The November presentations at REI in Boulder, Lakewood, Englewood, Denver, and Colorado Springs were enjoyable and appreciated by those who attended. Not only were still images presented but video footage of a wide range of boulder problems from V0 to V12.  Their was also images and video footage of 5th class single pitch routes, such as Rainbow Wall, China Doll, Sonic Youth to name a few as well as multi-pitch big wall shots of King of Swords on the Diamond, Stratosphere, on the Painted Wall, and Childhoods End on Big Rock Candy Mountain. The images and video footage was intermixed with climbing drawings and paintings.  The images spanned thirty years of bouldering and climbing. THANKS AGAIN REI,YOU ROCK!

Bouldering is at the heart of all climbing. A boulderer must utilize gymnastic, acrobatic, and aerobatic techniques.  The outcrops and boulders are the apparatuses, and each individual problem is a unique performance. Strength, dexterity, poise, grace, and balance all can be developed on the boulders. For the serious boulderer, difficulty and style are equal goals.  Endurance and recovery also are greatly enhanced through bouldering, and it is on the short cliffs that the all-important mental parameters of the sport are honed.  

Almost fifty years ago, bouldering was seen as practice climbing-training for the larger world of techinical rock climbing.  For many practioners today, bouldering is firmly established as an end in itself. Defining climbing is incomplete without the inclusion of bouldering and in a sense defines climbing, for it is the evolution of bouldering moves, performed close to the ground, and their ever increasing levels of difficulty, that eventually get applied high up on the rock walls. In retrospect one should not expect to do difficult sequences high off the ground if one can not simulate them on boulders close to the ground.  This is were the effectiveness of training on the boulders, enhances your route solution solving abilities and strength when leading high up on the cliffs.

Now that fall is upon us, and the days are much cooler and crisp, bouldering areas couldn't be more friendly.  This past week-end a group of us made our way into the Flatirons of Boulder, Colorado. First we made a stop at the Terrain Boulders, and were happy to traverse and boulder out many of the classics.  This area about ten plus years ago was a somewhat new destination for many boulderers and a welcome alternative for the local who for years climbed the same problems on Flagstaff over and over again. The next day we went up Shadow Canyon and bouldered on some trail side rocks below the Matron, their wasn't a soul insight which made for a serene and quite day amidst the changing fall colors.  This is often what makes bouldering exploration so fun and now that their are so many alternatives, you usually have the areas to yourself, save for the contemporary, en vogue areas which usually over time return to their original obscurity.  We plan a trip to Castlewood, this coming week-end to boulder amidst the canyon's colorful fall landscape.

October 2nd Bouldering Colorado presentation at Neptune Mountaineering went very well and was applauded by its enthusiastic participants. The slide and video presentation also entailed music scores that I composed with the help of Garage Band.  A mixed group of beginner, intermediate and advanced climbers asked constructive questions at the shows end, and I offered any, and all explanations or elaboration to their inquiries.  Questions ranged from where, and what area should I start as a new comer to bouldering, to will there be an update or inclusion to other areas that are not mentioned in the book, to what I will do with the information that I have received that is in conflict with other climbers information such as names of rocks and problems.  Replying to the latter, I said, that after looking at the information we will apply it, should it be note worthy, to the next edition. 

Thanks so much for divulging the information that you and your crew have kept somewhat seclusive for so long. I find it interesting, how on your website, B3, you describe your finding these pristine gems of rock and your modus operendi for setting your course upon them. Sounds like a real" leave no trace" agenda. Your record of state of the art ascents has been obvious to me as I watched the boulders change over the years. Ten years ago, when you were just starting out on your bouldering quest, I was finishing the manuscript for my 5th bouldering guide better know as "Best of Boulder Bouldering". When I complied the info for Mount Evans and Rocky Mountain, I chose to keep the descriptions brief, and expose very little in comparison to what I could tell had been done, or that you claim to have developed. When editing the manuscript which was much larger at the time their were a few discrepencies and it is obvious to those of us you know the areas. I find them quite minor and will not affect you state of the arters, and certainly not affect those new learners who could careless about the elitist boulderer.

Almost twenty years ago, I was a guest lecturer, and opening act at the American Alpine Club's annual meeting, which for that year (1989) was in Atlanta.  It was the same years that Todd Skinner and Paul Piana gave their presentation on involving free climbing the Salathe Wall on El Capitain in Yosemite Valley.  Jeff Lowe and Ed Webster, who was a roommate of mine at the time, was also in the presentation line up, I believe giving a show about climbing something outrageous in the Himalayas.

Anyway, I presented my slide show, then called "Modern Rock Gymnastics," in front of a large crowd of mostly, suit and tie, mountaineers.  In the presentation I projected images of big wall climbing, 5th class free climbing, and finally a spread on bouldering, explaining how each level achieved was based on many stepping stones lay down by our climbing predecessors.  I received a standing ovation, and was immediately thereafter approached by a publisher, George Meyers, who was well known in the climbing community and guide book business for his hand draw topos of Yosemite Valley, a break through for guide documentation at the time.  George liked the presentation and showed special interest in my bouldering section.  He then asked me if I would be interested in doing a bouldering guide.  I told him that I had been documenting bouldering throughout the state of Colorado and doing a state wide guide would be great.  He of course thought the scope to be too vast and complex and so Colorado Front Range Bouldering, my first guide, was published.