Earlier this summer, a group of guys from the area began developing a bouldering area 20 minutes southeast of Moscow. Pawel, Shirley T., Mark and myself spent a consideralbe amount of time out there this summer, and recently Conrad has been logging quite a few hours. The bouldering is actually quite good, amazing to some who went to school here and looked for rock for four years (sorry McClures). A good amount of problems have been put up, ranging from V1 all the way to V11, and I think there is actually at least one problem at every grade. I had scoped out this project while Pawel and I were cleaning one of th first little areas that we found, a near horizontal roof about 8 feet long that had some good holds on it. Not after I pulled on them. After breaking off all of the choss, I discovered that there were good feet, and shit for hands.
I worked on the project for three days, figuring out that I could not get past the first move 4 different ways if I wanted to. I remember Mark and Shirley laughing at the sound of me breathing hard, trying to get psyched, pulling on the making one move, and then the sound of air being expelled as you hit the pads flat on your back, over and over and over. Every time I went out there I would give it a few goes, trying different things and making no headway at all. That all changed when I took a little afternoon trip to work on the proj. I discovered a kneebar that enabled me to make the 3rd and 4th moves, a bump to a tiny crimp, and an adjustment on the start hold. Getting to this point was great, the problem was starting to unwind itself. I began working on the end and had it all figured out by the time I had to go and was tired.
Next trip out, after working on it for about and hour and a half, I was millimeters from a HUGE mantram, after falling off the lip at least 3 or 4 times. Next go, the tension stayed, and I managed to hang on long enough to make the first ascent of Apples V11, at the Chapel at Lenville Road. Some pics of the problem and possibly a short vid to come as soon as I get back from a weekend of bouldering in Riggins, ID....
