the view near independence pass

an army threesome (yep, i said it) headed to the cool alpine climes at 10,000 ft above sea level, and we spent one day of our trip wrastlin some V0 pebbles.

the first contender was a road-side blob with a handful of V0s and V1s (gasp!).  a first-round warm up involved traversing one whole side and a gentle top-out on jugs.

SE warms up on the juggy (but rather footless) traverse

of course, it’s always encouraging when the down-climb is listed as a V0, as well.  i actually found another problem (V0, of course) to be a better down-climb than the thing labeled as the down-climb. down-climb. down-climb. down-climb.

AH on some odd combination of my preferred V0 downclimb and a V1 crystal-pull while I spot from behind the tree... real helpful.

to round out the afternoon, we hopped on the intimidating V1 finger seam.  Oy.  While AH and SE made rather short work of this problem, it took me a few tries and one awkward jump from 2/3 of the way up before i finally sent it.

my sausage fingers just would NOT go into that seam...

when we decided to check out a new area, it was the aptly named Jaws boulder that called to us!

AH avoiding the shark's mouth...

while AH was doing a good job of showing us how to climb….

V1, my butt...

… i was more focussed on perfecting my technique:

shake it out...

all in all, a great V0 Flashing session!

oh, ANNNNNNNNND, totally nabbed the FA of this little gem sitting in the parking lot:

pretty sure no one has EVAR done this before.

-JM

SE on approach

we wasted no time in putting skin to rock, hopping on a couple of awesome V0 slabs and highball (5 ft tall) problems.

JH workin the corner V0

JM rocking the slab cracks

AH ups the ante with some V1 action!

a large part of the army was out in force, and some legit sending went on too!  B & J Hips were both rockin the socks off of the V3 arete/bulge/monstrosity (i think some rocks wear socks, right?):

J Hips & someone's finger work the V3

B Hips sussing it out

the brave amongst us even attempted the V3 on the backside of the bloc:

Scotty B shows us how it's done

EH stretching it out

this V3 is no match for SE's strength!

another campaign, another successful mission.

bonus pic: aid bouldering!

ya gotta do what ya gotta do...

p.s.: remember when ludacris was cool?  …. no, me either. but i still love him.

-JM

Last Friday a third of the V0 Army went climbing (the third of the ‘Army’ being me, seeing as the rest of the ‘Army’ currently consists of JM and B Hips) with the man, the legend – who for the sake of anonymity we will call Curtis, up at the Upper Y on flagstaff. Side note 1: It is important that I keep the legend’s identity a secret because if you knew who ‘Curtis’ was then I would have thousands of friend requests per day on Facebook from all of you stalker-ish readers just so you could get one step closer to ‘Curtis’, and let’s be honest, the time that it would take for me to sort the stabbers from the back patters and ‘hey bro’ers’ is not worth my time.

The session started out smoothly. I warmed up on the traverse and ‘Curtis’ hiked a couple of highballs. I asked if he used a tree coming out of the crag, but he said, ‘no’ and just kind of looked confused. I felt that my statement needed more explaining so I said, ‘Well you know, like 90% of the time naturals are on…” The legend just looked more confused and a little angry, but I continued, “So… I mean, if you used the tree to get up there so fast it’s cool.” Curtis claimed that he hadn’t used the tree sticking out of the crag, but I still think it is okay if he did. Side note 2: I climb at the Spot a lot and have noticed that roughly 90% (with a standard deviation of 2%) of the problems there are natural tracking, because the standard deviation is so tight and the data is taken from well over a 100 problems I assumed decided that spot tracking rules may be applicable to outdoor problems.

After the warm ups ‘Curtis’ pointed out a problem that he thought I should send – a highball up the center of the crag topping out along the ‘Y’. I asked ‘Curtis’ for some beta and he sent the problem slowly so that I could take notes. Now if any of you have ever climbed with ‘Curtis’ you undoubtedly know that when ‘Curtis’ sends a problem it never looks difficult, it always looks completely easy and natural… as natural as a kitten sipping milk, a desperate dog ‘hugging’ an unsuspecting child’s leg, or watching a tortoise live to 115. Side note 3: I have a memory of being about 5 in Louisiana when some person’s dog whom we were visiting (there person not the dog) tried to accost my shin. All of the adults just laughed and said, “The dog wants to play,” or “The puppy likes you.” To all who were present that day I now inquire,” What the F%CK?!!”

After watching ‘Curtis’ send the problem I gave it a couple of goes to figure out the bottom of the moves. I was pretty hesitant about sending the highball part of the problem due to a ‘sketchy’ looking mantle after the crux. I told ‘Curtis’ that I was just planning on finishing the lower problem, but he insisted that once I got there I would want to finish the problem. The bottom moves were pretty straight forward, some small pockets, a match and then some jugs. The biggest problem I had before the crux was using my feet… big surprise because when I climb I tend to use my feet as much as Helen Keller used her reading lamp. After the jugs, the problem finished up with a right hand pinch followed by the crux crimp with a bump to the last jug. … And would you know it? The legend was right! As I grabbed the final jug I felt a strong urge to mantle and top out the highball. Perhaps this feeling was brought on by ‘Curtis’ yelling at me from the ground to mantle and top out. Maybe I am part of the sheople herd?

The first part of my attempt at the send has been documented here

Part 1 of Brad's day at the Upper Y

in the preferred V0flash format – GIF animation. I regret that we didn’t have audio recoding last week because you all missed out on an extremely anxiety driven tirade after the crux including promises to jump. One lucky man hiking past us now has an example of exactly which adjectives should never be used with which nouns. I’m sure that his descendants will benefit for generations from the lessons that will be passed on them about how to behave in public, in private, or at the Upper Y. How will this climb end? Will I send my first highball? Will I fall to my certain death? Will I jump? Will Boulder County Mountain Rescue pluck me off of the crag? Submit your guess below. Check back soon!!

~Bradley D.

posted by: JM

I am sure all of you are aware that summer time in the Rockies has returned,  at least on the front range, and that means it is time to get off of the plastic and on to the rock.  At V-0 flash we are committed to hiking all of the dirtiest V-0 problems in the state, and we want you!

We want you to join us in person or in spirit, join the V-0 Army now!! Join the V-0 mailing list by sending your info to vzeroflash@gmail.com.  If you can’t come climbing with us send us reports on your hikes — either in writing or documented in audio (the preferred V-0 method) –  and we will add them to the site!

If you are thinking about joining the army we want you to know that V-1s and possibly even V-2s are not off limits so long as they are easy, so easy that they v-0 down-gradable!!  Remember here at V-0 flash we are committed to hiking the illest problems around so long as they are V-0!

some failed attempts at the V1 (gasp!) Bulging Face were humbling, but contorting it into a V0 traverse (FA!) was totally worth it.

stay tuned for more updates.  bonus audio goodness to come in the near future…

posted by: J