eric8

Good old index

I like the index trip reports. I used to live 45 minutes from index, now I live 3000 miles away. I like looking at the pictures of your ascent of Godzilla, even if I have seen a similar picture 100 times before. SO for those of you posting index trip reports thanks. And for those of you who find them annoying don't read them...

sunshine crack bugaboos

The mid wall at the cave is the perfect early season climbing destination.

Julie's roof that is a good one Blake. Whitewashed at south fork of Tieton is another good one.

Natural log cabin index Terminal Preppie index Mary Jane Diehdral SCW

Hey Kimmo, For your recommend routine of static boulder probelms and fingerboarding. Why did you recommend such long hang times on the finger board 30 sec to 1 minute? If one was trying to improve there bouldering ability won't they want to do shorter more intense hangs? Or is your thinking that someone who only boulders v4 is not quite ready for hard training and the long hangs are to prepare them for that as well as make them stronger?

I see where Kimmo is coming from. Its well proven the best way to get good at something is to actually do it, specificity. I have always thought the best way to get good at climbing is to do it as much as possible without getting hurt. So if you can handle training/climbing everyday great, but I think it something you have to work up to. When you read about how elite climbers train its usually between 2-6 days on before a rest day, Dave Macleod, Rich Simpson, Alex Huber, Jon Cardwell, etc. The list goes on. That kid that boulders V11 in the gym how many times a week do you see him in the gym? Then again the reason why periodization workouts are in every book is because they work. They might not work as well as climbing hard everyday but for someone just starting you are probably less likely to be injured in a more structured program. And what ever you do getting injured is the best way not to improve. So in conclusion climb/train as much as you can without getting hurt. Or that is my take.

Between 45 and 60 degrees with a kicker.

Oddly enough the people doing the most complaining don't actually use Aliens or have stopped using them.If you don't like them, don't use them. My offer still stands, send them my way. Clearly only idiots and morons use Aliens. Look at this asshole here. He's a long along way out above a Black Alien pulling the crux on a 5.14 pitch. Someone needs to let this guy know how unsafe that Alien is. [img:left]http://www.alpinist.com/media/ALP20/trotter_path.jpg[/img] The argument that because someone else does something makes it okay has never been valid. It becomes even more suspect when they are paid money to do it. I use some older aliens that had already held many falls before CCH started having problems. I'm sure you could buy new aliens and take them out climbing and be fine. But statistically speaking you would be much better off with one of the other brands... might was well stack the odds in your favor.

Touche!

hey Sol,that is a lot of volume how intense are these workouts? Does that mean you are fingerboarding one day and bouldering the next? Or just doing both on the same day? How did you work up to this? What I do is always in flux but this is sort of a brake down of what I do now. And I will probably start doing more since it seems I am starting to get a hold of some of the things that have been sucking all my time for the last year... In winter I just train power, except I take 1 month to work general endurance. this means in winter I just cycle bouldering and using a fingerboard or overlap them slightly. Usually about a month of one and then a month of the other. I have had some tendentious problems in the past. So I don't do wieghted pullups or campusing. I'm trying to figure out a away to slowly add this to my workouts though...like small moves on smaller campus rungs but that also means buying a sg membership or getting a campus board in my apt. For fingerboard workouts- I do 5 sets 5 reps in a set usually 4 grips each set ends up taking about 1 minute. Afterwards I always rest 2 days, I tried not doing this or adding some other climbing in but then my fingers would start to ache and I would have to stop. I do them with some weighted but mostly just try to use smaller holds or less fingers, managing finger skin is key here. Now that we are "in season" I will do a month for power/finger strength training then a month of power endurance. For power endurance I have the luxury of being able to set a route on a 45 ft slightly overhanging wall so I set something that I can do all the moves on but just barely and work that. For core my warm up for the hangboard is L pullups and I do some L sits during my pe cycle. But I can't honestly think of a route I failed to do because of core strength. And I don't do to much running but I live in the city and don't have a car so I bike to work, and everywhere else. I try to do a good stretching session 1-2x a week to. This really helps with high stepping, mantels, and stemming but so does being stronger...

Rumr I have also been strapped for time the last year and a half. Climbed less over that period then ever before but I also made the biggest gains. I think there are a couple reasons for this. One I started paying attention to what I was doing mid week with those 2 or 3 hours I could spend focused on climbing. 2. I have always been mostly instead in trad climbing and it turns out had really weak fingers so when I start hangboarding and focusing on power my ability shot up. 3. I have had less time so I have spent less time alpine climbing. Like instead of spending both days out climbing a mountain maybe I would just get a day or half a day in at index or one of the exits...

Thanks for the info Eldiente. As for bouldering improvement I went from v3 to v6 in less then a year. I haven't seemed to improve past this for awhile but also have only been bouldering 3 times outside since I sent my hardest problem.

me improve? I improve through climbing not training. But these help me build a better base for when I can get in a climbing cycle. that is understandable improving through climbing. But I am guessing there was a point in your climbing career when you didn't use the mtn athlete program maybe you did something else/maybe you just went to the climbing gym instead of hanging on a fingerboard and doing pushups afterwards. What I am wondering is if you noticed a significant difference. I have my own training program that I started last year and improved ~2 letters grades every 6-8 months for two cycles so far...but I don't think that I will continue to be able to make those gains...so I was just curious how this approached worked. People endorse it and says it works well but no one gives any quantifiable results like I redpoint 2 letter grades harder or I onsighted so much harder...I freed the U wall etc.

http://www.mtnathlete.com/page.php?page_ID=22 here you go Rumor, fingerboarding for strength and systems boarding for PE with weight lifting thrown in to keep you moving. Anybody do these workouts? How much did you improve?

oh and the best sport route I have tried is Whitewashed at the south fork of Tieton but I didn't redpoint it

I was just doing Blake's theme of an area with those routes. If I had to chose a top 5 I would pick something like. 1. West ridge of forbidden. Snow coulior to an nice ridge in an awesome setting, hard to beat it for the grade. I guess people prefer the nw face but I haven't done that. 2. Colchuck balanced route feels like your climbing in the high sierras 3. Heavens Gate or Japanese Gardens not sure which one I like more 4. New York Gulley the best mixed climbing I have done in the pnw but I haven't done pineapple express 5. and for pure ice banks lake, when its in there is no reason to drive to Canada if you steep pillars. runner up that I haven't seen mentioned Rebel Yell Chanti, I really like that route. Nice setting and variety of crack climbing topped with a cool summit.

I mean no disrespect here, Eric, and maybe I am missing something ... but have you climbed Girth Pillar? I can well believe it is a cool little feature in a neat place but it has a pitch and a half or two pitches of hard climbing on an otherwise moderate alpine ramble. And it is a big ramble. I really hated those split cracks and its not on my list of routes to do again this summer before I move away.

colchuck balanced rock-south face of prussik, girth pillar or north ridge of stuart

yes

I don't disagree that the harder cracks have face sections but my point was that these feel easier than there sport equivalents. I haven't led it but 24 hour bucanneer is basically a traditional face climb and compare that to just about any 11b sport route. Anyway I suspect that a. I am a little worst at slabby face climbing b. there is some variation in the grades after all some route like leave my face alone, hairway to stephen, the route to the right of stud farm whose name escapes me don't feel to bad... but supposing that a. I am worse at slabby face climbing, anyone have any tricks to improving this if I can only get out to index once a week when the weather is nice. UW rock? hangboard? yoga? etc.

the second pitch is 11c and feels about right the first is listed as 11a

or a more detailed brake down I can't think of any that feel bad at 10d which is where index sport routes seem to start...but at 11a p1 kite flying blind, accidental discharge, and/or newest industry vs short bat skins, julies roof, 11b heironymous bosch, dana arch versus marginal karma, death to zeke 11c wham versus japenese gardens or shirley 11d little jupiter versus iron horse maybe I'm just a bad face climber

how many do you want? newest industry, model worker, wham, dana arch, little jupiter, heironymous Bosch all feel harder than any traditional 11 except p1 tmpv which the hard part is bolt protected face climbing