Game on and Over

Jan and I was talking about bouldering last weekend and how we used to say it is much simpler than rope climbing in that you don't need a rope and a whole lot of gear, just shoes and a chalkbag. Something must have gone wrong because today I was carrying about 30 kg of gear including 3 pads and bag up the hill to get to the Kasviken boulders.

Felt unmotivated to warm up so it got a bit sloppy, just wanted to get going, the plan was to figure out the missing link on "Game Over" so it would be game on, so to say, to start the real attempts on the problem. I had based my solution on a video of Peter Bosma climbing the problem I had found on his site, he obviously has some overcapacity for the problem so I had to finetune it a bit to work for me. Taking any swing during the climb was not an option, I didn't have the strength to control it. The last moves was also too dependent on fingerstrength so I had to add in a few more moves. I thougt I had the "finbeta" for this problem now and started working. First go I totally forgot the sequence leading into the end but second go was a success.

I worked the problem for 4 session prior to today and I rate it as my best climb so far both in difficulty and in beauty of the moves. On first session I was totally lost and certain that it must be harder than my other personal best, now I realize that it's in the same ballpark and I would have had a little more to give. Without the Bosma video it would probably have taken me much longer to figure a problem as hard as this out.

Looking forward to something new!

Again the sun was f**king up my video.

Family event at Kasviken

Sandra taking her first steps on the real deal after a couple of months of pulling plastics.

Nice day at Kasviken after yesterdays disapointment when everything was wet, cold and rainy. Got the whole family with me and Jim and Sandra also joined us, Sandra was doing her first outdoor climbing ever and seemed to enjoy it, that's not the usual reaction from someone who has only been climbing indoors before in my experience so that was nice to see. It usually takes a little time to get used to the rock and the fact that all holds are not obvious.

After my warm-up I was able to tick off one of the problems on my list when I climbed the 7b:ish sitstart on the rock beneth the Dodo block. It's not the most beutiful problem there is but the climbing is quite nice.

Then it was off to work on "Game Over", unfortunaltely I don't have any pictures from that because todays digital cameras don't have fast enough shutter times to capture me on it. Well, it was not that bad but this is a problem which will take me a little more time, I have not done all moves yet and it really attacks all my weakness at the same and mostly my open hand strength and toe-hooking abilities. I did improvements compared to my friday session on it but it's still far away. A bit hard to work on for me with only one or two pads but I have a lot to learn from it which is inspiring.

Dani and Emrik seeking shadow under the "Game Over" roof

Video update:

Did Dodo

It's spring again, at least a little. The easter was supposed to be the big kick-off for the season but almost all problems were wet. Fortunately "Dodo" was dry so we were able to climb on it on thursday and friday.

Dodo is a bit hard to warm up on so on friday we had learnt our lesson and went to Vikingahallen for some indoor warm-up.

My first more serious attempts on the problem was last fall when Marko and Kikka were visiting but then I had a recently split finger tip and an aching knee so I didn't get much more out of it than the idea that it was very possible for me. Then came a finger injury so most of the fall and early winter was spent on the still rings and only a couple of months of climbing so the plan was to do the problem "this spring".

Thursdays attempts was no better than in the fall because I didn't find the correct footposition for my left which for me was the key to the problem, on friday I got the position right and that in combination with Erik Massihs contagious energy and Jim Lindholms trusty spotting it all went well. Ok, after my first success on taking the upper crux-move crimper I was helicoptered down from big holds on the lip but the go after that I was able to hold it and after that the top-out is a formality.

This opened up my climbing calendar for the spring but that's not a problem, I have much left on my ticklist. Ah, it feels good to be alive and ticking!



Photo and video by Erik Massih.