A Short Trip

Hello everyone in internetlandia. I've been consumed with school work since my trip to Canada and haven't had many interesting things happening on the climbing front. That said, I'm hoping that things will start picking up even though October is going to be a busy month for me.

Most of the climbing I've been doing is on a trad project around Boulder. I'm really psyched on the route and hopefully it will go down soon. I've done it on TR twice and have come close to a redpoint. The lead is a bit heady so I've only had one go on it. Right now the weather is terrible in Boulder so it doesn't look like I'll be able to get back on it soon. Hopefully things will clear up next week and I'll get out there and fire it. I'll definitely post more info when I do it. In the mean time, I've been just climbing a bit indoors and around to stay in shape.

Last weekend I took a trip to Moab, UT and had a great time. It was really nice to be in the desert and the weather was perfect for climbing. I went out there with my girlfriend Sandy and met up with some other friends there. On Saturday we climbed in Indian Creek at the Reservoir wall. This was my first time to this cool crag. The highlight of the day for me was climbing Less Than Zero 13-. Often I get a bit bored with the monotony of Indian Creek splitters, but this climb was super varied. Most of the the hard parts involved off balance liebacking on changing corners. I hung my way up the route on my first go, worked some sections on TR on my second go and led it clean on my third go. At the end of the day I did the classic Slot Machine 11+ which is tight hands and hands in a acute corner forever. The line is super aesthetic, but definitely on the repetitive side.

After a day in Indian Creek, Sandy and I took off to Mill Creek for a change of scenery. I'd never climbed there and so was super excited. The routes are on the short side and tend to be bouldery. It was pretty cold when we started the day but then conditions became perfect. I climbed Sinister 12c as a final warmup and then tried The Bleeding 14a. This climb was really cool and I did all the moves except a hand switch and a foot movement. It felt like it could go with some more effort, but not in the one day I had. At the end of the day I tried Tiki Man 13c and surprised myself doing it second try. That climb is really fun and I highly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Mill Creek.

Unfortunately I don't have any climbing photos or video but here are a few photos from the trip.

Weather coming into Indian Creek on the day we left.

Sandy fixing some breakfast before leaving for Mill Creek.

Beautiful camp site near Mill Creek

The aspens were beautiful at 8000ft. this time of year.

Definitely a pretty area.

Path Video

Here's the video. The goal in making this was to document the whole climb. As a result, it's not quite as action packed as the modern climbing films that usually just give a general impression of routes. Unfortunately the raw footage is not the best -- the lighting conditions were bad, the filming angles were difficult, and there was lots of background noise. Anyway, I did my best to edit something together that shows what the climb is about. I think the side and back angles don't do justice to the steepness of the climb, but hopefully the top down footage tells that story.

Hope you enjoy.

The Path from Matt Wilder on Vimeo.

Path video on the way

I'm editing the footage I have of me on the Path and will try to post it later tonight. I'm leaving for a week trip where I'll be away from internet access so I want to get it out before then. Until later, here's a still from the video footage. This is the crux move.

My Path Experience

The Path climbs up the center of a steep, tall, intimidating wall at the back of the lake crag at Lake Louise. It was established by Sonnie Trotter 2 years ago in traditional style and was given 5.14 R. It has seen one repeat by Ethan Pringle last year. The gear is sparse and small, but the falls are mostly clean. The wall is covered with beautiful streaks and the climbing follows perfect well-spaced edges. There are several hard sections throughout the route with some ok rests between. The crux moves come near the end when you're quite tired. The route tackles the wall above an existing 5.11a sport route.

As you can see in the next two photos, Lake Louise is an idyllic location. Unfortunately many people know this and so it's also very touristy. The back of the lake crag can be seen in the first photo... at, well, the back of the lake. The lake is truly this color too, no fancy photoshopping here.



The next photo gives a route overview of the route though the scale and angle of the wall is a bit distorted. The whole length of the climb (from the ledge at the top of the 5.11a pitch) is about 70ft, 60 of which you can see in this picture. The gear labeled on this photo is all the gear I used for the whole climb. There were one or two other potential placements, but they wouldn't have changed the runouts much. At the ledge below the bottom of the photo, I placed two equalized pieces as well.


Here's a photo of me on the opening moves just before the first piece of gear. This is probably the most dangerous move on the route because you are far from your last piece and could actually hit the ledge if you fell. All other falls should be clean. My right hand is on a small slopey crimper and I'm about to stab into a good horizontal crack.


In approaching this route, I decided to do a few things different than Sonnie and Ethan. Both of these guys essentially soloed the 5.11a sport route to get to the ledge at the base of the main face. In a way this makes sense because then you are climbing the center of the wall from bottom to top. I was more psyched however to climb the 5.6 corner about 8ft. to the left that also led to the same ledge. I soloed this corner and then placed two pieces equalized at the ledge. You can just barely see that gear at the bottom of the photo above. You can also see a rope threaded through the anchors at the top of the 11a. The main reason I decided to take this approach is that I was having a hard time getting myself psyched to go for the route knowing that I would have to solo the 11a each time. I don't think it really changes the difficulty of the route because you get a no-hands rest at the ledge before the upper headwall. The upper part of the route is what really inspired me so I chose to make that the sole focus by just climbing the 5.6 to get to the start.

The other thing I did differently is that I climbed a slightly new way at the very end of the route. The crux moves are a sequence of hard leftward traversing moves on slopey crimps. They lead you to a good lieback hold where you can get back some of your strength. From here, Sonnie and Ethan climbed straight up to a jug at the top of the face where you can clip a set of anchors. The rock quality in this section seemed a bit dubious to me. There were several blocks that seemed to be just sitting on the little ledges. The first time I set up on that anchor, I nearly knocked a huge block on my belayer that could have been fatal. I think that experience spooked me a bit and made me less psyched to climb through that section. Then I realized there was a way to climb back to the right and finish straight up the end of a black streak to an anchor slightly to the right. I got psyched on this finish because the rock seemed more solid and also because at the end you can actually mantle onto the slab for the full no-hands rest. So when I sent the route, I took this right finish variation. The moves on both variations are roughly the same difficulty so I don't think this changes the full difficulty of the route at all.

All in all, I was really psyched on the ascent. It was a difficulty challenge to get myself to the point of redpointing this route. At first I was very intimidated by the wall and hesitant to take on such a big project. As I got to know the moves better on TR, I realized that I was physically able to do the climb. Then it took a while to wrap my head around actually going for it. I spent 4 days trying it on TR. Then I had two days where I tried it on lead once per day. The first day, I just went piece to piece to familiarize myself with being on the sharp end. The second day I gave a full redpoint attempt and nearly sent, but popped off the last hard move and took a 35ft. whipper onto a gray Metolius master cam. Exciting! On the 7th day I sent on my first try. All in all, I probably took about 7 TR and 3 lead burns. Because the route is so long and involved, I couldn't try it much each day. As for a grade, I think probably 14a or 14b -- with an R for a danger rating.

It was a great experience and a great culmination to my month long trip in the Canadian Rockies. I'm resting today and will give one more attempt at Existence Mundane 14b tomorrow before I leave to head back to Boulder. I tried the route yesterday and linked through the lower crux twice. I definitely feel close so hopefully the stars will line up and I'll get to eat my cake too.

Thanks and props to you for reading this far down on quite a long-winded post.

I Found The Path!

Yesterday evening I sent the Path, a 14a trad route at Lake Louise. I had put a bunch of days into the climb and was super excited to send. I'll post more info and video soon, but right now I'm heading up to Acephale to get back on my projects there.

Canada Climbing

It's been pretty uneventful since my last post. I'm still up in the Canmore area. I climbed the 13c I was trying (Army Ants) but haven't really done anything else.

I was up at Lake Louise for the past three days and I tried the Path again. This was exciting because I figured out the rest of the moves and had some good links on TR. I'm definitely more psyched about the climb now and am committed to doing it. I'll probably start giving lead attempts the next day I try it. It's definitely going to be a bit scary so it make take some tries to get my head in the right space to be fully going for it. I think it should be mostly safe though. Hopefully the weather cooperates. It's hot right now and then it looks like it will rain a bunch soon. I'm worried that the Path will not dry quickly -- it has many black streaks that are obviously from water running down the face. I have a week to two weeks left here so perhaps I'll get some good conditions.

Today I'm heading up to Acephale and will try Existence Mundane some. I've done the lower crux move a few times now, but I still need to get it more solid if I'm going to link through it from the bottom.

Since I don't have any media from this trip, I thought I'd post some footage I have from a weekend trip I made to Colorado Springs this May. I bouldered two days and got some decent footage. The first day was at a place called Thunder. The rock there was amazing -- some of the best stone for bouldering anywhere. Unfortunately there weren't tons of problems. There was one big boulder with a bad drop off landing that had an inspiring arete with a bit of chalk. I got psyched to do this and then I got psyched to climb a line to the right which I think was an FA. Here's video of those two problems.

Thunder Bouldering, CO Springs from Matt Wilder on Vimeo.

My Hiatus

Ok, so here's the deal. I climbed a lot this spring and in the process probably neglected my PhD work a bit. When I got back from Rumney, I really needed to kick into gear with this work so I put climbing on the shelf. I did make it up to Mt. Evans a few times, but the weather didn't cooperate too well. Mostly I just worked. My motivation for school work was helped by the warm rainy early summer weather we had in Boulder. I also spent a bunch of my time working on house projects. Part of the drive to get all these things done came from my plans to be on a climbing trip all of July which is what I'm doing now.

I've been up in the Canmore/Banff/Lake Louise area of Alberta climbing routes. I've been here for about a week and a half now. So far the trip has been relatively uneventful so I haven't felt the need to rush to get something posted here. Also I don't have any media to share which I usually like to include. It's hard to get photos and video when you are climbing routes mostly with one partner. Maybe I'll get something before the end of the trip.

I had three major goals for this trip. First, have fun and see a beautiful part of North America that is new to me. Second, check out The Path, a 14a trad route at Lake Louise. And third, do more sport climbing and increase my fitness. I don't really do lots of sport climbing so I thought it would be fun to do some on this trip and push myself on some hard routes.

So far the trip has been a success on all points though I haven't completed any climbs of significance. I tried The Path two days and figured out some beta. I'll probably go back soon and work it some more. I'm not sure if I'll commit to going for the redpoint. The route is really long and the setup is pretty involved. Redpoint attempts will be challenging so I'll probably only try to redpoint if I think I have a high probability of success in a few tries. I'm always wary of taking on a project that could just consume the trip. I felt this way about trying the Cobra Crack last summer though that seemed much harder than The Path.

The sport climbing has been great so far. I've mostly been climbing at a crag called Acephale. It's really stacked with hard routes. My main objective is Existence Mundane 14b. I've tried this route two days now and feel somewhat close. I haven't quite done the crux move, but it comes early and I feel that if I figure out how to do it I'll have a decent chance of redpointing. I've tried a few other routes and am looking forward to giving another redpoint burn on Army Ants 13c. I got on the route twice yesterday and came close on my second go. I'm definitely still just trying to improve my fitness. After not climbing too much, I needed some time to get back into things. Hopefully my next two weeks will be fruitful and I'll have some good news to post here. Sorry again about the lapse in posts.