Lion's Head Wall

So, this is the lion's head on the left hand side of the lion's head wall.  The rock is some of the most solid and featured in Athens county.  A tall V0 ascends under the lion's head and to the immediate right. I typically climb up to the lion's head, traverse a couple feet and then downclimb.   The topout is high, committing, sloping, and not necessarily clean.  Here is a view of the wall:

Detail of the right hand side.   A fun and not too hard problem (V2?) starts matched on the low pockets and heads up to the two sets of spooky eyes.   A harder eliminate starts on the low pockets, then avoids the pockets by grabbing a thin crimp, and follows a series of edges straight up to the jugs above. (V5/6?)  The first crimp is fragile, so treat it with care. The far right side has a very hard and very thin problem (apparently a visiting climber completed that problem in recent years at V10).  An undone project starts on the V5/6 and follows the row of small edges right to meet the topout of the V10.

Fun moderate problems with Anna

The right hand side of the sun cave has two fun little slab problems.  The most interesting is this line and follows a brief ramp/seam to a horizontal with an undercling. 

Anna gets ready to try the fun, technical slab / ramp.  

Thin holds!

Winter 2013 Bouldering set up

Our Dojo has about 250 square feet of bouldering:

• ~400 holds
• 3/5s of the holds are home made
• many built in holds, like two hand cracks, a roof flake, finishing rail
• 26 feet wide, 7.5 feet tall
• A full lap across the roof and back across the wall section is about 50-55 feet of climbing

Our Dojo in Metolius home wall competition for most likes

This is the dojo viewed from the other direction (compared to our image on the Metolius FB page).   In this photo the girls are playing "hide the sock".  The game works by taking someone's sock and the starting somewhere on the wall, and climbing to a point where you can stuff the sock in a hold.  The other person has to start at the same place and retrieve their sock.   You can see one of Anna's red soccer socks hanging from the lip of the roof on the left.  

Sydney cranking some barefoot problems.  

It is a little chilly this morning.

Action shot! 

Running out of space. . .

(I thought I was)
Starting to run out of space for more holds.

Winter (2012/13) I added about 60 new holds (mostly homemade, or found at Lowes).  The good news about running out of space is that you don't need to get or make more holds for a while.  I suspect that I can fit in another 100-150 holds, mainly on the roof and around the edges of wall.  Here is what I added during that winter:

• White pvc pinches and handlebars with endcaps.   These giant holds are comfortable, cheap, and easy to make.   For pinches you just bolt a capped section of pvc to the wall (into the supports behind the plywood).  For jugs you include a spacer to allow full hand access.  You can either add sandpaper discs, or you can sand the surface to create a better grip.   In some cases I bolt into a t-nut on one end, in others I use lag screws for both ends.  Grey pinches without endcaps were generation #1, white with endcaps were generation #2.  

• Small pvc endcaps and T joints screwed directly to the wall  [about 35 cents each)
• These make fine generic feet for traverses and warm ups.
• Cutting footholds from strips of oak molding is cheaper, but requires more work.
• These you just pre-drill holes for the screws and then attach them to the wall

• Squarish wooden pinches made from double layers of 2X3s.  
• I glued and clamped two 4ft sections of 2X3s
• Made an angled cut to create 7 hold sized chunks
• Smoothed corners with a rasp and chisel
• Sanded with an orbital sander
• Countersunk screw-holes

• Wooden side-pull jugs
• Used left-over 6 X 3/4 pine slats, glued and clamped into staggered layers
• Attached angled molding on the ends
• Smoothed functional surfaces with orbital sander
• Need some detail shots, but the hold in question is the long wooden hold attached with several screws.  

• Mini jugs, made by modifying holds from Atomic (on sale seconds)
• Used hand saw to make incut edge