Texas Climber

Soloing in Stolby, Russia

There’s an incredible video on SendAustin! about a national park in Stolby, where the locals have been soloing for over a hundred years. Not just your stereotypical climbers either, this is fun for the whole family.

And they keep dying. I’d heard about this place before after seeing some incredible pictures of a well known local guy, Vladimir Teplyh, doing his last solo in 1989. The 4th picture is work safe but… take a good look at the thumbnail before clicking.

It’s the little kids watching that get me in the 4th picture. Is it worth it? Am I a hypocrite for thinking this is crazy when I accept the risks of roped climbing, which can go just as wrong although the chances are slightly lower? Yeah probably.

I guess our obsession with safety in the western world has done something to me. What makes climbing exciting in the first place? Why are we in love with danger and risk? I wish I didn’t suck at chess or I might take it up. Actually, I suck at climbing too. Damn.

Pace Bend cliff diving photoshoppery

Take one fast exposure camera, add some photoshopping, and you get:

All taken at Thurman Cove, Pace Bend National Park.

Need directions or maps to Pace Bend? Try the Access Page !

Holy sheeeet you have to watch this

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

In a land of polish, one man stands up (on limestone slopers that feel like grit)

Ha!

I bet most of you don’t even know what millstone grit is. “God’s own rock” as they call it in the UK, for the dubious reason that it is the hardest, and roughest rock anyone has ever climbed on. Few features, but sandpaper covered slopers, and on magical cold autumn days, it’s suddenly becomes impossible to slip on it. It only exists in two places apparently, central england, and mongolia.

I didn’t think I’d discover anything like it again, but holy sheet was I wrong. Monster Rock, John Hogge’s private crag near Pace Bend is it. “Don’t be stupid, that’s limestone you dumb ass!”

Yes, Limestone. Can any of you say you have climbed a central texas limestone route that hasn’t had a thousand ascents already and is covered in mirror like polish? You can? OK shut it you obviously climb hard or have discovered a new area or helped develop one.

Anyway, back to the amazing 5.8s, 5.9s, 5.10s that have had so few ascents that they don’t have a single rubber mark on them. Crystals that cut tiny holes into the soft part of your fingers that usually never touch anyting but polished slopers. I won’t mention anything over 5.11 as I’m a fat trundler who smokes 20 a day, but I doubt they could be of any lesser quality. The 60+ foot high traverses on fixed gear…

If you’ve never heard of it, or have heard but never been, you have to check it out. It’s closer to central austin than Reimer’s, and being private, much less crowded. Thanks to it’s 5 foot wide, 40 foot canyon it’s also consierably cooler on hot days. Check out his website to find out how to get access.

Did I mention the porta potty on site has wet wipes? Wet wipes !!!! That’s the kind of place M Rock is.

Classy.

Lovecraft’s notebook of horror

Impressed as I was by M Rock’s horror names I started browsing the web for some online lovecraft stories … when I came across this, H.P. Lovecraft’s Common Place book, a collection of “ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction.”

holy crap some of these are terrible “148 Vampire dog.” / “17 Doors found mysteriously open and shut etc.—excite terror.”

Here let me help you “H.P.”

• 34 Man buys haunted candy, can’t tell it’s haunted because it’s very small.
• 85 Juice in orange isn’t really juice but something else. Man dies.
• 122 Man buys coconut, later realizes it’s a giant alien? egg? monster? It drives him mad.
• 602 House is not constructed according to regulations.
• 766 A dog puts on a pair of pants. The dog shits the pants.
• 908 Rapper spits unspeakably dope rhymes
• 270 Man is horrified to discover human hand at end of each arm.
• 1206 Man is bitten by spider, acquires spider-like abilities. Responsibility?? Does whatever a spider can
• 898 Man stays up too late posting on the internet, fatigued the next day. He’s not a man. Climbs badly.

“heh”

Old school Reimers topos

Good news, someone had kept copies of the old PDF topos that used to exist on the now dead texasclimbers.com, right here: SendAustin!

An excellent austin climbing blog on it’s own right, but I’m embarrassed to say that their header logo is of the exact same route as mine. Out of 1000’s of austin routes, is there something special about it that two websites would pick it?

First person to recognise it wins a pie.

I want your crag photos

Do you have any BIG crag photos you wouldn’t mind me using on this website as a source for topos?

Partial wall, climbers, bad weather are all fine, I can piece together walls from 20 individual photos no problem.

I’ll give you credit for em if you want as well, of course.

admin@texasclimber.com

I want topos and I want them now and I don’t want them enough to pay for them OK

I thought austin was supposed to be famous for all the tech people, and if there’s one thing techy people love apart from neck beards & world of warcraft it’s free information. So where are the free topos people?

Current topos make it pretty tricky to figure out exact lines sometimes, particularly when a bunch of climbs are crowded on a face or there aren’t many features on a wall.

How hard would it be to take a photo and photoshop some vague lines onto it? I’m going to find out. Apart from the other “Dear Diary” crap about what sandwiches I ate today I’m going to start making proper topos and hosting them on here for free. For you!!!

first poast

unf

cutting loose on fishing for rocks, seismic wall, greenbelt