s bed. Or at least neither pissing nor shitting nearby. I did even do some weeding early in spring so the base of the wall could be found. It’s not so bad, really. Balaclava had the same problem, and I figure that regular use of my Iranische Wand will somehow discourage obnoxious bodily fluids.

Today though, I had a small celebration, finally climbing the full length left to right. I’m a long way from the level I was at where I used to do laps back and forth on the walls underneath the railway bridges, but it’s something of a return. It’s also in the style I like to climb: vertical, thin edges, balancey, and sustained. I’m not sure how hard it is, but in feeling it’s about the same as my former walls. I’ve started working on the reverse, right to left, so perhaps by the time it’s too cold to stick myself to the wall, I’ll be going in both directions. Maybe even photos next time.

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Surabaya, Indonesia Climbing Gym Job Opening

Those of you who have bothered to read supernaut for at least a few years (oh I have pity for you), will recall my several adventures to the north of Guangzhou at a place variously called Qingyuan (the name of the nearest big city), Jiulong (the Smith of Southern China), or if you came at it from the east, Yingde. There with Emmanuel, and several other drill-wielders from Hong Kong, we amused ourselves over humid weekends by climbing.

Eman left Guangzhou a couple of years ago for the equally humid and limestone-y (though politically less totalitarian) Indonesia, where the past while he has been planning something new:

Surabaya, Indonesia Climbing Gym Job Opening

Class 5 Recreational Climbing Center is looking for safety-conscious and fun climbers to join our team.

Class 5 Recreational Climbing Center is Indonesia’s first full service, indoor climbing facility. Our facility will offer 5000 squared meters of indoor climbing, a pro-shop that will stock a selection of climbing gear, and a a great environment to climb with friends and strangers alike.

I’ll be accepting resume or CV for both Part-Time or Full-time employment. If you’re a rock climber and you want to work in Indonesia’s first full service climbing gym let me know.

Job description:

1) Help to ensure the safety of all climbers; providing a fun and safe climbing environment is our first concern.

2) Teach new climbers the figure eight follow through, proper belaying technique, verbal commands (on belay, belay on, climbing, climb on)

3) Reception procedures with an emphasis on customer service.

4) Group and event responsibilities included

What we’re looking for:
Excellent people skills.
Some English useful
An interest in rock climbing
If interested or for more information, contact me: email hidden; JavaScript is required

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burnley bouldering overpass

A late-morning ballet class, a lot of cycling, and a mid-afternoon boulder down at Burnley. I was feeling like chocolate might need to come to the rescue, and instead opted for lying on the park bench between the bouldering walls, the basin of the Burnley docks behind and above my head, water and the Yarra all around, and I was looking straight up at the underside of the freeway that runs like an oily gash alongside. The weather was holding on before breaking, and like my recent airport apron photos, there was something hypnotising in the play of light and water and the organic crawling of residue marking the flow of water on the concrete blankness.

burnley bouldering underpass - 1 burnley bouldering underpass – 1

burnley bouldering underpass - 2 burnley bouldering underpass – 2

burnley bouldering underpass - 3 burnley bouldering underpass – 3

burnley bouldering underpass - 4 burnley bouldering underpass – 4

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burnley bouldering

For a long time, my favourite place to train was the East St Kilda railway bridges, four walls of crimpy bluestone that would mangle fingertips after a few traverses, near the best café in Melbourne and sleepy enough that noone really cared about a lunatic doing laps. When I returned in December last year, I split my time between the bridge and newly-opened Lactic Factory.

This time back though a new place has grown out of the ashes of the way before my time Burnley underpass, an amazing project headed by Jacqui Middleton and the Victorian Climbing Club and a huge number of volunteers. I’ve been going there a few days a week for the last month and there’s always at least a couple of other climbers there, even on weekday mornings (yes, I have no employable attributes). I could easily spend entire days just hanging out there. Most importantly though, I’ve begun my long-dreamed of indoctrination of dancers into the cult of climbing.

In 1993, Chris Shepherd conceived the idea of having a long traverse wall near the CBD. The wall became very famous for its pumpy line. In 2003, risk management concerns highlighted the need for the route to be removed. Transurban offered to sponsor the construction of a new facility, and Parks Victoria offered the location; inside McConchie Reserve in Burnley. A Burnley Project Manager position on the VCC (Victorian Climbing Club) committee was created to oversee the project, and a project team was assembled to commence the planning process.

The VCC Burnley Project Manager rallied the climbing community to create a series of construction teams, leveraging skills climbers had developed in their day jobs. Construction began on January 31st, 2006, and the first routes appeared on April 29th, 2006. Regular internet posts on progress were viewed by other organisations, who came forward and offered their support. Four months and more than 130 volunteers later, the three walls were opened to the public.

Burnley Bouldering Walls

burnley bouldering burnley bouldering

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feel the pain, baby

There’s been a complete lack of indoor climbing in Melbourne since the place in Collingwood closed a couple of years ago, and Vic Ranges in Flemington burned down. Not that I really counted Flemington or certainly any of the others as climbing in Melbourne. Toronto had three big gyms in the middle of the city, like being around Spencer St, and even Guangzhou has a new bouldering gym in Tian He. (Let’s not talk about the Kletterzentrum in Zürich, which despite being mega-awesome was grievous assault to enter at CHF25).

Chockstone has had rumours going about a new bouldering gym in Collingwood, and woohoo! it’s finally opened. The Lactic Factory. It might almost make me take a couple of days off a week from cimbing on railway bridges.

The Lactic Factory The Lactic Factory

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罗岗 Luogang bouldering

I know everyone wants to dirt on the show last night, but bugger that. I’m going climbing. So, after a huge storm last night when the canyons of skyscrapers echoed with the endless percussion of thunder, I woke up late to a beautiful day in Guangzhou. Cool, not too humid, overcast with a breeze. The perfect day for finding the elusive Luogang bouldering spot.

We had an address – in Chinese even, knew mostly where we were going – though the taxi driver didn’t, and once we spotted hills pimpled with pale granite bluges, we knew we were in the right spot. Buddah was there too, half way up the hill in a large amphitheatre of granite prows and knife-blades. We headed for the top though, underneath the new high-tension power pylons, which replaced some of the older large boulders.

To climbing, and how many times have I said, “I love granite!”? I love the balancy footwork, the small crystals to pull on, the total head-game of climbing on stuff you just have to trust. Working down from the top of the hill, the easiest problems are short slabby faces and diagonal cracks, getting progressively harder, more vertical, longer, and overhanging further down the hill.

After a couple of good 5-6 meter high problems, we headed down to the big crack which in the You Yangs would have two bolts up it and be worn clean with traffic. Here it was damp from rain, greenish from a film of old moss, and completely committing after the slightly overhanging layback at the start. Eman walked up it, showing he’s a crack climber at heart, I got my foot stuck and promptly fell off, showing I’m not.

More super-balancy high-stepping freak-out problems as we continued to walk down, including an awesome and pretty easy left-curving crack just made to hang off, that was so like the You Yangs, and an arete which is one of the unfinished problems here, going in the V5-6 range, which spits on most people before they even get a foot up. That’s where I met this insect, taking a long stroll along the crystals, and discovered the joy of the super-macro function in my camera.

There’s actually a bus which runs from Tianhe out to right at the base of the hill, the number 534, which we flagged down, and which runs past this overpass where Eman is working the hand-jam line in fine style. There’s also a brand new cam stuck in there from an anonymous aid climb epic for anyone who can get it out. If Lougang was in Melbourne it’d be completely mapped, have a guidebook, and probably be bolted. Here it’s empty and in need of a good wire-brushing.

Eman on the easy crack Eman on the easy crack

insect on the hard arete insect on the hard arete

Eman cranking under the highway Eman cranking under the highway

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x-cube the manolo blahnik of climbing shoes

After 18 months and four resoles in a pair of Boreal Stingers I purchased in Toronto, the last resole did them in. They still have a special place in my almost daily climbing, but yesterday I bought a pair of shiny, new, painfully tight orange and yellow Red Chili X-Cube. Weee!!! climbing heaven. I’m off to continue wearing them out, and now I’ve discovered all the inner-city bouldering spots in Taipei, the two weeks until I leave is gonna fly.

Combining the convenience of velcro with the weight and feel of a slipper the X-cube is a shoe built for hardcore. An instant classic this superb shoe sets a standard in fit and performance for all other velcros to follow.

New for 2004 the X-cube features: a new last with lower volume forefoot, this “locks” the foot in the sharp asymmetric toe profile to give immense confidence on even the smallest pockets, smears or scrapes; a wider entry with super comfy cushioned foam and a smaller, reshaped slingshot that really hugs the heel. Team feedback meant we added rubber over the toe for hardcore boulders and comp climbing to give extra bite for “frogging” or the tiniest of toe scrubs and a new light midsole simply adds to the amazing “feel” of this shoe.

This is a shoe that works superbly as sporrts or extreme all raounder but really comes into its own as a bouldering shoe “par excellance” for outdoors, indoors or the “woody”.

red chili x-cube red chili x-cube

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edge of doom

It was such a beautiful afternoon, a slight breeze, blue sky like you only get in Australia, the sun was in the north and moving down towards the horizon, casting its warmth along the railway bridge in East St Kilda.

St Kilda climbing St Kilda climbing

This is my favourite place to climb in the city. Next to a park, and on a commmon route for local people to walk to the shops a couple of streets up. They are used to the sight of people hanging off the bluestone walls of the bridge, but still find it alien enough to cross the road early, stare, or occasionally tell me not to fall off.

Today my fingers were sore from working a problem along the other bridge; I’d eliminated all the holds larger than this. Maybe mindless perversity, but for me there is nothing more real in climbing than edges shrinking towards nothing. A blank wall, the features sharpened by the late afternoon sun, the sound of the wind, it feels like floating on an endless sea.