The Holies - Dec 13, 2008

posted by Saucisson #3

climbers - Yusuf, Paul and Calvin

Ah yes, the Holy Boulders in So Ill. Much has been said about them, so I was very interested in going. Private land, a dubious writeup in Rock and Ice (or was it Climbing?) and numerous failed attempts to go had me salivating. Sort of.

It's a good thing Paul was with us, because there's no known topo of the place, and Yusuf and I would have gotten lost for sure trying to find it.

The Holies are pretty good. I didn't get to climb enough to make a solid comment about them, but what problems I did climb were great. I just didn't have enough time. We started out at the Mollusk boulder - V1 warmup. Scariest warmup of my life, but super cool problem. You negotiate a sloping rail to the left, with the topout involving a slick scoop feature.

Yusuf worked Con Artist V6-7?, which starts and continues on very, very thin seams. Someone noted that the Con Artist, when sent, was a problem you didn't really know how you sent, you just did, then probably would never be able to repeat. I can see why.

We moved on to a couple of other neat V2's up from Shadow of a Man V5 - which climbs a fun arete/face. Didn't get Shadow though. We moved around the corner (same boulder) to a thin slabby problem (name?) that climbs a faint crack going up the boulder to a small ledge before topping out. That shut us down too. Not a lot of success so far on the Shadow boulder. Continuing around the corner from there, we skipped the arete V5 climb and did Comfortably Numb V2 - razor sharp crimps to start, then easier crimps, to a bigger move to the top. Very fun, and felt a little high.

We then moved on to Jungle Book V8. I'd heard about this problem for a while - most notably from Joe Kreidel. It involves a massive swing that you have to control while sort of double-gaston-ing on an arete. It's wild, beautiful and inspiring.

Here's a video of Jason Kehl doing it - at least it might be him pre-dreads. Notice the heel/toe hook, the spread out holds and the controlled swing. Those hand holds are not very good to control a swing like that. The vid's deceiving that way. :)

Yusuf and this dude from Canada worked it for a while. It's cool watching people trying to control the swing. You have to really actively spot the climber - the first time, Yusuf startled me with how far he flew off the boulder, but I managed to guide him to a crashpad. After that, I knew what to expect.

We then moved a few boulders right and I climbed Enlightenment V5 in a few tries. Paul decided to chill at this point and call it a day. I think I could have flashed it, but I got a case of tightened sphincter topping out and bailed. Fun, but not as cool as the other problems we did. Next to it is Onyx V6, way harder. Yusuf and I worked on that but didn't send. You start on a high right foot, good hands spread apart. Back flag your left foot behind the right, bump left hand to good pinch, move right hand to semi-good crimp, then look up and extend high for a crimp. Couldn't do that extension move, although I tried it several times. Oh well.

We wrapped up with a few more attempts on Con Artist, then headed out for the day. Nice day of bouldering.

For fun, here's another one of Kehl doing God Module V11? at HP40. I've looked at this problem, but it's out of my pay grade.