Considering the amount of rock and natural beauty of Dartmoor National Park the bouldering here has a less than shining reputation and I find myself often defending the place I've grown to love.  To be totally fair to the haters, the large grained granite of the Moor is pretty sharp and doesn't tend to make for the best lines but you have to remember that Dartmoor is massive and can't be judged by only visiting a couple areas.  I imagine most of the naysayers only checked out a few standard crags (Bonehill?) and left with their judgement clouded by smashed egos and bleeding tips. &nb ..read more

Sometimes areas seem to get more spray/attention than warranted while other more deserving ones are ignored and neglected.  I've never fully understood why this is but I've seen it the world over and in Tucson the great neglected area seemed to be a charming little place with the duel name of Redington Pass and/or Tanque Verde. I actually remembered this area from an exploratory hike I did when passing through Tucson 14 years ago and never forgot the giant water-polished boulders.  For this trip I asked some locals about the place and I was told it wasn't very good, they had never b ..read more

Wilderness of Rocks was my favorite overall area around Tucson and the place has potential to put Tucson bouldering on the map.  While other Tucson areas are small Wilderness of Rocks is massive as the rock is seemingly endless with the granite offering a variety of features and styles reminiscent of Black Mountain.  The good stuff that has been done is unquestionably world class and only a small fraction of the stone has been explored.  The best is likely yet to come and if you like exploring you could spend a lifetime establishing 3 star problems. Logistically Wilderness of R ..read more

Here is the first of several posts I'm hoping to do about my recent trip to the States and the climbing around Tucson, AZ.  Hope you enjoy ............................................................................... Recently I had a great four weeks in the USA where the vast majority of my time was spent around Tucson in Southern Arizona.  I took my usual systematic approach to trying to see as much of the bouldering as possible, ticking the best problems along the way, and I feel I did pretty well during my short time.  It was a blast and the bouldering actually blew away m ..read more

I'm gearing up for the annual trip to the States and I can't be more excited to see friends and family while climbing worthy rock.  The trip will be a bit different this year as it is "only" 4 weeks and we'll be based out of Tucson, Arizona.  Good times will be had and I'm psyched for some new rocks. In the meantime here is a little video of 4 problems from different places on Dartmoor.  All are considered area classics but some are a bit more obscure and don't get much traffic (particularly Dark Devotion).  Hope you enjoy the video ..read more

I'll start off by apologizing for the prolonged absence from posting.  There are multiple reasons for the break and hopefully I'll get back into semi-regular posts.  If there is anyone out there that still reads this blog but wants more frequent "climbing porn" then I'd recommend following my Instagram, Facebook, and/or checking out Climbingpics (I post photos there for time to time).  Ok, now to an actual blog-post. .................... A couple weeks back a Salt Lake City climber discovered that several problems in Little Cottonwood Canyon had been vandalized.  Apparentl ..read more

Tintagel is primary known for the ruins of what is believed to be King Author's legendary castle, but if you're a climber there is another attraction that is worth a visit.  The bouldering at Tintagel is limited but it has what I consider to be the best single coastal boulder in the Southwest (as least the best I've seen).  For the most part I've been pretty unimpressed with much of the coastal bouldering but Tintagel did not disappoint as it offers a high concentration of independent lines and a beautiful setting. This massive boulder is the highlight of Tintagel and provides most ..read more

Last week they aired the final episode of the second season of Ninja Warrior Sverige (Sweden) and while no one finished André Sihms and David Johansson got the furthest, falling at the same spot on the ultimate cliffhanger.  Congrats to them and all my fellow competitors as it was a lot of fun.   As for my performance, I did manage to be among the 25 competitors that made it to the finals but I consider anything short of finishing the whole course a disappointment.  Those that saw the final episode witnessed me punting on an "easy" obstacle and while I have plenty of e ..read more

Last year I removed a moss carpet from a boulder in Lustleigh to reveal a massive sloper.  The feature alone made this rather short boulder suddenly very appealing and I added it straight on my to-do list.  The sloper ended up being worse than it looked and I needed to wait for cold temps but to be honest I wasn't expecting this problem to be that hard.  It ended up putting up a serious fight and is full on from beginning to end.  In fact, just getting establish proved difficult and I had one whole session where I was never even able to attempt the first slap.  I even ..read more

As anyone that has been to Font can tell you, it's a magical place and the best bouldering in the world (I stand behind that statement). I think this was my 10th trip to Font and while I'm far from fully versed on all-things-Font, I feel I've learned a thing or two over the years and thought I'd share a few tips for anyone planning a trip to the magical forest. So in no particular order here are my top 5 tips to optimize your trip to Font. Bring an umbrella. The weather in Font can be notoriously bad and if your trip coincides with a rainy spell you'll want to utilize every weather window ava ..read more