Mandala SDS

Matt crushing the Mandala SDS (V13/14ish).






photos - Jeff Sillcox

Cory (who is gracing the background of a few of the photos) also sent this one a couple days ago! And there's more photos from Matt's trip on his blog and the Bishop Bouldering blog. The posts are a couple weeks old so you'll have to go digging.

Mandala Direct Video

Wade David posted some footage of my FA last spring of Mandala Direct (V12).

Wade relocated the footage to Vimeo...


And since I can't have a post with no pictures in it...

Don't try this at home. I went first so I could hang out on big holds, while everyone else was in varying degrees of discomfort... especially Drew at the bottom on the small holds.

Me, Eric, Nate, Jim, and Drew on The Hunk (V2), Buttermilks.


photos - Adam Stoltenberg

And if you want more of The Mandala, check out my first post in the archive section over there somewhere ------------------>

Big Sends

Lisa Rands finished the Mandala (V12) today, beating Eric to the first female ascent. Here she is working it last spring:

This huge deadpoint was the crux for Lisa, while pulling through off the tiny crimp is the crux for most of us (2nd picture).



photos - Jeff Sillcox

Neither move looked hard today, so as soon as she hit the crimp in the right spot, the rest was a formality.

Matt Birch made a quick ascent of Direction (V13) and Wills and I both fell off the end of it. I finished my day with perhaps the most impressive send of the day: An untied-approach-shoe-flash of a problem that was supposed to take me at least six tries... unfortunately, it was on plastic at Andrew's home wall. And Wills salvaged his day by shooting video of Lisa on the Mandala that will surely show up on one of those other climbing websites soon.

The Mandala

So I guess you might say I've had an obsession with The Mandala at the Buttermilks. I first climbed it in April of 2005 after several days of work. While working on it I spotted a line of holds that leads straight up the prow where the original line goes left. At first it didn't look much harder than the left finish but took almost two years and close to 30 falls off the upper crux to finally finish it. Along the way I broke a hold, changed my sequence a couple times, and landed on a dog from 15ft.

Sending the original line for the first time

photo - Bill Thompson


video - Jeromy Acton

Attempting the direct finish

photo - Eric Lang

Finally finishing it off. The upper crux is a big deadpoint to a good edge.

photo - Bill Thompson

So I guess all that's left is the sit start and the sit start into the direct finish (which Paul Robinson nabbed a few days after I completed the direct finish).