YMCA!

A brief peek at where this Wednesday's session took us...

Damo making the FKA (first known ascent) of Light as a Feather v6.

Pilo on one of many steep crimp lines at this sector of the mountain. photo by D. Corso

And myself, pressing out the top of Solstice V7/8. photo by D. Corso

Where the Wild Things Are...

Bridget on Velvet Revolver

Check out this vid that Alex created from the weekend at http://www.savageclimbing.com/. We have been working on mapping out the south west side of the mountain accessed from the Corral. A lot of this climbing is typical Black Mtn with some out of the ordinary gems mixed in. At approximately the same elevation, the bouldering continues out of the Corral all the way around the mountain until you hit the Black Mountain Trail which would take you down to the 243 or up to Boulder Basin. This is a long 1.5 mile slog not necessarily worth doing in its entirety, however, along the way tons of rock has piled up hosting some amazing lines like Where the Wild Things Are featured in Alex's vid. The weather for the last several weeks has been pleasant, with the clouds resting right below the mountain creating the June gloom island effect. It does look like things are about to warm up. With Alan on guide book hiatus in South Africa and summer heat about to kick in I will be a little less ambitious through July and August. I will still try to make it up once a week if anyone wants to join as well as update this blog with guide book progress so that anyone interested in the our current focus, giving input, or meeting up can do so. Currently I am occupied collecting all the raw data necessary for finishing up topos to established and peripheral areas. Once the maps are in a near finished state it will be easier to then collect all the missing info like little known problem names and description details. Thus the goal by the end of summer is to have all topos for the Republic, Ok Corral, Boulder Basin, Summit/Lookout, Group sites, Chappies/YMCA and beyond near completion. So far the book will be structured into these 6 general regions loosely grouped based on access with a lot of smaller areas and satellite blocks included. Below is a rough draft an overview map showing this grouping. Let me know what you think?

!BMW!

Nuevo Negro!

With the spring semester/quarter coming to a close, most of you Wednesday climbers/adult learners seem to be preoccupied. For anyone able and interested, we are going to be leaving the OK Corral tomorrow morning around 9:30am to climb on some very large blocks that require about a 30 minute walk around the hill. It should be a good day venturing into the little known outer realms of the Black Mtn. bouldering. The guide book process so far has been focused largely on the main areas, however, time has come to venture out a bit more and decipher what is worthy of including in the outer lying vicinity. This process of recon, cleaning, and climbing is a lot of work but very rewarding, and everyone's participation is very much appreciated. Look for my little silver Tacoma at the Corral, and carpooling up the Mtn is an option too. If we all go into the woods and clean a problem then we each have one new line, if we share what we found than we all have many new lines!

Always Psyched...

Alex Savage making it look easy on a repeat session of Bang On.

Also, check out this cool Black Mtn vid from the last couple weeks at http://www.savageclimbing.com/