So...

So Richo still hasn't given me the pics of the Joker yet... slack ass that he is haha

Well, Josh Higgins and I (and our respective other halves of course) are off to the Grampians, leaving tomorrow... Steph and I are there for 2 weeks and Josh, Linda & bubba Hayley are down for one week.

Hopefully we can pull down as hard as we have been around home lately and come home with some nice sends!

We will probably go get on a rope on a couple of days, maybe I can convince Josh to do something multi pitch on Taipan ;-) But I doubt it haha

I'll try and add a few pics and an update while Im down there, but failing that I'll do it when we get home.

And Richo is off to Europe to chase girls for a few months as of Sunday so we will be missing him, but when he gets home he better be straight onto the Bloc's again with us or we will have to buy him a new blouse to wear :-P

Ez.

New 9a at Ceuse from Sharma

Chris Sharma sent his new 9a at Ceuse the other day - "Three Degrees of Seperation"

Looks friggin awesome!

Heaps of variety in cimbing style in it, big dynos, tufas, everything... check out the footage at www.bigupproductions.com

Weekend sends...

Over the weekend Josh Higgins and I both managed to send 'The Joker' v6 up at Cantaloupe Hill on Corin Rd... we both tried it last weekend, then managed to get up it in a few shots on saturday... well stoked!
Were both feeling well good for our trip to the Gampians next week :-)
Josh also repeated a v7 at Lot 33 in Nowra on sunday too, he had done it a few years ago but cruised it again this weekend, which can only means we can expect good things in the Grampians!

Up in Sydney, ex-Canberra strong man Chris Webb sent 'Genesis' v13 at Crumbly on saturday.
It never ceases to amaze me just how strong he has gotten since we started climbing together here in Canberra... such a strong lad! Good work bro!

I'll post some pics of us on 'The Joker' as soon as Richo emails them to me.

Ez!

After work shenanigans!

Yesterday we popped out to Chapman Ridge after work for a quick boulder before it got dark (as we have done a bit over the last month or so) and Josh Higgins sent the V6 up at the Horse Paddock Boulders. He walked up it first shot of the arvo (he's tried it a few times before) then we did one or two other easier things before heading home once it got dark to train at home.
I managed to get up the same V6 a week or so ago by torchlight one night after work... really nice problem if you have the time to duck up there... its chipped though, many years ago like half of the problems up there... but still a nice little area for an after work jaunt on the blocs :-)

And on rope...

So with V15/8C the new standard for hard boulders, whats the new standard on rope?
Well, it seems that despite a few claims of routes of higher grades the consensus seems to be that 36/9a+ is the benchmark for top end sports climbing... heres footage of the man Chris Sharma sending 'La Rambla' 9a+ at Siurana, Spain (This time courtesy of Work Less Climb More)... makes me want to get out on some routes :-)

The new standard...

So before I had my 3 or 4 year hiatus from the blocs V14/8B+ was the benchmark for hard bouldering... few people were that strong and the problems that hard were few and far between... nowadays it seems like every man and his dog can pull down that hard and a new generation of insanely strong kids (alongside some of the strong old guard) are upping the ante...

To show what is considered really 'hard' these days here is a vid of American strong kid Daniel Woods doing the first ascent of 'Jade' V15/8C in RMNP in Colorado, USA (Courtesy of Big Up Productions) enjoy :-)

A few pics...

Just to get started, heres a few pics :-)

Heres a few of the tunnel extension to Dogleg Cave at Wee Jasper that we did a few weeks ago... fun, but after 3 hours + in a cave you start to get a bit over it... well fun though :-)

And here are a few of the new bouldering area we have been developing out at the Wingecarrabee River... Should have a little guide to the new areas out there done soon...

Gotta start somewhere...

Well, I never thought I would bother with a blog, but I thought I might start one in order to share pics, news and whatever else about bouldering, climbing and whatever else I see fit that myself and people I know get up to.

I thought that I may as well do this after seeing the lack of news, etc about whats going on in Oz, especially compared to the amount of up to date stuff on the net from the USA and Europe...

For those of you that dont know me, my name is Duncan Brown and I live here in cold old Canberra, the capital of Australia.

I climbed and bouldered for many years and lived in the Blue Mtns for a few of those years, climbing and generally bumming around... then in 2003 or there abouts I developed a keen interest in trance and techno... the next few years I wrote music, ran a small record label (www.space-recordings.com), released a mix album and was lucky enough to play gigs all around Australia.

Now that Im a bit too old (27 is old isnt it?) for the whole clubbing scene Ive been getting stuck back into bouldering again and doing my best to catch up on lost time on the blocs.

I'll post whatever news that comes to hand, pics, guides to any new problems / areas I can, and basically anything thats of interest.

Get into it!