Camp Eagle Weekend

I went down to Camp Eagle this weekend for the annual Climbing Palooza there. Ben and Mary came in from Brownwood as well, not ones to miss a climbing get-together. I didn't make it in until 3:30 in the afternoon, hung around with Ben and Mary while they worked on a route Ben bolted last time. I was jonesing to bolt a route, but I didn't head to the top of the cliff until almost 5:30.

I got lucky and bailed off right above the route I hoped to bolt, but was worried that I would run out of daylight. I lowered down, cleaned the route, and marked bolt placements with the last of the light, and hiked to the top of the cliff at dusk. I thought about bailing, but grabbed the headlamp and went ahead and bolted it.

The route is at the very end of the Sherpa Trek, on a short, mildly overhanging wall. The route takes a series of small crimps and pockets through the first 3 bolts, a rest at the fourth, and a tough deadpoint to a bulge encounter at the fifth.

Scott and I climbed on it. He got the first ascent (well done good sir--great climbing), and I fell at the last bolt on my redpoint go. It'll be there next time. We settled on End of the Line, and it probably goes somewhere around 5.12-. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures.

Later in the afternoon, Ben snagged the first ascent of the route he bolted on his last trip. I believe he decided on Scooby Snacks and thinks its 5.9. The route looks great. Well done Ben. Doesn't seem to me that "I'm getting to old for this" is proving true for you, since your still out there snagging all these first ascents!

Sorry for lack of pics. Adios

Tyler's Trip to "La Barrosa" in Balcarce, Argentina

Hey all, it's Tyler again with an update from my first climbing experience in South America. Currently, I am living in Montevideo, Uruguay studying abroad with Abilene Christian University over the course of 4 months. This past week our entire group took a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina where we hung out in a hotel, took bus tours, and went to a million museums. On Monday we had the chance to deviate from original plans and have ourselves a free day in Buenos Aires. Three friends and I decided to head to the province of Balcarce to visit the famous La Barossa climbing area about 250 miles outside of Buenos Aires. The account of our journey is as follows...

At 12:05 Monday morning we loaded onto a double decker PLUSMAR autobus, made our way to our seats, and settled in for a 5 hour bus ride to Balcarce. We arrived in Balcarce around 5 AM, where we then unloaded our gear (remember that our packs are full of a weeks worth of luggage for the entire Buenos Aires trip, plus our climbing gear), and hopped into a taxi that would take us to the corner of 55th and 40th street, the base of La Barrosa. Here is a picture of the Sierra,

Throwing the packs over our backs we made our way up a dirt road to the top of a hill where the true expedition began. In my usual over paranoid state I made sure that we checked to be sure we had all gear, maps, and rations for the day. Our climbing friends back in Montevideo let us borrow belay devices, 16 quickdraws, a dynamic rope, and a brand new bouldering pad. Gear, check. Maps of the different areas, not accounted for. Water and food, not accounted for. Oh NO! I left all the maps of the area in the hotel in Buenos Aires, which is not good when your planning to climb in a place that highly recommends a guide. We forgot to pick up water and food at a convenience store, a mistake that would come back and punish us later. A picture of our only water supply for the next 6 hours can be seen below. We decided what the heck and began our ascent of La Barossa, I mean I was confident I remembered what the maps looked like.

I knew there were bouldering areas on the front left portion of the sierra, but my first goal was to get on some sport climbs that morning. I felt that it would be best to hike to the top and make our way to the back left side where I was remembering the sport climbs to be. It took us about an hour to reach the top, the climb being much harder than we expected, and already one of our group members was throwing up. The sun was coming up fast, we had no water, and things would only get worse. We hiked another 45 minutes on top of the sierra before finally deciding to have a little fun on a cool looking boulder. We devised a cool route that was probably a V2/3 and worked it for about 30 minutes. Here is a picture of me making the crux moves.

After a short time here, Colin and I scouted ahead and recognized some trees that looked similar to the ones I had seen in some of the sport climbing pictures over the internet. They were a good ways off and about halfway down the sierra. I convinced everyone to follow me and we loaded up our things and headed out. Making our way down was extremely tough and we were having to take our packs off every couple steps to shimmy down rocks and avoid rolling down the side of this thing. If that wasn't hard enough, we were getting chest deep in bull nettle that was slicing and dicing all parts of our bodies. After about an hour we reached the group of trees to find that it as only nothing. Here is a picture of the group trekking the side of the hill, the bull nettle is hard to see, but it's everywhere. It seemed liked the closer we made it to the bottom, the thicker, deeper, and higher the bull nettle and thorns got.

Realizing that we didn't quite have the strength to get back up the hill, and that we had been out of water for a good while now, we noticed a small ranch house where we hoped we could fill up on water and get the heck off this sierra that was killing us. From the picture above, the ranch house is to the left on the other side of the big groups of trees. After we returned from the trip I took a look at the maps I had forgotten and realized that we were miles from the sport routes I thought were so close. We spent the next 3 and a half to 4 hours making our way to this house, having to back track multiple times because we kept running into massive amounts of chest high thorns. Everyone took a few good falls, Colin busted his knee real bad, Jacob nearly broke his ankle, and I took about a 20 foot tumble straight down the hill before my head stopped my fall on a boulder. By the time we reached the little ranch house we were all badly bloody, extremely scratched up, covered in poison ivy, sore, dehydrated, and crashpadless because the trek was so bad we eventually gave up carrying it and left it in a bed of thorns. I also forgot to mention that Colin and I thought we would make a little shortcut at one point, only to walk straight into giant ant beds and chest high thorns. We both have ant bites as high as our shoulders. A picture of my shoulder shows only a small piece of what our entire bodies looked like after we made our way out of the sierra, you can only imagine what our legs looked like,

A man at this small ranch house gave us water, pointed us on a 2 mile hike back into town, and wished us the best. We spent from 2 PM that afternoon until 1 AM the following morning, sleeping In Tim Bratten's front yard (the only American in town I knew), getting doctored up by elderly ladies in Tim's neighborhood, sitting at a bar, and eventually getting a hotel room for 4 hours before getting a taxi back to the bus station to make our 5 hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires. Our legendary climbing trip turned out to be a wild goose chase through the hell that lingers on the backside of La Barossa because I forgot our maps and we had no water. My apologies to everyone I dragged into this trip.

March Adopt-a-Crag....its gonna be huge

Here's an update from Ben and Mary about the massive festivities planned for March's Access Fund Adopt-a-Crag/Lake Cleanup/Climbing Festival at Brownwood. Its going to be a blast, be there:

Lake Brownwood Clean – up

The January Rock Addiction Lake Cleanup got rained out by 12:00. But we still got 2 truck loads of brush cut. Thanks to Michelle and her family for coming out in the rain. We didn’t get to climb, but we ended up with 7 people, not bad for a rainy day.

ADOPT – A – CRAG
MARCH 26 & 27

We have dropped Sunday from the lineup.

Things start on Friday (March 26th) around 8:00am. If we can get a few people there Friday with chainsaw’s, weed eaters and a trailer we could wrap the work up on Friday and climb all day Saturday. That would be sweet.

Don’t forget FREE camping on Friday night on the bluff’s. No showers.

Please let us know if you are going to be able to make it. We will need a name and t-shirt size. Not only to make sure you get a t-shirt that fits, but so Kirkland Dock & Tim know how many they are going to feed.
You can call Ben @ 325-998-3109 or email Mary @ mary@gotowillies.com

Hope every one can make it!!

We are now working on sponsors for prizes. If you know of anyone interested – it’s $50.00 and their logo will go on the t-shirts. Prizes will be given away lottery style so everyone that wants to draw for a prize will have a chance.




BIG THANKS
To our sponsors

The Access Fund
PF&E (Brownwood)
R&S Industries (Early)
Climb On (Wimberly) – they now have their products at the Honey Bee in Brownwood.
Insane Ink (Early) – the only award winning shop in the Brownwood area. Go see Reagan and Jerry for all your tattoo and piercing needs.
Pets in Paradise (Brownwood) – Troy and Wendy can take care of all your pet needs and it’s the only real pet store in Brownwood.
Gopal’s Healthfood’s (Sidney) – they have organic energy bars on sale at Sligers and the Honey Bee.
Childress Agricultural (Crossplains) – trees and blackberries, pick your own berries in the spring. Yum
Justin Leifeste, Disciples of Ink (Abilene) – what can we say about Justin, we love this man, his lovely wife Regina and 3 children. His tat on Ben’s lower sleeve tied for tat of the day at the Dallas Tattoo Show. You can contact Justin for your tat @ justin@disciplesofink.com, my space or 325-518-5446.
Willie’s T’s (Brownwood) – Willie’s T’s will be printing our shirts, go to Willie’s T’s for your screenprinting, embroidery, stickers and banners. As of now Willie’s T’s is our biggest sponsor. gotowillies.com
My wife, Mary – with all the expense to do the cleanup’s she let me put up $50.00 to be a sponsor as well.

Thanks for all your help! Don’t forget to buy from and help our sponsors.

Big thanks to all our sponsors for helping us make this the biggest climbing event this part of Texas.

Thanks for everything

Ben, Mary, Team Addiction and everyone that uses Lake Brownwood

Clean-Up this weekend!

The Lake Brownwood Crag Clean-Up is going down this Saturday morning. We have some brush to clear, some trash to collect, and then some climbing to be done. Rumor has it that Ben put some more anchors up on a new route this week...

I'm sure some people will be there earlier, but we plan to be up and running by 9am.

Come help out!

Brownwood's Best?

My computer crashed in the middle of the semester, which has made posting difficult. But i finally have another and here's some exciting news to kick off posting again. I plan to follow up the Hueco Day 1 post, with recaps of the other days. But first news of today's events are in order.

Ben and I spent the day clearing cactus, brush and bolting anchors for the climb that has gone by several names: Angel Flake/Duke's Dome/Lake Flake/Ankle...

If you've been to the lake, you have definitely eyed this climb. Its a crack/flake that looks straight out of Yosemite and climbs just as good.

Here's a little history on the route. On one of my earliest trips to the lake, I ran into a former local who told me the route may or may not have been bouldered before. A top-rope was impossible (highly improbable) because a giant cacus guarded the top of the route. It was this local who had named the route Angel Flake.

Most people who visit the Lake have climbed up the first park of the flake, some have even ventured into the second break in the flake. But when the flake stops you have to make three big and spooky moves over the roof to finish the climb. Most people drop well before the roof.

In August of 2008, a group of us tried bouldering the route ground up. My good friend Duke was the first to brave the roof, and pull over the lip, for the first confirmed ascent. I followed immedietally after, but it was pretty spooky. Tyler took a serious fall right after that from just below the roof, and we decided to call it a day. Duke named the route Duke's Dome.

A few months a later, a friend attempted to boulder the route, dropped from the final moves, and fell awkwardly. His ankle was badly broken and we spent the day at the brownwood hospital. Since then, I know of no one who has attempted to boulder the route in its entirety. Nor would I recommend it. There is a precarious boulder at the base, that makes protecting the fall extremely difficult (evidenced by my friend's leg).

Ben and I have talked about the quality of this route for a long time, but bouldering the route is not safe. Its certainly do-able, but no one is doing it and this great route is getting no traffic. Move-for-move the route is likely the best at the Lake. It isn't terribly difficult but the moves are awesome. So Ben and I talked it out, and decided to add two anchor bolts about 10 feet back from the lip. If you want to boulder it, go for it, but if you'd rather top rope it the anchors are there. Go climb it.

Ben and I finished the day off with some moderate bouldering. A few weeks ago we put up a new boulder problem near Mission Impossible called Anticipation. We had to take out a bunch poisin ivey and brush, so you probably wont miss it.

On a final note, when setting up your anchor for the Lake Flake (insert other names here), I would suggest letting the rope hang slightly right of the roof. The roof has a fracture in it. I dont suspect it would ever break, but climb it with caution.

Look for more updates soon.

Hueco Tanks Trip Day 1

Hey all, it's Tyler again, Eric's cousin. Due to my previous blog post and the stroke of genius it possessed, I got recruited to write about the first day of our trip to Hueco Tanks out in El Paso, Texas. For all who aren’t aware, myself, Eric, and Brian Day all made a 3-day trip to Hueco Tanks this past week. Let me begin by saying that the trip was a major success, full of proud sends and amazing community.

But enough of all that pish posh, it's time to get talking about the freaking climbing, which is going to be a task in itself to describe. We woke up at the break of dawn, and I mean literally the break of dawn (if you’ve ever camped with Eric and Brian you’ll know what I’m talking about), ate a quick breakfast, and made our way into the park. Our first stop took us to the Gymnasium boulders for a quick warm-up, pictured below. Here we all flashed Bad Axe, a 2 star V1 that takes you about 12 feet up on pure huecos, a really fun problem. Following our warm up, Eric and I though we would would try Only the Little People Pay Taxes, a 2 star V3 right next to Bad Axe. We quickly got shut down and decided we wanted to move on to more classic stuff in the park.

We left the Gymnasium boulders and headed to the ultra-classic problem Nobody Gets Out of Here alive, a 4 star V2 that must be done if you’re going to Hueco Tanks, pictured below. I flashed the problem on my first go and Eric followed with a proud send on his second attempt. Brian put in some great burns but had a little trouble with the top out. You’ll have to stay tuned for posts on Day 2 and Day 3 to see if he gets the send.

After our time at Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive, we made a short move to another ultra classic problem, Mexican Chicken, a 3 star V6. Below is Eric working the problem. Out of the three of us, he made the most progress and only lacked a coupled moves to top out. We spent an hour or so here before eventually moving on.

After Mexican Chicken we made our way over to another ultra classic Hueco problem and a definite must-do if you're ever in the park, Lobster Claw, a 3 star V5. We set up camp and ate a quick launch before we started putting in work. Pictured below is Brian getting ready for an attempt at a send. All three of us worked the problem for a good couple of hours before Eric finally grabbed the first V5 send of the trip, congrats Eric on a proud send. Brian and myself had the lower moves dialed in but couldn’t make the top throw to finish up the problem. This pretty much rounded out Day 1 of the trip, give or take a few other minor problems we got on here and there that I forgot to document.

A couple of other interesting things that happened during Day 1; we saw Jason Kehl in the park, me and Eric feasted on instant potatoes and Dak, and we were introduced to a community of climbers where their beer came before their climbing.

Keep your eyes peeled for a post on Day 2 from Eric in the near future.

Hueco Tanks

Bryan, Tyler and I are leaving for Hueco today! Full trip report upon our return...