Direct North (v14), Guillaume Glairon-Mondet

I recently learned that French climber Guillaume Glairon-Mondet made an ascent of the desperate new line Direct North (v14) on the Grandma Peabody Boulder's steep side. The line is an obvious extension to Direction, and takes on this photogenic wall of immaculate yellow-streaked rock by its hardest sequence, stacking the excellent highball Magnetic North (v8/9?) onto the testpiece Direction (v13).

Starting in the underclings, first Direction is itself a v13 sit-start to the original "one-move-wonder" Thunderbird (a tough v11 utilizing a tiny right crimp) and leads to some full-pad crimps above and right of the finish of Center Direct. After gaining the crimps, and taking a shake, perhaps, the line moves up and right following Magnetic North which has a longish span to another small right crimp followed by a tough and nervy heel-hook lock-off to gain good jugs that lead to the lip.

Guillaume, who also climbed The Mandala Sit Start (via the left sequence, v13/14), and grabbed a possible fourth or so ascent of Iron Resolution (v13) in Joshua Tree, before heading back to France, said that Direct North was the hardest ascent of his trip. Though he flashed the upper section (Magnetic North), he found the move from the heel hook extremely hard when reached from the start, taking a fall there on one of his attempts. He also described the crux move (on Thunderbird) as "really HARD!!"

Guillaume described the line as "the most logical of the whole boulder," by which perhaps he means the most compelling, or most impressive, I'm not sure. Given the rock quality, this is certainly one of the most perfect hard lines in the Buttermilk area--the holds are bullet hard, and the climbing is sustained and amazing.

See an earlier report for this line.

Swarm Direct (v13?), Nalle Hukkataival

At the end of Feb The Swarm (at the Secrets of the Beehive Area) received its obvious and long-awaited direct finish from visiting Finnish celebrity Nalle Hukkataival. Many others might have done this problem, but for the effort involved in rapping and cleaning the line and dealing with a known loose hold. The loose hold did break (so I heard), but only to leave another edge.

As expected, the direct version checks in at roughly the same grade as the original and surely goes high on the list of top crimping testpieces of the West! It looks awesome and is on that perfect polished brown rock, some of the best in the Buttermilk area. Apparently Nalle doesn't find this style of climbing particularly hard and had more trouble with the Sit to The Mandala, which he felt was harder, even via the left (generally considered easier) variation, which is the one he did. He writes about The Swarm Direct, and more about his Bishop visit on his blog post.

Enzo Oddo, Ambrosia (v11 super-highball)

Just heard that 15-year-old French prodigy Enzo Oddo repeated Ambrosia yesterday. He must have been wanting to get it done before the bad weather moved in as it was a very windy day up there! He had previously top-roped the upper part of the line and bouldered out the start, using the same direct version that Isaac Caldiero used on the third ascent.

Another Fun Variation ... Drifter Boulder

The Drifter Boulder aka Smoking Boulder is certainly one of the finest in the Buttermilk Country, home to the ultra-classic High Plains Drifter (v7) and Change of Heart (v6) two amazing problems first done by former Yosemite habitué and Eastside bouldering legend Dale Bard back in the late 1970s. A little less popular than these side-by-side gems is the line to the left, The Knobs Problem, though also interesting with a tricky long lock-off using a right heel.

Even a traverse of the boulder from left-to-right that finishes on High Plains is attaining a reputation for elusive difficulty--Les Tois Maunets (v11, FA Fred Nicole late 1990s?). The latter problem has a strange section where you actually climb down from The Knobs to gain the start of High Plains Drifter. Why then did we forget the obvious link-up, beginning at Change of Heart but drifting up left to join The Knobs? Crazy, huh? Check it out--maybe around v7/8, and like nearly all the problems around it, it's on good rock and with a decent landing. I mention it here because it's not in the guide.

 Above: Sequence for the "Drifter Left" (above) moving into undercling. 

 Finishing with the big move of The Knobs.

Nalle Hukkataival, The Swarm

Famed Finnish climber Nalle Hukkataival arrived in Bishop just a few days ago (along with Austrian bouldering masters Kilian Fischhuber and Anna Stör). After a month or two chilling at home and training in the gym, Nalle was ready to leave winter behind and hit the road again. On his first day he made a trip through the Buttermilks, doing some classics. A day later it was down to business with a quick (half hour or so) ascent of The Swarm (v13/14)! Nalle is here for a few weeks and says he's excited to get to grips with some of North America's most famous problems, highballs and all ... "The lines are amazing," he says.

Makers, v8, Pollen Grains

I made a trip over to the Pollen Grains/Lydija Boulders on Saturday. The road down to the Get Carter boulder was still incredibly deep with snow, which is a bit surprising considering how little snow is left on the slopes of the main area. We all began to get a bad feeling as driving downhill in the 4x4 became tough going! Anyway, it was good to finally get out to the area as I’d been waiting for the chance to check out a couple of lines there.

Daniel Ferreira had written to me a while back about a problem he had done on the Honey Boulder (between the Lydija Boulder and the Jedi Boulder). It takes a direct line straight up from the start of Cover Me With Flowers, passing some cool rounded features to gain a distant slopey crimp (for the right hand), followed by an awkward pull around a bulge. Daniel had named the problem Makers after a night of whiskey drinking. I felt it was in the v8 range, and well worth doing--a little grainy, but that’s normal for FA’s. It’s fairly high and exciting, but the landing is flat. Thanks Daniel for bringing this to my attention.

Sorry, pretty lame not to have a shot of someone on this!
It is slightly overhanging to a bulge.

Sadly, the hours rushed by, and I didn’t get up the hill to look at the other line I was eager to try--Kevin Daniels’ Anaphylaxis, a direct start to the Beekeeper topout, which climbs directly to the finish of The Beekeeper from off the rounded rock at the base of that wall. Kevin said about v5 for this highball. I will report more about that one when I get a chance.

For more goings on, check out Alex Johnson's blog.

The Mandala Start--some background info

The debate over where a boulder problem really starts can extend to many problems out there. Jump-start lines are notoriously hard to clarify, for example--how many pads?--and there are no doubt dozens like that.  As for The Mandala, the now-standard start seems to have come to dominance over the last couple of years. I pointed out that the start has changed in the previous post simply because it has changed. I'm not saying there's anything "wrong" with the new start. Fact is that while some people know the start changed, many people, especially those who climbed in Bishop in the early 2000s don’t know this.

Here's a bit more background:

When Brion Voges flashed The Mandala last year, I didn’t report the ascent because I felt that by starting off of so many pads with the right hand in the undercling and left on the good crimp (just above), that this wasn’t doing the problem in the way it traditionally was done. It seemed an unfair start that didn’t respect Sharma’s line. It seemed unfair to Chris Sharma to claim to have flashed this historic problem, though Chris probably doesn’t care. It might also be considered unfair to anyone else that might have wanted to make the flash previously, or at least attempt it. I held that view for a long time and have mentioned it several times on my blog and elsewhere, though many people don't seem to agree, and people could debate this for years! I was trying to uphold a belief about the starting point of the problem, but even my own beliefs can't handle all the gray areas and lead to inconsistencies, so why bother being so pedantic?

Do I think Alex climbed the Mandala? Of course I do. I'm just saying for others coming along later that this is where she started the problem, and it's not the same place it used to start. Nearly everyone starts it that way now. Sure, it seems kind of strange to me but that's how it is. Now I look at all the videos out there of people doing The Mandala, I can see that there's almost no need to point out where it now starts, except to old farts like me and others climbing here back when Sharma first did the line.

The truth, I think, is that Brion and others had no idea there was ever a lower start. As I said, you can see loads of vids online. Of course Brion went on to comfortably complete the sit-start, and was very good humored when ribbed about the stand, but then, flashing The Mandala probably wasn’t too big a deal to him, amazing as that is!

To go back to the line: In the first few years after The Mandala was done, despite a huge number of attempts, I never saw a single person even consider starting the problem the way people do now. That’s not because there is a new sequence today. The sequence used from the high start is pretty much the same one Chris Sharma used for the FA (other than beginning higher), and the same as used by some others who also repeated it in the first few years—indeed, this includes Jared Roth’s third ascent for which he literally jumped off the ground to gain the good crimp, because he insisted that to use a pad or even a rock would invalidate his achievement.

It is within this context, and from this perhaps generational perspective that I watched the new start arise. If Chris Sharma, 11 years ago, had stacked four or five pads under the problem and pulled directly into the right-hand undercling, he would probably have felt like he was just working the moves. Sure, he could maybe have pulled directly into the undercling from the ground with his right hand, and a low left hand hold, and moved his left hand up to the crimp, but to do that does demand a hard pull—a harder move, he felt, than beginning with his right hand high, left hand low, and switching his hands on the undercling. Still, both options are there for the taking.

For Sharma to put a single pad under his feet to pull off the ground would have been frowned upon by some people back then, and would have been considered a very light-gray area to the magazines who reported groundbreaking achievements. Whether or not Sharma repeated the problem, or did the FA without using a pad, I don’t remember.

John Sherman amusingly told me one day after the problem went down, that maybe he would have done the line back in 1990 when he was in his prime if only he had stacked enough pads under it to reach that first hold. He was talking about the good crimp just above the undercling, a crimp that sure enough, most people can’t even reach from the ground. He watched annoyed as a few would-be ascensionists grabbed that hold standing on a pile of rocks plus pad, and struggled to bring their left hand into the undercling. I thought his comment comical when he said it because I didn’t consider that starting off a pad so as to put your fingers in the starting hold was such a big deal. So that’s where the gray area begins and the generation gap starts to appear. Funnily, though, John actually could reach that crimp from the ground!

Bottom line: The Mandala is an amazing boulder problem and unless you're John Sherman, you'll almost certainly need a boost to get to the start. Then, if you're anything like me, you will probably need another hefty shove to get any higher.