Bring In The New Year!!

What better way to bring in the new year than by starting a blog. I figured it would give me something to do as well as for others who are interested, if there is any, to follow along with me in my travels, experiences and epic adventures.

I finished the year of 2008 by traveling to the desert of southern Utah. With loads of new sandstone boulder problems waiting to be gripped upon, I first set my sights on one of the last established problem of the area that I had yet to repeat, an amazing technical power problem first put up by Dave Graham a few years back, right after his massacre in Hueco Tanks. A slightly overhanging wall of madness, consisting of no footholds and large moves between very poor grips, by far one of the most stunning lines in the area of Moe's Valley. I had made previous attempts in the years past, but with no luck, I was forced to return when better temps arrived.

On the eve of the New Year I quickly snatched up the 2ND ascent of Escape Artist. Dave made the first ascent in under 30 minutes, attaching the grade of v12, which seemed somewhat reasonable, considering he had just come from Hueco where he damn near flashed Slashface graded V13/14 a the time. Escape Artist is definitely in contest for the best problem of all time in my book.

After making the 2ND ascent of this amazing problem I soon proceeded towards a plethora of old and new projects, one of which I dubbed the Settlers of Catan(v11), a very aesthetic line going up a gently overhanging grit-like sandstone with bad pockets and wee nubbins.

During our two week stay to St. George, we spent most of our rest days(all three of them) cleaning and developing new lines. On the last day of my bouldering frenzy I put the icing on the cake by making away with the first ascent of an unusually steep and solid overhanging project with a very intense ending on extremely bad slopers. After five powerful moves building up to a difficult ending, keeping it together through to the end was no easy task, after all was said and done Meat Bag(v13) had been born.

Now back in the city of the Great Salty load, I'm doing a bit of work and preparing for the Winter trade show. Good friends arrive soon and will be wanting to climb so I have a couple of areas in mind that are climbable during the winter months like, Caste Rocks, Joe's valley, and the San Raphael Swell. I am definitely psyched to head down to St. George for some more clean up of unfinished business.

Seth Giles on Settlers Of Catan