Kyle's new backyard training playground

Last week at the Bozeman Ice Festival a bunch of dirty, stinky, metal heads with alpine climbing addictions packed into the Outdoor Research rental house. Everyone was keen on climbing the sketchiest terrain available, not showering, giving praise to Ozzy, talking mullets, and drinking as much PBR as possible. Every computer in the house gravitated to what quickly became everyone’s new favorite website, mapofmetal.com. Okay, okay, maybe it’s just me that fits the above description, but what is true is the map of metal website, check it out, it will soon be your favorite!

Twelve of us did in fact pack it into one house for a week of climbing, teaching clinics, slideshows, and gear development meetings. Including Alex Kutches the president of OR, Christian and Teresa from the marketing department, Jeanie Wall the new alpine clothing designer, and several other freeloading (me) athletes. As an athlete with OR, I found it really cool to meet everyone, share stories, ropes, and beers, and talk climbing. The fact that Alex would cook us breakfast was pretty cool too!

Joe Josephson, et al did an incredible job offering people some top notch climbing clinics, great parties, and amazing nights of slideshows! Getting to see the incredible Jeff Lowe talk about his perceptions and life as a climber will remain with me for years to come. For three nights legendary climbers Barry Blanchard, Will Gadd, Henry Barber, Kitty Calhoun, Bruce Hendricks, Kris Erickson, Bernard Mailhot, and OR’s Margo Talbot and Gordon McArthur, presented the culmination of the last forty years of ice climbing in North America. Amazing! The drive home message from the evening events is that the younger generation of ice climbers has them to thank, or at least that’s how I read it.

After the four official days of the festival were finished, most of the OR household headed up to Hyalite for our fifth day in row, to go mixed climbing at the extremely steep Amphitheater. While Gordon McArthur did some really impressive hanging upside-down, leg-over-arm, ninja-like tricks, I was also stoked because I found a cool vertical dry-tool route with sketchy bolting, SWEET! Watching Gord was amazing and made me think about my own weaknesses as a mixed climber. 1) Heavy alpine gorilla ass 2) Complete lack of seriousness 3) My leg is physically incapable of going over my head. So I started to ask Gord about his training program to prepare for world cup competitions.

Now, mixed climbing is an inherently ridiculous sport and the fact that there are competitions, much like figure skating is a competition, further proves its illegitimacy. Absurdness aside, it is damn fun and even though I mock it I sure do love to do it. So much so that I’m signed up to compete at the Ouray Ice Fest in three weeks! Yikes! “How do I train with only one month?,” I asked Gord. And that is when he told me about this thing in his back yard (in video at 3:32):

And so that’s the plan, inspired by Gord and stoked on personal improvement, my plan until Ouray is to hang upside down and attempt to get my leg over my arm! A figure 4, I think it is called. See ya in Ouray!

Oh, and one last thing. Before everyone cracked one last beer, turned up the Black Sabbath, and said their goodbyes, everyone in the house huddled together and talked about clothing for year’s to come. Jeanie Wall is OR’s new alpine clothing designer and it was agreed by everyone staying in the house that we all have a crush on her (seriously, that was not just me this time). She comes to the team with years of industry experience and being a bad-ass climber herself understands the clothing needs that climbers have. Look forward to some amazing things to come!

Find more stories from Kyle and Gordon here on VertiCulture including links to their respective blogs. Thanks!

Zero to... HERO!

Inspired by stories of what was happening over in Europe and having climbed-out Ouray’s current “hard man’s mixed climbing” area, the Poser’s Lounge, I set my sights on finding something different. Why did I need to be limited to finding steep rock with ice on it for a mixed climb? While we all like to have ice on our mixed routes for aesthetic purposes, it really limits the options.

And so, I came across the Hall of Justice cave, but it was big and riddled with loose rock. The wall was four hundred feet tall so rap bolting wasn’t an option. The first route took me about three and a half days to bolt over the course of a couple weeks.  Solo-aiding and bolting up such a steep piece of rock was a slow going and brutal affair. The wall is so steep that my feet couldn’t touch the wall and I had to stem in the air with my aiders. Meanwhile, I’d lock off with one arm on the quickdraw I was hanging from, lean back and press the 10-15 lbs of battery powered hammer drill into the ceiling. The drill bit would start to rotate and shake as I tried to keep my shoulder engaged. Dirt poured out of the hole and onto my face, clothes and into my eyes. Each bolting session would send me home covered in dirt, my hips rashed and bruised, and my core muscles completely spent.

Once the route was bolted, I spent about 7 more days over the next several weeks cleaning the loose rock from the wall. The cleaning was accomplished by swinging a big hammer into the rock, much like what you see the chain gangs doing in the movies, except this is done while hanging in a harness.

I sent the route that same year and named it “Holy Girlpile Batman” (M12). It was quite a breakthrough for me as it was the most difficult route I could imagine yet I found myself clipping the chains after only about six tries. I bolted a shorter route in the back of the cave as well as a warm up. After those two, I was spent. The effort was expensive and exhausting. Plus I couldn’t find anyone to climb with me in the cave so I left it alone for a period.

A lot of inspiration comes from those you surround yourself with one way or another. I’ve known Marc Beverly for a number of years now, but we’ve only just started hanging out this year. Seems we have a lot in common; a taste for new routes and we are both “extra-large-size” climbers weighing in at over 200 lbs and both about 6’ 4”.

This winter, Marc came out to visit me and to climb “Holy Girlpile Batman!”. One thing led to another and out came the drill. Over the next couple days, the warm up in the back of the cave was extended out past the lip. It wasn’t completely without adventure. We established it during a multi-day blizzard and post-holing a hour or so each day up to the cave required a fair bit of motivation. One evening of bolting went into the dark and I took a fall when a bolt pulled out of the roof in some loose rock. Drill, aiders, a hammer were floating with me through the air until coming to a rest on the rope.

The route was brutally steep and there wasn’t a single rest on the 80-feet or so of climbing. I had to learn how to climb such a route. Using your feet when they don’t really touch the wall becomes a challenge. It didn’t take long though and my second day of trying to climb the route found me clipping the anchors.

Sending the route was a success, but as much so, I’ve set the spark for others and it looks as though I’ll have some help in establishing some future lines in this cave. I’m excited to see what the future will hold.

Marc and I decided to call the route “Zero to Hero” in a mocking fashion as the route’s difficulty goes from 0 to 60 almost instantly and once you’re at the top, you’re a hero, or at least feel like one for a moment. That is until you lower off and find yourself too pumped to untie the rope from your harness.

The 2011 Ouray Ice Festival  is being held Thursday January 6th through Sunday January 9th. Come join Outdoor Research Climbing Ambassador Jason Nelson and other OR athletes for clinics, comps, slide shows, awesome gear demos and much, much more!

This year’s Festival will be highlighted by presentations by Jason Nelson and Chad Peele, Conrad Anker and the legendary Barry Blanchard.

Clinics spots fill up fast, so hurry and visit the Ouray Ice Festival site for more information and how to book your clinic space and accommodations.  Then sharpen your tools and haul out your puffy for an amazing 4 days of ice climbing!

See you there!

The 15th anniversary Ouray Ice Festival kicks off January 8th until the 10th, and like years past will be an incredible international gathering of ice climbers, gear manufacturing exhibitors, and ice climbing voyeurs.

Events over the weekend include clinics for beginner to advanced climbers, an opportunity to check out and try the latest and greatest gear, and catching up with some of the world’s most experienced climbers. The Festival offers one of the greatest competition route’s that continues to challenge the best climbers in the world.

This year, Timmy O’Neill will be the host of the Saturday night auctions and Arcteryx/Petzl Superhero theme party. Also, catch Will Gadd’s Endless Ascent. Will is going to climb for 24 hours straight in the Ouray Ice Park as a fundraiser for the dZi foundation. View this feat from the Ouray Ice Park “High Bridge”.

Be sure to stop by the OR booth to test out our newest ice gloves and to enter to win gear!

Get the full run-down of events on the festivals website.