Vegas

Check out a post I put together for the Mountain Hardwear blog on my trip to Vegas. I also edited a video that you can find there.

http://www.mountainhardwear.com/Blog-Post/BlogPost,default,pg.html?bpid=2011_1_14_MattWilder_RedRocks

Where's Matt

So here's a new blog post... It's been a while, but I figured I'd post a few things and give an update on what I'm doing. Part of the reason the blogging has been scarce is that I've been busy with school -- the other part is just laziness. Not too much exciting happened this Fall for me in the climbing world, but things have been picking up as the prime winter season kicks into gear. I had a great trip to the New River Gorge over Thanksgiving to climb gear routes. Chuck Fryberger came along and captured some awesome footage for the new film he's working on. He put together a great blog post summing up the trip. Check it out here:

http://chuckfryberger.com/blog/2010/11/30/west-by-god-virginia/

Right now I'm in Vegas bouldering around Red Rocks. I've managed a few good ascents and am hoping for a couple more before I leave in a few days. Going to scope some stuff today -- hopefully it looks good. For the first week of my trip I was climbing here with my wife Sandy -- Oh yeah, getting married was another thing that made for a busy Fall and led to no blog posts -- and with my brother and his girlfriend. We got a bit of good climbing in, but the weather was quite cold and windy. The weather has become splitter though and I've been climbing with Ethan Pringle and Steve DeLuca for the past few days. John Dickey is rolling the camera capturing some footage that I'm sure will be up sometime soon for your viewing pleasure. I have a bit of footage recorded that I'll be posting soon as well.

A final bit of news I'd like to share is my recent appearance in Boulder's local newspaper. They compiled a list of top 6 Colorado climbing achievements in the past decade and my ascent of Cheating Reality made the list. Check out the article here:

http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_17009978

Iron Monkey Footage

Well, the slideshow was a success last night. Thanks to everyone that showed up and thanks to Mountain Hardwear, La Sportiva, and Metolius for donating swag for the raffle. All in all, $305 was raised for the Access Fund.

For those that missed the show, here's a new video I put together for it. It shows some of my attempts on Iron Monkey and also includes an interesting fall. I still haven't finished this climb. Those who follow this blog probably know that I've been close for a long time. Perhaps I'll be able to pull it off this fall.

Enjoy the vid.

Iron Monkey Attempts from Matt Wilder on Vimeo.

Another Slideshow (Bent Gate Mountaineering)

OK, I know this is lame... It's been a slow summer and I haven't posted here since my last slideshow months ago. Still I wanted to announce a show I'm giving soon. I'll be posting more content here soon as the Fall season comes into swing.

I'm giving a show 8pm this Wednesday (8/11) at Bent Gate Mountaineering in Golden, CO. If you're around, you should definitely try to make it. It will cost $5 but all the proceeds will go to the Access Fund and there will be a raffle at the end. Mountain Hardwear hooked me up with some great swag including two packs and several hats and shirts. La Sportiva donated a gift card for one free pair of shoes and some hats. To top things off, Metolius gave me some rock rings to give away along with other misc booty.

I'll be doing the show solo so it will be significantly different than the last show I did with Andy Mann and Jonathan Siegrist. I'll be showing photos and video that cronicle my progression as a climber and tell the story of how I've merged my love for trad climbing and bouldering.


Here's the full description of the show:

"Bouldering above gear: a synthesis of distant disciplines"

by Matt Wilder

Through this multimedia show I'll try to figure out why I tend to find myself far above gear with hard moves between me and safety --- a question I ask myself often. I'll begin by tracking my history as a climber following my split identity as a boulderer and a trad climber with some classic photos from my early days. The bulk of the show will highlight classic climbs and boulder problems I've established, repeated, or failed on in the past. I'll show an unseen video compilation of some of my better falls and video footage of several 5.13 and 5.14 trad climbs. The show will culminate with a personal narrative of my experience establishing two new 5.14R trad routes in the Front Range, Viceroy and Cheating Reality, accompanied by video footage and photo sequences. If time permits, I'll also talk about some of my bigwall free climbing forays in Yosemite and the magnetism which has recently been pulling my thoughts back to El Cap. At the end I'll be giving away and raffling swag from my sponsors: Mountain Hardwear, La Sportiva, and Metolius.

Colorado Burl Slideshow Tomorrow

Everyone who's in the Boulder area should come out to the slideshow I'm giving with Andy Mann and Jonathan Siegrist at Neptune tomorrow (Thursday) at 8pm. Andy's going to be showing a sick set of photos from his collection including exposes of my two 5.14 trad FAs in the Boulder area. He'll also be showing photos from Jstar's new sport crag in RMNP and Jstar will be giving a full rundown of the place. I'll be talking some about my two routes and the experience I had on them. We're going to have a raffle with some great swag. I know Mountain Hardwear hooked up some great stuff and we have good product from other companies too. All in all it's going to be a kickin' time, so make sure you're there.


In other news, I'm still recovering from the UBC Earth Treks comp last weekend. I climbed so much and was so sore. This comp was totally sick -- such a strong field, great setting, and tons of climbing. I finished 16th which I was happy with considering I hadn't been training much and how deep the field was. I felt like I could have done a bit better on some of the problems in the semis, but that's always how comps feel unless you flash the problems. It was a ton of fun and it was great to watch the finals. Tons of action. I hear the live internet stream was great too. I think they've put some clips up on their website. Anyway, these guys are putting on pretty sick events. Check out the UBC website. Another comp that looks to be really cool is the Battle in the Bubble which is going to be an outdoor (but on plastic) comp on May 15th at the Boulder Reservoir. I'm going to be out of town for the New River Rendezvous which I'm super stocked for so I'll miss the comp here. I'm sure it's going to be a really fun time though.

Masterpiece Video

Here's a video I edited of my attempts and eventual send of Masterpiece V13 in Joe's. I was trying to capture the whole process in this video. Hopefully you don't find it too redundant.

In other news, I have my "80's Rocker Hair" costume all planned for the premiere of Core. Everyone attending should dress up cause you could win some good stuff. I also got back on the Iron Monkey this weekend in Eldo. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it went and hopefully I'll be able to finally accomplish this long term project. More on the Iron Monkey to come soon.

Masterpiece V13, Joe's Valley from Matt Wilder on Vimeo.

Core on Blu-ray (and premiere soon)

Just wanted to remind everyone that the premiere of Core is this coming Wednesday at the Boulder Theater. Don't miss it. For those of you who can't wait, the movie is now available on Blu-ray. This is the first release of the film and it won't be available on DVD for a few more weeks. The Blu-ray version will also have some extra footage in it including the uncut Fred Nicole interview. Buy it here:

http://www.bouldering.com/products/Core-Blu-Ray.html