Testpiece Climbing #51: Jamie Emerson "The Sheriff and Training your Creativity

let me say this I'll give you this I'll give you this tidbit I think there are two areas I think that in 10 years Joe's Valley could be the third best bouldering area in Utah [Music] whoa all right welcome to the test piece podcast Jamie Emerson how's it going man I'm doing well how are you Josh good um I'm I'm missing our our buddy uh Tim Kang actually my buddy Tim Kang uh he's he's busy as always uh but he thought it was okay if he didn't join today because he's from an entire different era although maybe that would have been good um having that that young blood to ask their own questions I I would I would love it if he were here and I would love to talk to younger climbers about some of their perspectives on the sport and and whatnot so I'm I'm a little I'm a little disappointed he's not here Tim come on okay well next time uh I'm sure we I'm looking at my list of list of questions and things to talk about there could be a next time so maybe Tim will join us next time but uh I guess uh we have the uh privilege of being the the oldest average age podcast on testpiece so far um but the actually the other uh thing that I noticed is uh Jamie you were our first uh cold Outreach so um despite our many many mutual friends uh I I saw that you had maybe I think you followed after Carlos's pod uh and I just reached out because I saw your name I was like oo let's get Jamie on so yeah you're you're our first cold Outreach and here I am yeah I uh it is it is interesting that we did have so many mutual friends but had never crossed paths before yeah I guess uh you were so uh deep in the Colorado scene and it's actually somewhat recently that I've even gotten to go to Colorado despite being like the mecca um I got you know sucked into California which is not a Mecca but has a a good scene itself um and I'll be honest Jamie I I knew you uh as just one word or I guess two words as the sheriff um which you know I don't know how you feel about that title I don't know I mean we'll get into it but um one of the things that we talked about uh in our little I don't know if you call it like a pre-interview a meet and greet is how people get you know known for one little thing but uh it doesn't really Encompass who they are uh and the whole point of a podcast or a long form uh media like this is we get to really uh hear all about your opinions your views and uh I guess is it okay if we start there and ask you how did you get the name Sheriff uh do you even like it should should I not say that again for the rest of the podcast uh yeah uh yeah that's a great question so in terms of how I got the nickname it actually came from Jimmy Web uh I had met Jimmy a long time ago in the Southeast and he probably climbed V10 at the time and he just he he knew me and he was you know hey I I think I know you and I'm really excited about climbing and can you tell me what Waco tanks is like and I you know we and we climbed together a few days and I thought oh you know he he'll probably be pretty good someday he might climb V12 and then you know in the subsequent years he just he just took off which is awesome to watch you know I feel like in some ways a little bit of a fatherson relation just proud to see him him thrive so much but as we got older I used to give him a hard time because I liked him and I would give him a hard time about it it really came down to he he did uh a thail landman boulder problem Midnight Express v14 and Boulder Canyon beautiful Climb by the way one of the most nice line best lines out there awesome climb it has a bit of an inobvious start which is obviously that's always debatable about what's obvious and what's not obvious but Jimmy started one move in from where Tai started it which is where a number of subsequent repeaters have started and I just called them out on it and I said you didn't do that Boulder you didn't start where Tai did I was super direct with him as I can be and we you know we kind of joked around and I think his little way of getting getting me back was was calling me the sheriff and saying oh the sheriff's gonna get you and so that's that's really where it started um you know I have been opinionated about things and I think for some people that fits I you know I don't really care about the nickname at all I think that when I think about my own like when you ask this question like Jamie you know you kind of presented it in the in the pre-work there like what is it what does it mean to be the sheriff or what is that to you when I think about my whole spectrum of climbing in no part of that comes up that I'm the sheriff I think about areas I think about climbs I think about quality I think about grade debates I think about how to define a boulder problem all of those things kind of dominate my own thoughts about climbing and so this the sheriff doesn't even come I mean if that's what people want to call me that's they can I guess they can do whatever they want but that's not really what I think of when I think of my own climing it sounds kind of cool it's not it's not terrible uh name yeah uh Jimmy um sorry I just got a comment on Jimmy kind of being coming out of nowhere in some ways I remember he kind of Hit the scene when I was pretty deep into climbing and I just remember him like continuing to level up it just seemed like wow this guy's kind of strong and then just every year he really got a lot stronger and it's interesting when you see these people who have this kind of almost linear trajectory uh where it's like they don't have a ceiling um and you know there's a lot of people who it seems like they will come out maybe do one hard climb and I mean not to say that's not impressive but it it seems like it seems like he's still getting better better um and you know this kind of hits on some of the the the theme of our podcast or one of the themes of our podcast which is how you go from good to great and you know I I someday we'll talk to Jimmy because he's just an amazing guy all around uh I'd love to hear his perspective where he just he leveled up and stayed there and it seems like he's still pushing uh forward you know one thing that really stands out to me about Jimmy is that I I I give him a hard time because I'm like every time I'm in the bouldering cave I hear some kid talking about Jimmy Web Jimmy Webb did this and Jimmy Webb did that and often times those conversations are around his power right he's extremely powerful climber like his control is is UN it's off the charts right and when I've and I spent quite a bit of time climbing with him when I climb with him obviously that stands out but also his he's one of the best technical climbers I've ever climbed with and he's extremely precise and I think it would be a tough competition between him and Dave Graham as to who is best at figuring out beta Jimmy is incredible at seeing sequences and that's a very subtle thing that you know you see a lot of strong people climb I've I've you know I've set and i' I climbed a lot a lot excuse me I've climbed around a lot of strong people over the years and his ability to discover sequence is second to none it's incredible and I think it's really easy to see the power that when he climbs it's not so easy to see that ability to conjure up a sequence it makes Mak him a really good flash climber and if you notice he has a lot of really impressive flashes yeah I will say that when I see Jimmy climb uh it kind of reminds me a little bit of that that love I had for Sharma when I was younger even though they they are very very different climbers but that bigger more powerful look to them uh like literally like look to them uh is enticing I think for younger climbers younger guys that just want to I don't know I think every every kid wants to be Burly and Powerful but I I really want to Echo what you said about him being just an absolute technician and moving beautifully and just yeah it's funny because I don't know how to put my finger on maybe we can dive into it more in contrast to guys like uh Dave where he just is so precise and he has such body tension and I I think sometimes you see the muscles and you see the but you sometimes miss that subtlety of its power being applied in the most specific perfect way that really gets him up those hard Boulders not just he's not you know he's probably not quote unquote stronger than I don't know pick one Daniel Woods or something uh although who knows he's PR down strong uh but it's it's that technique uh in connection with his strength and maybe that's what has continued to propel him is that he had the good technique and in some ways getting stronger is is just about applying technique better versus uh just you know upping your hangboard numbers yeah I think Jimmy is just a student of rock climbing and his you know John Gil used to talk about this kinesthetic awareness and his kinesthetic awareness is like off the charts it's is really ridiculous and it's just amazing to he's really a phenomenal climber and he he's I think one of the most motivated climbers I've met um you know I I met quite a few climbers and he's his motivation is really impressive and yeah I I mean I have a ton of respect for him he's awesome I think you know going back to the sheriff stuff I think Jimmy comes from the south and I think there's a kind of a tradition in the South that you jab a little bit at the people you like and I think that's probably where it comes from and that's probably why we get along each with each other because we like to we like to poke fun well something you uh you wrote in in the kind of like little uh you know pre-interview thing again is that you wrote about the importance of defining a boulder problem and that really stood out to me because you just had that uh you know you shared that little anecdote around Jimmy quote unquote starting in the the wrong place and so um I I I know what you're saying there I'm not trying to to be difficult it's just the idea that there is a wrong place and there is a right place and how that what that really means and how that connects to the first ascensionist I'm just kind of curious what you mean by defining a boulder problem yeah that is a great question and to be honest I think it's one of the most important questions in climbing um the reason is is is H how do we actually know what it is that we're doing if we're if if we want to exist in a world where I can and and maybe it really comes from how do I know what I'm doing so if I want to go do midnight lightning or the mandala which is one example that I always pull up which I think is a really great example I I see an article I see Chris charm mclin the mandala I want to do the mandala how do I know I've actually done the mandala so we have to understand like what is what is the mandala is it just kind of this vag section of overhang up up the boulder that I can just kind of do whatever I want to if we I think allow for that kind of ambiguity then people will immediately take advantage of it and and go well I can I can kind of justify starting wherever I want to and if we take the argument to the extreme I can say well if if it's just a matter of feeling like you did the mandala then I can feel like I did the mandala sitting at home why would I even go to Bishop I watched a video Chris do it and I I can imagine what Chris probably felt like so cool I did the mandala so I I don't I I don't think that people really want to exist in a sport where that stuff is that's okay that we can kind of really constantly blend the rules because people will take more and more and more I think over time and they've kind of demonstrated that they they will do that so if we if we want to understand how do we Define a boulder problem I think it's really important to look at where the first Ascension is started because Chris walked up to that rock and he started where he started and he said that's the mandala and while that sounds really basic that does kind of Define where the boulder problem begins and and kind of what follows from that is we have specific starting holds that you should be starting on which are the same starting holds as the first ascensionist so let me just let me just stop there because there's a lot that we're g to but I'd love to just hear response I'd love to just kind of we can we can we can spend some we can Linger on this for so I I feel I feel called out because I'm one of those people who did the mandala in the way that uh was not how Chris did it and in addition to that I topped out the mandal I mantled on top of the mandala and then it was covered in snow and I unmold and dropped off so I am just I am and then I put on my score card as a as a V12 too um which everyone said was was inflated but it was my first one I was I was very I was very proud of myself um well it's interesting because uh and I don't really have a problem you know it's it is way I mean this is why I think is interesting is you know you have these sports are kind of arbitrary right and so I don't know you could talk about football and it's like why is the field a 100 yards long it's like because that's what we decided to be and so I'm really interested in putting constraints on uh but I also think it's really fun to them when you get obsessed with things to play in those little gray areas and I think that's you know to use uh uh Tristan word that's like the sports center you know it's like it's hitting a home run in you know the Denver Stadium the same as in the giant stadium and all this stuff that that's fun to like dive into the details uh but it it definitely becomes uh important when you start having professionals and money around but I guess my my push back would be what do you say to people who are like Soul climbers they say like look it's just a piece of rock and uh you know I'm going to start where I wanted to start and you know because that's a big background in climbing I I think we've both been climbing long enough to uh you know be from a time where maybe even talking about grades was taboo it was kind of like you know didn't matter even though you all secretly felt like it mattered and just I don't know I think it's an interesting topic I want to scratch a little deeper on it yeah so this is a great I'm really glad that you brought this point up because this is the tip the kind of typical push back that I receive hey man why do you care so much I'm just out here enjoying the Rocks that's fine I'm not ever saying you know and ultimately these you know it would be nice I think if these rules extended to everyone else but they are kind of my ethics I guess or the way that I and I think it does provide a a logical system for if I want to repeat a boulder how do I go do that um yeah if you're a soul climber go have fun go climb naked go climb and bare feet I have no problem with that whatsoever start wherever you want but I think that when you start making claims like I I climbed this Boulder okay then a claim needs evidence to support that claim and so then we have to talk about definitions I think it follows from making the claim about having repeated something or done something it kind of an iterative process of like if I'm going to do it then what does that mean to do it and it just came from my wanting to understand like what I was actually actually doing outside like I'm going to Red Rocks to try to climb you know lethal design so what does that mean to climb lethal design okay well I want to make sure I'm starting in the right place well what does that mean does that mean where the guide book says I should start does that mean where every all the YouTube videos say I should start what does that actually mean and so I wanted to understand for myself what that actually meant to repeat a boulder problem and like I said if you if you want to go and hang out and just climb on rocks do whatever do drugs be naked like I said just have the most Soulful experience ever if that's what's Soulful for you by all means go go crazy but I think it changes when people start making claims and I think that I want to add this one point yeah I think that those claims are super important to our sport because I I've often argued that I think the most the greatest achievement in rock climbing ever was Lin Hill freeing the nose and so what does that mean to we know if if we going to hold this achievement up high what does that actually mean did she just Aid climb through it did she free climb all the pitches did she lead all the pitches did she do it like all those questions follow from that and I think if we give those All Those Questions good structure and good definitions for all the terminology that we're using we have a really good understanding of what it means when someone achieves something what does it mean to flash a v14 or a v15 as far as I know we haven't seen a v15 flash yet what does that mean for someone to flash a v15 so what does it mean to a boulder problem what does it mean what is it what is a boulder problem it's just I think breaking it down uh really specifically to understand exactly what and that's the reason why like I can have that personal ethic for myself but I think it's a nice ethic for everyone because it gives the sport structure in these achievements that we we huge news lately right will Boosey climbs burden of Dreams what is what does that mean to climb burden of Dreams does he have to wear the same shoes that no wore is it the same boulder problem because it's no longer in a forest there all these is it okay to put a fan on now we probably didn't use fans all these questions that flow from like what it is that we're actually doing and what's okay and if if we allow for everything then what do what what does it mean to say that I repeated burden of dreams so so I think that's that's kind of where this all this stems from I I love what you just brought up there on burden of dreams and shoes and fans because I think that's where I just want to uh dig into deeper not not because I'm trying to I I I'm trying to find those constraints and and or or those boundary conditions and understand what it means to define a boulder because when when people lay these claims I think what what it feels like for me is when I made an 8A uh and I put climbs on 8A it was me publicly stating my ethic right like I'm like this is what I thought the the climbing grade was this is what this is my experience and it's why I think video is valuable too because if you're if you really put yourself out there transparently and you say like hey when I did mandala I start it like this and I stack three pads right like um and but then it also gets into this like well what if you're too short and you have to do a jump start or on something what if uh the the temps are really high what if the ground eroded and I'm not exactly like looking for you to tell me exactly what to do in each of those scenarios but it it does it's like a NeverEnding uh dive and I'm not against that I just am curious if you have any principles that kind of let you tackle when fans come up or like what about knee pads you know like what we say with knee pads um uh or yeah or sticky rubber downturn shoes even like how how do we how do we think about that yeah so let's go back to your original point of like if the ground is lower than or someone shorter you know like the ground doesn't always lower on a boulder prom although sometimes it does but let's say you're a short climber you're a junior kid and you want to do the mandala how do I know where to start and what I think when we Define things so I have a math I have a kind of a not I wouldn't say extensive but I have a mathematical background and I think about when in math we talk about things like generalization and generalization the way people kind of use it in layman terms is to say well just in general climbers are motivated or something that's like that doesn't mean that all climbers are motivated it's just kind of like relatively most are motivated but in mathematics you would see we would say very specifically in general and it means for all cases right and so we want a definition that applies in all cases and I think that by defining a boulder Problem by the starting holds that allows for all cases in that I would think it's like I remember when Ashima climbed power silence and she got I think a power spot or she got but she got boosted into the starting holds which I thought was great because um she started at the same place that everyone else started and I think that's totally fine I didn't have a problem with that at all um so I think sorry I just wanted uh that's a really interesting Boulder because I thought that she climbed it differently like up the seam she did um yeah like so what what happens there so I think uh the kind of conclusions that I've come to is that we Define the starting hold specifically the the middle of the boulder unless otherwise specifically Define as a contrivance so the first ascensionist could say I'm not using the crack or something and I'm just using the holds to the like uh I think there's that what's that there's a v9 in Red Rocks uh it's very crimpy it starts on the plumbers crack and it traverses right I can't think of the name of it right now it starts on a big big big crack and basically you can kind of use the crack but you know it's a contrivance off the crack and so um if unless the first essential specifically says you can't use this crack or you can't use this hold then the game of climbing is to figure out you get to figure out your beta and I think that's a a really nice way to approach that that allows for you know people can come up with Creative Solutions and then this is something I've got a lot of push back about but I Define the end of a boulder problem as the the highest point on the Boulder so in for the past 15 years every time I top out a boulder I go to the highest point because that's a clear definition a clear way to say actually finished the boulder it does mean that I walk around the other side of the Boulder and and take you know uh 30 feet up some five two slab but I I do it every time to to get to the top so that I again again a general rule for all boulders that you can say I just get to the top I personally love the the glory top outs of like V2 like easy ones yeah that power of Silence uh I would actually argue actually first of all power silence really hard bouldered shut me down I had trip to Waco where I was climbing and flashing like double digits like doing great still couldn't do power silence really bothered me um B10 is really hard good one a really really cool climb too uh and I would actually uh argue that a a climb that has multiple ways up it uh within I guess you know some kind of like general area that's not like you know you Traverse to 20 feet uh to the left is actually the mark of a really good Boulder or good uh sequence where there's multiple SE sequences of roughly the same difficulty uh that allow for body different body types different uh strengths uh or weaknesses I I think that actually makes for really good Boulders where you know there's not just one you can only do it this way although I will say sometimes it's really fun when there's just kind of like a mandatory like you gotta jump you gotta jump something like that I I think it's really important when we Define a boulder problem to um allow for that because it's such such an important part of all our experiences is figuring out beta and H going through that problem solving I think that's super important so I think it should allow for that to happen say this let me let me go back to this too let me let me T touch on this Midnight Express so why are they starting higher it's not because it's harder right they're not no one ever starts in a in a higher place because it's harder they almost certainly start start in a higher place because it's easier and so I would argue that they're doing something not only that's easier arguably but it's also less than what the first ascensionist did and so they're doing less not I don't I don't mean to direct this specifically at you Josh but they they're doing this just is philosophical argument they're doing less than what the first ascensionist has done and claiming that they've done the same yeah and to me that logically doesn't doesn't fly yeah I I think uh I always have this idea that the the more people climb a boulder the more info have about the Boulder and you can see people starting to break sections down and the reason why I I bring that up is that I think that there's room I'm curious to see what you you think of this because it could be like an a front to the F the first ascensionist sometimes I'll climb a boulder and it will be clear that there was maybe a better start you say like oh there was a jug start two moves in and so then people start climbing that or you know they start like doing that and I guess the reason why I'm okay with that is because I think you have there's there just becomes this consensus it's like a it's like a living thing uh but you don't want to consider that you know when I say I climbed the mandala uh I didn't climb Chris's mandala and so you know should I call it something different um but you know what I mean like how there's sometimes this these natural outgrowths of a thing and yeah do you think that's like in a front to the first enss do you think that's just like something cool and interesting or how do you tackle that yeah these are a really great question questions so I really appreciate you asking these uh because they really get at the heart of of what I'm trying to convey so when we look at a problem like you I think you kind I don't know if you Ed the word obvious but I feel like you at least alluded to like maybe there's a more obvious start like that's kind of the that's when these situations happen that's what we see right well this the first Ascension start in the super funky place and it's just more obvious to start on The Jug I would say um how do we Define obvious for what's obvious for Dave Graham who has a crazy brain and is an outside the box thinker in my mind I've walked up to Boulders and thought why did he start that's a that's that's not an obvious place for me to start but also uh there's a couple points to that number one is that Dave has earned the right to start wherever he wants because he was there first and so he gets to determine how he wants to start it he's also done I mean I think that's the better argument the less better argument is that he has so much experience and who am I to say that Dave Graham doesn't know what he's doing um in terms of where he starts uh you know he has more experience than almost anyone so maybe he knows something that I don't know through that experience but going back to the first point I think you earn the right to decide where the boulder starts if someone wants to start lower totally fine and they can rename a new first Ascent which is what we see all the time better eat your weedies Fred sits down and does crown of aorn renames the problem it's a and and you know oftentimes there's a convention that you know he could have called it better eat your wedy sit start uh but he I think he gets the right to name the boulder as the first ascensionist if it starts higher people are free to do that they're more than welcome and again this is where but if you're they could maybe even say something like I'm climbing The weedies Stand start but they're not doing better eat your wheedies as and I think to your point too as well um and I'd like to expand on this a little more but the video having the capability to every climb is super important so if you're honest about what you've done I think that's fine too it's interesting that you brought up this naming convention I we uh we interviewed uh Jared Roth um maybe a month back uh really cool guy by the way just awesome guy uh great podcast I listen to it thanks yeah I I really enjoyed it uh and he did uh roster man vibration which is uh The Stand start of lucid dreaming and uh I I think that uh there's just something interesting there where when you when you do a stand and the krux move on the stand is the krux move of the climb does that somehow change like the I guess I I think he wasn't uh super excited I don't want to put words in his mouth it was just like a feeling I got that maybe he felt like the the name rosam vibration sit uh was more appropriate for that climb and again Jared if you're listening you can come on and correct me I I think I'm putting words in his mouth there uh but you know it's now known that kind of lucid dreaming I'd say roster man vibration is kind of you know uh you know lost to history in a way uh but that's the Crux of the climb and so is there anything there I don't know this is way esoteric this is going off way on great these are great questions these are great questions I think I would say first of all Jared is an amazing person and what a great contributor to climbing and it was awesome that you guys had him on and to just listen to the things he had to say I love that um I think that in the best scenario you know we can have ethics and we can also be nice people and we can say for example Paul could have you know gone to Jared and said you know I know you did this first do you have a preference on what you'd like to name it um one example that I kind of ran into once is that I actually showed Daniel Woods a a boulder problem and it was a really nice boulder problem he did the first Ascent I i' had been trying it for a couple years he did the first ascent and he said hey Jamie what do you want to name it and I thought you know Daniel that's that's totally unnecessary you did the first Ascent you get to name it and he's like no I want to be a nice person and I just want to let you name it and so I was like all right well fine I'll name it and I you know he doesn't have to do that but I think that's a really nice nice thing for us to do and I think you know there could be a level of respect held there by someone approaching someone like Jared and saying hey I know you did this first you were here a long time ago do you have a preference on what we we call the sit I'd like to include you in that that's a cool story Daniel is a really nice guy it just shows also uh there's some abundance mentality there he holds of I mean let's face it he's got uh many amazing FAS under his belt and I kind of like that he doesn't uh he's not so greedy with that either you know just he's really uh out there doing amazing things and just kind of cool to hear that I like that little story just you know like those little stories like that like Daniel is such a kind kind-hearted person and you know I didn't ever I would never ask him to rename it or anything like that I just showed him the project because I was like he'll just do it you know it's probably v13 or v14 he'll just do it right away and and it took him a couple hours and he did it but yeah just you know I again I think we can there's there's a space for the first Ascension is to reach out to the person who did the like we have all have text message Instagram we can all get in touch with with each other why not just say hey do you have a preference for this but I don't think they're obligated to because they are doing a new first Ascent I also kind of have a thing for uh I kind of have a thing for good names in general I actually think it adds to the the quality of the the Boulder and uh I I love when lower starts kind of have just a little nod to The Stand start like the one that's coming to my mind uh cuz I was was thinking of Return of the Sleepwalker but next to that there's wet dream and I don't that was done by Ethan Ethan Pringle but someone added like kind of a low start and they called I think it might have been Jimmy actually and it was nocturnal emissions and I just thought like you know it's just kind of like yeah I I thought that was you know a nice little nod and homage to the to the original yeah again you know I don't think that's required but I also think that it can be kind of a fun way to approach your own climbing and to give a nod to the first ascensionist and I I think you know those first ass suns are you know it's so important I think that we respect the fact that someone was there first someone was there and saw the line saw the climb while everyone else was off doing something else someone was right there doing something new forging A New Path for climbing in general and so I think you know it's nice when we can give a little nod to the first ascensionist so all of this to me is there's a bit of a segue here into I'm just going to say Aesthetics and uh along that line I know that you're also a prolific developer and something you you love doing uh maybe it's also why you get along with with Jimmy or maybe you helped infect him with that love of hiking and developing and I you know those seem like two separate things developing in Aesthetics but this is all intertwin to the idea of what's an obvious start uh what makes for a five-star Boulder yeah why you know why did we say obvious or why do jug starts even matter and um I guess you know there's a lot of directions we can take that but uh uh I I would love to hear a little bit about your thoughts on Aesthetics and I'm sure that will lead into your experience in developing yeah sure so I think one thing you know just touching on that idea you know Dave is such Graham is such an outside the box thinker that he would look at a way place where I would start a boulder and be like why on Earth would you start there that doesn't make any sense at all and for me it was the obvious place but for him it was not obvious so I think I just I think it's important to remember that every person's experience is different but if Dave is there first then he gets to decide where it starts so yeah to your point just about Aesthetics and developing um I think that when I started when I moved to Colorado which was 2001 I thought everything had already been climbed I was like Flagstaff Morrison Horsetooth Reservoir and there's this new bouldering area in chaos Canyon uh and you know this is there's everyone's already looked everywhere and what I quickly discovered was that no one has looked anywhere and there were hundreds and thousands of Boulders that had not been climbed on and I couldn't believe that oftentimes the new Boulders were even better than the things that we were seeing before and so that wildly motivated me to go start looking for other places because I I all I could think is what else don't I know what else could be out there it could be chaos Canyon was a thousand times more W I couldn't have dreamed that place up in a million years that there would because at the time no one was really going in the mountains to Boulder if they were it was maybe roadside but not in the big mountains not hiking two miles people thought that was crazy that you're how you go hike two miles to go bouldering that's nuts why would why would you do that bouldering is just practice climbing but it was a new a completely new paradigm and it really opened my eyes to like what could be out there and can you really go ahead I just want I got a question about uh the status of upper chaos and if it will ever open again or any do you know have any behind the scenes knowledge on that yeah I so I maintain a relationship with the ranger the climbing Ranger there and the climbing Ranger is someone who's a dedicated boulderer dedicated Trad climber I mean they're it's not just some person in an office who doesn't really know what's going on they know exactly what's going on um they've informed me that it's it Clos indefinitely um the rock slide is really unstable uh last year I hiked up the ridge which is legal to do you can hike just outside the Zone up the shoulder of Otis Peak and you can look down on the rock slide and the whole time I was hiking up the ridge I could hear residual rockfall coming off coming off the pile so it's unfortunate because it's quite a ways away from the popular climbs that a lot of people have heard of like Jade or Creature from the Black Lagoon it is I think a half a mile away like the lowest part of the of the landslide would be a half a mile up Canyon from popular climbs like riddles in the park or Jade or the El hores that kind of stuff so you know I hope that with an open dialogue we can M kind of create some some way that we can extend the boundary up a little higher so we can at least have have access to that but um as of right now it's just Clos indefinitely that's that's a shame um gosh that area is beautiful I I just want to use this as a as a little side note to emphasize I I had this thing that I learned somewhere along the way from a really good climbers and it was uh this idea that if you're at a boulder and you think you can do it get it done like have have this get it done mentality and I think when you're younger especially if it's like a local crack sometimes you kind of oh like I'm close like I made good progress today I'll come back tomorrow it's just like you never know and uh we talked on Carlos pod about this where I I I thought Carlo and is a good at executing uh he gets it done and I I just think there's something there's some lesson there around like you never know it might just fall off the cliff like you know like literally it might just get closed and it's just a good reminder like you know Boulders are not quite forever um and not only that you know we're you know sometimes we get older sometimes we get injured um so uh get it done when you're out there because you never know if it'll be there tomorrow you know I sometimes I feel like I watch different climbers and their approach and they get close and some climbers are like is the door open for me to send can I look I don't know I'm kind of hesitant and other climbers are like pushing at the door as hard as they can to force it open to get it done and I I think that's another trait that I've seen in a lot of really good climbers Carlo included that when they get close they execute we we did a whole podcast on this recently the the performance under pressure and something that I still struggle with is uh when you get into those harder problems or or maybe not even heart problem some of them that are like really sharp or something it's like when I know I can do it I I'd still say that my the amount of tries it takes me can sometimes be too much and you'll hear this from uh Pros where they'll say like I only have two tries on this before my tip will split or something and I would say that it's important to recognize that when you know you can do something you should try to take it from like I know I can do it in the next 10 sessions to one session to one try uh and that's where those people really are getting it done where they say I know it's possible and so right here right now uh and I just love seeing that you know it's interesting there is a moment when you're projecting for me anyways there is a moment where maybe I've done all the moves maybe I've linked but the the light bulb flips on and it goes from like I'm not sure to I know I can do this and that's the moment when I feel like you know I've talked to Dave about this uh a bit and the idea that I asked him one time how hard do you try when you when you project are you trying 100% every time he's like absolutely not which is something that I completely related to because I don't try 100% when I'm projecting either he was like about 75% and I was like I think that's probably close to what I would say too so we're I'm trying about 75% as I'm figuring out the moves figuring out the body positions not just destroying my skin grabbing holds as hard as I possibly can not tiring myself out seeing if I can figure out the movement with less than 100% And then once I've kind of intellectually figured out the climb now I can sit down and try 100% and really go after it and I think that conservation throughout the projecting process can like if you're trying to do something hard in a day that is incredibly helpful that I'm never gunning all out until I sit down to act actually try it that's definitely a skill that I I feel like you have as a really great climber uh that people still probably need to develop a bit where uh I totally agree with you 100% but I have a hunch that people learn what they're capable of kind of by throwing themselves against the wall maybe a little too much when they're younger and you know then they go okay now I know what it feels like to know I can do the move without actually doing it um so that just reminds me of a uh I talked to uh Max zukin uh briefly before uh we hopped on here and said hey do you have any uh you know any points for for Jamie uh and one thing he said is like he wanted to hear about uh you putting something like a 100 days into Nothing But Sunshine uh yeah is there sounds like there might be a good story behind that yeah sure um so I grew up in Michigan and I started climbing uh when I was 20 21 and I'm 45 now so I've been climbing for 26 or 27 years when I started I had ACC there weren't any gyms really there was one gym in Michigan it was an hour and a half away not really or hour and 45 minutes away not really a reasonable distance for me to to drive to to go on a tues every Tuesday night um I started climbing at a really small Sandstone Cliff it was like 20 feet high 30 feet high there wasn't much there it was all top roping it's so soft in fact that it it can't be bolted so the rock is just it's just a excuse me kind of a classic Midwestern uh Midwestern cliff and I climbed there for three years and the whole time I was climbing there all I could think of is get me out of here and I just want to go to Waco I just want to go to Colorado I just want to go anywhere where there is climbing and try harder things because I had climbed the crack out pretty quickly and so when I you know as soon as I finished College I moved to Colorado and I immediately went up to up lower chaos and and just said what's the hardest problem here I want to try that so I'm just going to try nothing but Sunshine at the time it was v14 and I don't care how long it takes I am just going to try and try and try again until I do it and yeah it was probably 30 days a 35 days a year over three years that it took me to climb that Boulder problem and yeah it was a huge moment in my life I mean 2005 v13 was that was all right yeah yeah that that was a very impressive s back then obviously a lot of people are a lot stronger and but for me it was a real I wanted I felt very strongly when I was young that I wanted to dive into something as deeply as possible that was a physical challenge while I had a physical strong physical body and push myself to the absolute limit and that really facilitated that and it was awesome I you know I I just felt every step is a step closer to doing this Boulder I never really felt frustrated by it it was just I just want to keep trying and I think Carlo kind of touched on this this kind of almost like false optimism or kind of optimism that's not hinged with like actually what's happening because like any normal person would be like why have mean I've tried this 60 days and I haven't done it what am I doing and like looking back on it it probably wasn't the best strategy but it also was what I wanted at the time and yeah it was it was an important s for me damn congrats uh that is I just love that the how you started out by saying I went to Colorado I said take me to the hardest thing and then you just dove in I it's funny because I'll say when I was younger I would have been meaner to to that Jamie where it was like look you have no business being here stop greasing up these holds like you know but as I've gotten older I I just appreciate that that like passion and love it and this is you know when I met uh Tim my my you know my typical Co co-host who was you know 12 or 13 and you know you 12 or 13 year olds are just obnoxious and they do stuff they they throw themselves at some V8 and he should be climbing V2 uh and now I just there's almost like a I admire that like youthful love and that um that that optimism that you know like infectious optimism of just like I can do anything um I can do anything so wild and so you know it's it's funny because there was an old article in clim magazine from Chris Sharma who I have immense respect for uh Chris talked about kind of adopting a beginner's mindset again and how difficult that was as someone who's experienced and I I see that you know as I got as I got older I could feel myself falling into traps like I would try hypnotized minds and a B I don't know this feels really hard I would kind of doubt myself or have skepticism where the 20-year-old Jamie was just all in even in the face of total Ridiculousness and I think there's something to be said for that and like you say while it can maybe come off as youthful exuberance maybe there is a little something there that allows that person to achieve something really great man I definitely uh love the the Sharma story and I got a lot of respect for him once he pushed into realization there was another good uh naming controversy but uh you know I just remember seeing him just Cruise everything and it's very different to repeat uh what's been done in front of you and then go and say okay I'm going going to be the person who does the first 15a 15b because it's not like that in hindsight it all looks normal like oh you were the best climber and you progressed the grave but uh the reality is is that it's very hard to push into the unknown and to have optimism in the face of like you know reasonable pessimism right um and one thing I I just want to say before I forget about that optimism uh that kids have is something I like uh p in on this podcast where we talk about greatness is unreasonable optimism just like you're talking about walking up to something that is above you but then uh contrasting that with kind of uh reality and being able to say like okay this is way outside what I can do now but I can do it eventually but what are the steps that actually takes to get that and being kind of coldhearted and calculated with yourself and saying okay but if I want to do this I still have to train and maybe do the fingerboard or or try a 100 days and I just love I I just I just wanted to make sure that we aren't just painting that Rosy picture of like just go try anything and you'll make it like yes but uh you put in the work you know you showed up every day yeah so so yeah those are those are great points and they they kind of ignite some ideas in my mind which are that uh my I I believe very strongly in the human body body's ability to adapt I think the the the way that we can actually change our bodies is phenomenal and I think that by spending more time on a difficult climb like that we actually have the ability to alter our body and that does take a little bit of time to do but we become so kind of intellectually familiar with the climb the subtleties and that only increases the more time we spend on it and I do think our bodies have the ability to adapt and oftentimes climbers even even Pro climbers don't delve into that as deeply as they could I think nollie did with burden of Dreams he really extended you know many many days on one one Boulder problem oftentimes it's three to five days maybe 10 days at the most but to allow your body to really learn something deeply over 100 days is something that we have the ability to do um and and I also think that you know we live in a world where there is a ton of pressure to you know we go climbing every weekend for a lot of people did I do anything did I send that's five weeks in a row didn't do anything at the time social media didn't exist but I also don't think I would have even cared because I had a deep kind of seated interest in my soul that I wanted to explore and that was that wasn't that didn't relate to what anyone else was doing at all I just wanted to pursue this idea that I had that I thought was interesting as deeply as I could and that's hard I think today in today's world where it's just consume consume consume next next next next um you know Jamie I sorry to interrupt you it's just so you got this moner of the sheriff right and people give you give you [ __ ] about um just you know being honest about your opinions but I think one of the reasons why people give you give you [ __ ] is because they're not willing to take things seriously like hearing you talk about this stuff it's like you're like you put up your hand you say hey I care um I I really want to climb my best I I'm I'm All In and I'm trying my best and because of that you have uh you know carved out conditions of success for yourself you say hey like this is how I think our sport works this is what it means to me to climb this problem this is why I want to climb it I'm willing to put effort into it this is what I think is funny about uh you know people will give others crap uh that aren't willing to just take something seriously and you know I you know I kind of one of the things I'm one of the questions to ask you is how do you go from good to great or how did you make that leap into really uh climbing super hard but clearly we've been talking about this for the last half an hour about how you made that leap I just I just want to both commend you I think it uh also kind of showcases why you have opinions is because you're willing to care and I think that is actually one of the preconditions for doing your best is to look in the mirror and say oh I actually I do care I do care about this yeah that's a that's a great point and I think you know you you kind of touched on this before where climbers would push back and sayoh I'm I'm a soul climber I don't want your you care too much I hear that all the time you care too much and that's totally fine but I also for me I want to approach I mean for me climbing is a lot of things but having the authenticity to just acknowledge straight up that you know I'm I'm devoting my whole life to this I rearranged my relationships I rearranged my where I live I re arranged how I work and how much money I make so that I can pursue this and acknowledging like I do want to do this I do love this and I want to throw myself in wholeheartedly and authentically and just it it feels like good to my soul to do that and so I why not just own it you know I you hear I see people I would see people that uh I would see people that you know they would do the same thing they're traveling they're climbing they they make 5 $10,000 a year to scrape by so they can go climbing all the time they look at every single social media thing they can possibly look at and then they go dude you what do you care you care too much and I'm like I mean you you do realize that you've done all these things for this thing that you seemingly love and I I totally get that like people are at different places and maybe they're not ready to acknowledge that or maybe that makes them feel uncomfortable and that's fine too uh but for me it was just this authentic and and one thing I want to touch on was an artistic pers suit from basically the very beginning and that does Buck a lot of social trends um and I'm it took me a while to really own that but it is where I'm coming from 100% what do you mean by artistic actually yeah so I think that I'm like we have all these grade conversations and there's so much focus on hangboard and 7 millimet 6 millimet 4 millimeter and am I going v14 v15 and certainly that stuff is interesting to talk about uh but for my own climbing Pursuit I see myself as an artist who is basically creating their own art through the development of Boulders so creating new Boulders creating new sequences inventing new sequences on rock that we've never climbed on before because it's one thing to go to Bishop and say like okay I did uh the buttermilk and all the beta has been figured out and you know I can climb on this rock and I know what what it is but to go to some place that's totally different has different texture has different seasons have different conditions and and you're basically inventing New Movement for climbing because no one has ever been to uh you know maybe Michigan there's new Boulders in Michigan that no one's ever climbed on those are new moves and new artistic Expressions that no one has ever delved into and I think in the same way that a good piece of art can feel challenging I think that a good new Boulder problem can feel challenging and can present kind of new ideas about what movement can be I I see a lot of parallels to that um and I love good challenging art just like I love good challenging Boulder problems I also love the idea of I see a boulder problem as not just a derivative of um you know I go to the gym I climb a I climb this sequence of holds now I go outside I come this sequence of holds I see it as a complete interaction with myself and the Earth and that feels super important to me and I don't ever really hear anyone talk about any of this stuff but for me that feels like for me to be in a landscape that's new and wild and different and basically interacting with that landscape through bouldering it feels wildly artistic and it has given my life a tremendous amount of meaning I'm one of the probably oh maybe it's common in in climbing but I think that rock looks better with chalk on it when you start kind of like chalking up a rail and you kind of see the the boulder come to life I I think it looks more beautiful uh you know so here's my I don't want to say push back maybe more just my exposure to I I love the idea of of Art in climbing I I think that really like everything we do is somehow like an artistic expression with the caveat being that typically it's when you do something at a high level so I'm not a a prolific faer by any stretch of the imaginations I am not a a developer not against it I just uh you know I just when I when I look at what I actually do um clearly it's not something that I've prioritized but where I really connect with what you're saying is that I think that if you look at any top climber you could you know uh put a hood over their head and you would see how they move and you would see that they're expressing their unique body even sometimes over the exact same holds and feet in some beautiful and different way so it's one of my my love of pursuit of Mastery or greatness is that I think that your unique self comes through more and more the better you get uh and how you choose to do a move even if it's kind of the same move everyone else does you're still expressing your unique abilities and sense uh in that specific move so I kind of think of it artistically like that I you know I look at someone like Chris Sharma and you know he picks he picks like the dino in mayorca he picks he's he picked biography he picks these really stunningly beautiful pieces of rock to climb and I see a tremendous artist in that I also see a tremendous artist in someone like Dave who takes a very different approach than Chris but is also kind of allowing that unique self to come out and express themselves on the Rock um one one thing I wanted to touch on was I am really interested in this philosopher I feel like because of the podcast that we both listen to you probably heard of him uh his name is is Renee Gerard oh yeah and Gerard says that basically most or all humans have this what they call mimetic desire which is kind of the desire to repeat each other to to follow each other um and and our desire to follow each other drives a lot of what we do and there there are all these there are also these these small group of people who are not repeating who are doing kind of stepping left and it seems like Humanity does really well when we have a bunch of people that are repeating and then a small number of people who are inventing and tinkering and producing new things and I've always kind of and and oftentimes he he also refers to uh some of those people as kind of outcasts or scapegoats and that you know maybe that's partially where the sheriff comes from I don't know I feel like that's kind of a scapegoated character I felt that sometimes um but ultimately what I'm like that pursuit of and and I think going back to nothing but Sunshine the pursuit of an experience where I pushed myself to the Limit was completely independent from a grade I wasn't necessarily trying to climb v14 it was the hardest problem so I felt like it was a a kind of a playground for me to pursue that it was a nice place for me to pursue that but I was in search of an experience where I felt like I had pushed beyond what I could ever thought I had done and and in that way it was very successful yeah I I love how people I mean you're kind of the the the really zoomed out version there is like how you craft your life to to put these different experiences into your uh realm but you know to make it more Concrete in the climbing world this is why I think it one's AA or scorecard whatever you want to say is kind of like it's a resume like I guess my my point is like if you look at what my first v110 was or what my first v11 was or the climbs that you see populating on mine I I have to me it's me showcasing like this is the type of climber I am this is like I I go after these climbs um versus you know I try to avoid what I deem one star climbs uh and it's it's interesting that you talk about that Gerard and mic Theory so actually my I have a degree in philosophy so I love um but I always used to think about this and I think climbers will really resonate with this where you know you go to school you get good grades because you have a test in in front of you and like it's like how do you pass a test well it's like you get you know 100% on and they give you the test and then you go to college you get a job and I worked in the corporate world and I always called that uh following the yellow brick road it's like laid out in front of you and success is clearly defined and it's uh to me the people that I've always looked up to I think that's pretty much Universal though is the ones who give themselves the test instead of getting the test given to them and I I you know I love I is one of my heroes because again he just repeated everything and it's like okay what's what's his test now and uh you know even though I Know Nothing But Sunshine was an established Boulder like to me it's cool that what you said was like no one told you like this this is what you should climb Jamie it was uh I'm going to set myself up what I believe is the hardest test in front of me right now and I'm gonna put myself forward to it there's just something aesthetic and artistic about what you know what challenged you give yourself and there's no right or wrong answer there right like if someone if if you had said like I want to win the Olympics well it's like that's very different from finding the next you know midnight lightning and climbing it uh in a cool new area but it's about like giving yourself the test versus just having it handed down to you that I think everyone finds inspiring yeah and I it's it's I can't tell you how many times I've told people hey I'm in a new area it's really cool um you know I'm not necessarily one to like write and hand out a bunch of directions for everyone but if people ask me about it and I I would tell I would say hey I'm at this place and I really like it it's fun um you know I don't I don't know that it's font and blue but it's it's or something but it's good bouldering and no one will go no one will go five years go by no one will go and then the guide book comes out and then everyone goes so uh sorry so Max's uh one of Max's question zukin was what area will blow up in the next 10 years uh maybe shouldn't say it um but uh they'll have to find out in 10 years yeah yeah but is there is there anything that you think is I well I I'll leave that up to you however you want to answer or if you don't want to answer it I think that there are a number of places that people are going to hear about uh in the west I would say uh Colorado Utah Wyoming that are going to become excuse me nationally nationally notorized areas that people will go to that no one is going to right now okay I'll get the the I'll ask you to drop pins off air but uh although I I would let me say this I'll give you this I'll give you this tidbit I think there are two areas I think that in 10 years Joe's Valley could be the third best bouldering area in Utah whoa okay that took me a moment to unpack because I was like Joe's Valley is incredible and he say the third uh Joe's Valley really is incredible by the way too uh yeah it's amazing I I've had a lot of great memories I love it it's one of the best it's awesome you know so uh one side of of this stuff is that I'm actually um I'm kind of a advocate for for not keeping things under the the Hat uh in the sense that we were all beginner climbers and someone took me under their wing and took me to Bishop when there was no guide book so I'm always like I have this like Dual side because when I go to when you know now that I have wife and kids and I'm really busy I go I'm one of those people who goes to Bishop the the weekend after Thanksgiving and it's just a [ __ ] [ __ ] show and I curse very specifically for that I'll never forget going to the Ice Caves which I don't know why I was even in there it's like this place in sad Boulders and it's kind of uh there's a a I don't know even know if it's an easy 10 there's a common 10 for people to do their first time it's called beef cake I walked in there there's music playing there's people smoking weed and there's a dog in there and I I don't have I have nothing against any of those things I just listed I was just like what am I doing in here I got to get out because it really is kind of special to run around an area where there's not many people or if someone is there you know them they're respectful yeah no one's blasting reggae um and uh you know so it's like weird because I I encourage you to you know you're doing this work of developing and and creating something that I'm sure you want to share but then there's a there's a downside to laying that out there too uh so yeah that's interesting so I don't necessarily feel the impulse to share um I think I did when I was younger at this point I I don't it's and it's not that I'm necessarily protecting it it's that I just don't I just feel like I'm doing the thing that I want to do and um I've worked really hard to find a lot of these places and so you know it's not my responsibility to go and tell everyone because I'm putting in the hard work that if you know if you ask me and you we become friends and we get to talk I'd be happy to take people out there um I also want to touch on the point that you know I went to chaos cane in 2001 still pretty new area that I think Dave had just started cleaning Jade in 2001 he just started trying it as a project so people were just starting to push into the into upper chaos and I thought boy this is amazing what an incredible place to go bouldering and I thought wow this is I'm so fortunate to be here at this new moment when all these new Boulders are going up and every day there's a new V12 and a V10 and oh this thing is so sick and you never walked around this corner and you saw this and I thought that experience when I was younger was really specific to chaos Canyon alone it was just that was chaos Canyon that provided that and then what I realized after running around was that you can have that experience through basically an infinite number of mediums rock type Landscapes Etc it's always there if you're willing to not go if you're willing to step left when everyone else steps right and that to me has just been a tremendous motivation that like that same exp I kind of seeking that same experience of walking into oh my gosh what is the potential what could we find how can we paint up these new Boulders um you know all that stuff is it I found was available in a lot of different places H just by putting in the work and I've been able to find it and it's awesome what's it like writing a guide book or what's what's the hardest part of writing a guide book um the hardest part of the guide book is know I I told you Josh I really appreciated your professionalism and I still do and I think that dealing with climbers trying to gather information essays is near impossible I will ask someone for something and it will be six months later I I I tell this story all the time with Dave it's a good story I said Dave I want a you to write a huge essay for the park guide book I would love to hear your stories your experience I would love that to be kind of the centerpiece actually want it to be like in the center of the book a centerpiece for the Rocky Mount National Park bouldering gu because you you kind of have done more to for that place than anyone you really created it an area as a 17-year-old gigantic accomplishment and I at the time I lived next door to him so it wasn't like he was you know off in Maine or you know we were neighbors I would see him every day and every day I would be like uh you know H the essay how's that come oh yeah yeah I'll get it to you don't worry you know three weeks later hey Dave that essay oh yeah yeah I'm still working on you know and it went on for like this for eight months and it was became clear to me that I wasn't gonna get an essay and so I said hey Dave let's just go climbing like we do and I'll just give you a bunch of interview questions I'll record it and then I'll transcribe it and that's ended that he's like oh yeah that's good well we do that so that ended up being his essay in the guide book uh which is just I think speaks to the difficulty it is of kind of wrangling climber to you know at work I asked someone for something and it's on my you know it's on my desk 20 minutes or an hour you know it's right there and with climbers it's like a ridiculous process yeah yeah um I've had similar uh experiences I I remember even I remember a friend of mine uh was clearly good enough to get sponsored wanted to be sponsored by a specific company and I said just write a email just you know reach out to them like you're doing great and ended up writing the email for them and they got sponsored and it took me but it took me you know like three minutes I just said like let's just sit down and do it um well uh you know there is probably some professionalism coming into climbing For Better or For Worse um uh really quick which guide books have you authored so I wrote the first edition to the and the first edition was the bouldering guide to Mount Evans and Rocky Mountain National Park so it Encompass both Mount Evans and Rocky Mound National Park kind of an Front Range Alpine bouldering guide book and then the second book I wrote was the boulder we were able to there were so many new problems that we were able to split it into two books so the second book which came out in October is the bouldering guide to Mount Evans and that includes Mount Evans uh Lincoln Lake and like Mount Evans traditionally is like area a area B and then Lincoln Lake and then gual pass which is also in the Mount Evans Wilderness Area so that's kind of I actually prefer smaller guide books because I don't like lugging around a 500 page book that has you know 425 pages I don't need for that day so this is a little bit of a smaller book and then the third book which just came out as pre-order is for uh Rocky Mount National Park very cool Wild Basin upper chaos lower chaos those those areas upper chaos rest in peace uh something you you kind of passed over but I just thought it would be uh fun to uh to share again is you talked about like different Landscapes different rock types and you know developing these different areas and I'm not even sure if there's a question here more just an emphasis that I I've been lucky enough to travel uh a decent amount to climb and something that just really strikes me is the different vibe of each area Vibe is you know just a really amorphous word word but I'll never forget uh one day or one climbing trip where I climbed in I think I just climbed in Red Rocks and Joe's Valley and this was pretty early on for Joe's Val I don't even know if there was really a guide book um but I just remember waking up climbing in craft Boulders uh you know and it was hot and deserty and red and then we drove and woke up in Joe's Valley the next day and it was a little more forboding and Canyon and The Rock was different and it's just something that I I think sometimes people maybe they haven't really had the luxury uh of traveling I just encourage people to go to as many different areas and just experience like when you say Lincoln Lake when I think of Lincoln Lake I just will never forget kind of uh parking and like looking down at that steep descent and that beautiful Lake and it's just I we talked about this before sometimes I make fun of uh Colorado uh for their the Aesthetics of the lines like I I I justess because I was kind of raised on or cut my teeth on Bishop and eity and these like tall picturesque lines but but Colorado has the what's it called the the position or uh you know there's there's a better name for just the feeling of that landscape uh you know in Spades uh and I don't know where I was going there just go to different places they're all really cool and they have different Vibes and I love that I think that is really something that climbing offers that a lot of basically no other sport offers which is being able to interact I mean it kind of encourages you to travel right like oh I want to go to lenworth I want to go to Boone I want to go to the gunks I want to go to all these Landscapes all these different rock types all these different places and and you know as someone I mean I I I deeply I feel like I have a deep uh love and relationship with nature in general so I just love being outside I love experiencing the way the sun rises and the way the Sun hits the mountains or you know that's different in Bishop than it is in lenworth let's say or different than it is in Indian Creek and all that's kind of offered up for you for free in a lot of cases which is pretty amazing and I think that's really an an amazing way that will ultimately lead to a you know a lifelong all allow climbing to be a real lifelong Pursuit for people which I think would be is just great so um yeah I I I love to travel I've traveled all over the world and I love to experience you know how do how do the birds sound in Australia well they're pretty crazy if you've been there uh how do the birds sound in the desert it may just be one little bird chirping in the morning uh you know all those little subtleties are are just beautiful reasons to enjoy and experience CL I love our Sport and I know I I think we have a lot of kind of indoor focused Climbers on this podcast because Tim is also well known as a as a you know World Cup competitor and I as someone who grew up in the gym I was probably the first generation of Gym Rats I I have lots of love for for the gym as well uh but I would encourage people to embrace that fact of our sport where it takes you to places that you just would never go like I remember going to Rocklands and you're like okay you fly into Cape Town which is beautiful and but instead of just getting your picture taken on lion's head I think that's why it's called which which I did um then you're like okay like let's drive three hours out in the middle of nowhere and it's just gorgeous and and uh I'm guessing I would say surfing maybe could do something like that uh skiing um but you know we're all rock grippers so uh that that's what I gravitated towards yeah so how why would I ever I mean you know I maybe I would but in General why would I go to end up in South Africa but there I was and in that in Garden of just Beauty and animals and Wildlife it's so amazing and just the ability to go there and experience uh climbing in that kind of landscape is incredible Switching gears just a little bit uh we we talked about Dave Graham uh off and on throughout this uh podcast and you know touched on Nal who I know you've climbed with a bit I would love to dive a little deeper into just your experiences of being around these amazing climbers and we discussed this before I think we both have this admiration of the uniqueness that is uh Dave Graham and how he climbs I think there's a lot uh to to learn from him uh and I don't know how to to start this uh section but maybe is there any thread that you felt like you could see between some of these great climbers that you spent time with whether it was Daniel Woods Dave Graham no I mean those are I mean really man those are some of the best climbers I've ever lived yeah I think there is a real elevated um take on just about everything so when when I listen to the way that Dave talks about climbing it is in super complicated ways that I certainly had never thought of you know I used to I used to root set and I root that quite a bit I set some World Cups and abs Nationals for a number of years and so I have experience as and you know as a developer as well I have experience of like thinking about new beta new new ways to do things thinking outside the box I used to get a lot of hard I get a lot of crap from people for breaking the beta all the time um so I really like the idea of inventing beta uh new beta and Dave is better than just about anyone at doing that and so I would go to a Boulders with him and be like I'm gonna think of all the solutions all the possible solutions to this problem and I will basically try to outsmart Dave just sitting here watching him climb I'm going to sit back and I'm going to come up with all the possible things he could do and it was like I mean maybe I don't know how many times he did this but there were a number of times where I would just be he would just it was almost as if he could read my mind see all the solutions I had come up with and he would do the one that I hadn't thought of and he was like there it is that's the only way to do it that's it and so that kind of thinking for um you know that is a really accelerated and advanced way to think about climbing that I think separates people like Dave and Nal their willingness to push into un unknown and uncharted waters certainly those guys repeated stuff but Nal said at some point I'm gonna go to Finland where no one really goes bouldering and I found this Boulder problem and I'm gonna sit here and work on it for a long time until I do it and so that is he's not you know he may not do it he tried that cesu project um for number and he said he said it was you know was nearly impossible V8 or v20 or something I mean the willingness to step outside the conventions is I think strikes me through all those guys that they're not just in terms of going to try a first descent where no one has gone but also just in the way they think about beta the way they think about different ideas the way they think about everything is is really unconventional and that that always strikes me as how unconventional it is compared to kind of the masses that are going to Red Rocks doing you know just kind of having a climbing trip rep climbing standard Boulders yeah just guys like which is fine you know like I don't mean to I don't I hope that doesn't come off as me being critical of that because I've certainly you know I went to Rockland just you know and I looked for first asense for sure but I also just wanted to climb anulan Batar it's like one of the most famous V7 or V8 Boulder problems in the world and I climbed it and it was great you know I had a blast so I totally I I do appreciate that um and I I understand that but when I think about those guys they are really outside the box no and dude that's what that's what we're here for right is what is it that makes those guys tick you know or what what are they doing differently and something that I just kind of wanted to explore a little bit when it comes to Dave is so there's this Trope almost like that he's quotequote weak and I almost want I kind of want to push back against that because this metric of maybe how many one arm pull-ups they've do if he can even do any um you know something I I wonder about is as we look at people doing things outside of the box and Dave is famous for that is that is he actually weak or is he just strong in his own ways and he's really embraced that and so when he looks at a boulder and unlocks these new beta this new B it's almost obvious to him and and it makes me think of the the easier example actually kind of in his time uh Chris Sharma I often talk about how U he was some of he was one of the first guys to really dyo it seemed like uh to really Embrace a dynamic style and I remember this part from some dosage or I don't know whatever some great uh when he was in Switzerland I want to say and uh there was some quote about how oh like you can't skip these holds or you're just going to go from one good hold to the next good hold and then and they said oh you can't do that on this one and then he did and you know it's it's sometimes it's easier to to see that and understand that where you see a guy just go from one good hold to the next good hold but that was him embracing his strength and I I just I I want to pick at like is Dave Graham weak or is he incredibly strong it's just in a way that we don't quite it's it's a little harder to tease out than like wow look at your biceps or something like that I I think there's I think yes he is incredibly strong and I think that we think conventionally karma seems stronger because he you know he's he's he had the flowing locks and he's all tan and he's got big muscles um but I think there's a lot of ways to be strong and I think that Dave explores this way that of being strong because Dave has he just put up a new V16 I mean he is it he's really been at The Cutting Edge of climbing for a long time and it's not just repeating Boulders it's putting up new ones and it's it's really amazing um you know I think Dave I think Dave is not uh conventionally strong in the way that chrish Sharma is strong uh but you know I think like I said there's a spectrum of how we can view strength Dave Dave's hand strength is like off the chart I mean it's crazy how strong his hands are um you know one of the first times I ever climbed with him we went to Upper chaos and I saw him flash a v11 and it was like he was climbing V4 I mean he just it was a little crimpy sequence and he just it was like the holds were three times as big as they fell you know I was like well those were full pad crimps I could I could do the same thing um so he is incredibly strong he also is incredibly efficient so he gets a lot out of and by that I just mean he's an amazing technical climber so he what's this the kind of conventional strength that he does have he maximizes that to an ability of I don't know that I know another climber that's has maximized their strength as much as Dave and I you know there's such a focus on training and hangboarding and strength and pull-ups and you know moon boards and tension boards and kilter boards and all these kind of physical tests and I think what if every climber got as much out of their technique as Dave did like Dave is you know he has incredibly strong hands and he is he does have the ability to lock off really strongly he struggles to do a one-arm pull-up I think he's done maybe one one time but for a long time he could do one but he maximizes that strength too through his incredible efficiency and I just see there's so much emphasis on training and getting stronger when there could be a lot of emphasis on being a better climber and that would actually it's a much easier way to to improve your ability than you know maximizing finger strength I don't think there's I don't think that's bad to do that but I just think I see someone like Dave who is so intelligent and has so maximized that that he he TR he benefits tremendously from it yeah I'm actually definitely one of those people who was probably stronger and I I didn't really lean into the into like the training stuff but I I don't know I just I appreciate like the the dis the Vulgar Display of Power you know that Sharma would would have uh although I think it's funny because I think people can look at Sharma I remember friends critiquing charman saying look he doesn't keep his feet on and you know he's not that great technically and would actually argue that he's found the technique that really works for him uh but I I wanted to uh I wanted to dive into something you mentioned earlier not on this call but but beforehand this idea between behind technique versus smoothness or you know we just talked about like Dave Graham's efficiency and technique and uh you know what's the what's the subtlety there behind uh technique someone who looks like they're climbing well and someone who is climbing well yeah that's a great great thing and that was something that came to me through uh root setting but I I kind of came to this conclusion that some people are smooth some people have good technique and some people are smooth and have good technique and that they're actually two different things and while people who have good technique can be smooth it's not a prerequisite for it it doesn't necessarily like Dave I've seen look pretty Herky jerky sometimes s but still while using what I would consider extremely good technique and I've also seen people who I think suffer from their smoothness they're so concerned about controlling the movement and and appearing like they're in control and being smooth that to your point about Chris Sharma that was kind of the Paradigm in the late 80s was people were trying to be as smooth and controlled as possible and Chris came along and said I it's actually more efficient to jump because I have hands and I can just jump between the holds I don't need to do a lock off and so it made me realize that there were people who are really smooth and those smooth climbers can have good technique but it doesn't necessarily mean that they do have good technique and there are climbers who are have good technique but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're smooth I don't think that Chris is the smoothest climber and I don't think that Dave is the smoothest climber either certainly they look pretty good when they climb generally but I don't think they're the smoothest climbers but I think they I think Dave for example has some of the best best technique yeah Jimmy may be an example of someone who is both smooth and has great technique but uh I when you hear when you talked about that smoothness and sometimes people suffering from it it actually kind of reminded me of some of the mistakes I've made where uh I will overpower something especially when it's kind of maybe a little easier to to really make it seem like I'm in control and it just does you no favors although I will say that the the one thing around that is when I look at video of some of my hardest sends it's actually really smooth and looks easy and it's funny how when you're climbing at your best it often does exhibit beautiful smooth technique and makes it look easy but I just I like I I like you flagging that difference between looking good and doing the thing you know it's there's some God there's some song I wrote like a a freaking philosophy paper on this one time it's uh it's not what you look like when you're doing what you're doing it's what you're doing what you're doing when you look like you're doing and so don't don't even uh that's Express Yourself uh there's a Easy E song but that's the the original but the the point is is just don't get caught up in uh looking like you're good right don't don't look like you're climbing well climb well and and you know focus on it's it's where you putting your focus uh and I just think that's a a good reminder and also maybe don't get so sucked in when you see someone doing something and you like how it looks because it's you're not them you don't know that you know that may not work for you it's it's about you know doing it doing it the best way technique is not not exactly uh quantitative in that sense yeah I think there isn't you know there could be an argument made for if someone wants to you know approach a climb with their own unique style and they're not so concerned about an achievement that they want to just climb it in a certain way and they want to do it smoothly yeah that's super interesting and awesome but I just think I think there is this point of separating the idea that that just because someone looks smooth doesn't necessarily mean that they have good technique and yeah Dave is a great example because he's not the smoothest climber but he he gets it done like almost no one else and I think it's it really speaks volum is he the the shaky Warrior is that does that bring of bell I feel like I for some reason I popped into my head is that uh I don't I don't know I don't know if I necessarily call him the shaky Warrior I think you know I I have a ton of respect for Dave he's awesome um and just the the way he's pushed climbing forward like you say the cool Boulder problem names I think he's the best at that super linguistic but I think he well read definitely a lot of those books are are great that he yeah I think people sometimes don't realize uh those names come from books often which are great books too yeah Philip K dick books is he's a big fan of that but I think I just think that like you know there's a there's a video of Juliano uh cameroni climbing um I think it's a V16 I don't remember which one it is it's a hard Boulder problema but he gets to the top and he's just like beached whale kind of flailing it doesn't look like it's super hard but he gets it done and I think that um sometimes he kind of threw the technique out the door in the moment to get it done and you know I think there's some you know what do we think about that well you know is it important to do it in good St style or is important to get it done and I think you know for a lot of people they want to get it done and he was willing to just kind of make himself look a little silly but he got the climb done and I think there's I I I would also say as a thread between really good climbers I've seen that as well that like I'll just do what I need to do to get it done and if it if it's not perfect that's okay too I don't have to have it totally dialed in every hold is executed perfectly I got the hold good enough and I'm just going to go and and fire it kind of thing I've given that advice sometimes when I'm coaching my my friends are I shouldn't say coaching when when we're sessioning and maybe someone is you know what am I doing wrong here I'm like you gotta try harder you gota like let your you're you're grabbing that pinch your feet are cutting it's not going to be pretty just just try just make it happen like there's no there's no you know tow hook that's going to to save you like you're going to have to cut just make it work um if if you're climbing really hard for you it's going to feel like you're going to fall and you're probably going to surprise yourself like I can't believe I stuck that hold I just was in total desperation and threw out and somehow I I managed to stick it but it it should feel like you're going to fall really if you're pushing yourself before we move on from Dave one one thing and all the the great climbers but Dave is just you know the one of the better examples of it one thing that you said to me that I kind of wanted to make sure we highlight for just a moment is this idea that the out of the box thinking that Dave employs and the creativity that he employs can be learned um and yeah you know we didn't go into setting at least yet uh and you had have an incredible setting resume uh and there's setting there's developing and and there's guys like Dave and how do you think about developing that creativity or or outside the box thinking like you have any you know practical tips or things that you you picked up along the way that can help people Embrace that yeah I would say that when we think about when what I what did I say about those guys that they think outside the box well how do you think outside the box you have to have an open mind that it could be a lot of different solutions there could be you know I would see Dave and he would figure out six different solutions to do the climb and then he could pick the most efficient one and so you know you see a lot of younger climbers especially get they they see a beta on video online or they see something online and they're like that's I'm that's the beta but like I said Dave would come up with crazy beta for things that I was like this is not at all even though it doesn't even almost feel like the same boulder problem it's so different H and and that comes through having an incredibly open mind to all the different possibilities and there's nothing that's really preventing anyone from looking at a climb and trying to come up with what are the different ways that that what are the different possibilities how how many different sequences could I generate from this one clim from this run set of holds it's it's a nice exercise to think about like maybe you're going to spot your partner on a boulder and you just start taking a rest day sit there and think about what are all the different ways that someone could actually possibly do this what about someone who is 5 foot one how would they climb this what how what are all the different possible sequences that they could use well they could go left hand first they could go right hand this they could go right hand first they go left you know I think there's that developing of your brain I mean I know as boulderers certainly we're all find ourselves sitting around watching someone else climb at some point right and it's and yeah you know if you want to hang out and joke around with your friends that's great but I think as a nice exercise walk through as wild as many different wildly different beta possibilities as you can and practice that muscle of coming up with different solutions because sometimes the really in obvious solution is actually fit you a little bit better and I think it's just a great exercise and you know from I think I develop that through uh my root setting experience and my development experience because when you come up to a new Boulder you have no idea how it's going to look you haven't seen any B beta videos you haven't seen any photos you don't know anything and so having the ability to walk through 15 different possible sequences on a climb is incredibly valuable and it's not just for that one climb it's for now you can take that tool and go to every every clim you go to you can oh I could do this I could do this I could do this I could do this you know XYZ a BC EFG there's a million different sequences and I think that is really helpful for being more efficient when you climb that's really cool I I love that you know that actual actionable like try to actually come up with different ways to solve it and one thing that I don't know if it helped me but I was really uh slapped in the face by this when I did more I started doing more sport climbing and I had to just you know figure out uh there's a lot of moves there and it really blew me away I started doing more with Ethan um and how quickly he could find the sequence that he was going to use and just that ability to look at a rock and then you know figure out a couple options and then settle on one quickly is is a skill it it makes me think of something me and Tim have talked about where there's this like dual-sided process there's using your brain to look at a boulder and and deconstruct it and then put it back together in 50 different ways that may work and then there's also getting on something and trusting your kind of kinesthetic intuition and you know hunting for a tow hook and I want to use this talk to kind of segue into your setting experience in your world in the World Cups then and now and it's something that I really appreciate about comp climbing is I see the best comp Climbers on well set problems just experiment just you see like their intuition just hit and they're just like I call it hunting for stability sometimes they're just like is it a side pole is it an undercling is a tow hook is a heel hook and you watch them go Bam Bam Bam like six different options through their head uh and you know uh you can comment on that but I also want to use that to jump into kind of you know the setting that you did in the past you can tell us your your your resume uh as well as kind of how you've seen it evolve what you think of uh kind of the new era of comp climbing yeah great question so in terms of the testing right they're kind of testing they're they're testing their different options in the way that in the same ways that companies you know if you're an app you might test eight different versions of the app and see which one gets the most interest I think they're doing the same thing they're they're testing all these options um in a competition you have to be really good to do that on the Fly and that's why they're that's some of the reason why they're the best climbers because they're like I know all these possible solutions and I'm just going to systematically one two three four you know side pole undercling side pole with a foot out foot higher foot lower okay there it is go they're so good that they can do that on the fly but to my kind of previous point about beta testing is that you can do that while you're you know so many people they sit down and they're just kind of like I'm tired I got to shake out my pump or I got to R my fingers sand my skin always looking at the skin I think there's a real there can be a real Miss opportunity for sitting down and intellectually analyzing and doing that testing to figure out exactly what is the best sequence and you know you can I've I've gotten to the point where I could create beta that I hadn't even tried before and then test that beta like I would invent new beta just sitting there and then I could go and test that Beta And I think that process is just super helpful for um you know the more you practice it it is something you can practice ice and learn uh and the more open-minded you are to come up with instead of three different solutions 15 different solutions the more options you have and and and you just see those World Cup climbers are doing that exact thing they're just doing they're so good they can do it in real time and they can do it in the midst of a competition one one little interjection on that that just hit me is uh I I I really enjoy doing spray wall climbing with uh climbers who are you know the same grade or maybe a little better than me uh and with different sty and they help open up my field of vision of what's possible and things I would never like this is an exactly different beta but it's like almost like the the step before where you know they they say okay like with this handhold and this foot then we can reach all the way to this little crimp and I would think no way like I would maybe jump to that jug next to it I would never do the crimp but then you see them do it now maybe you can you know it works you into that frame of reference of no that is a possible move and then that builds in this kind of intuition of what's possible and lets you uh see a boulder and kind of think like actually maybe that little crimp out there that's not chocked is usable for me and I think that's important I can't tell you how many times I've gone to an established Boulder problem where there was kind of established beta and I it wasn't necessarily a total break of the beta but I would found myself chalking up holds that people hadn't used and really helped me and trying to fit my own body and and that again that's kind of that outside outside the box thinking that like it doesn't necessarily I don't necessarily have to put my hands on the white spots when I climb up there may be other options that it's and it's happened enough to me that I like I I completely look for new sequences when I I don't ever think that the sequence that I've seen in videos or the sequence that has kind of been told to me by someone else is the sequence that's are that's another option and I'll I'll put that in my my cash as a as a beta option and then I'll take the videos and I'll put those in there and then I'll see if I can come up with anything new so I still get sucked into it man I can't tell you how many times I've blown a flash because someone told me this is the beta and it just doesn't feel right doesn't look right and I I it's just it's you know we're talking about this and it kind of sounds easy on the surface but it's those decisions that you make both before getting on the climb and you know listening to your instincts on the climb and and you know I think what I'm really interested in is these tools that you can employ kind of off the- wall to then build your intuition on the wall because it's something me and Tim talk about often where you know Tim's a coach and you know what you're talking about is basically like coaching and learning but there's this thing that happens where you're on the wall and you're by yourself and you know it's how do you put it into play and I I love these kind of ways to build up that that intuition deep inside you and these practices that uh you know you you started employing from uh being around guys like Dave Graham uh that you know help inform how you tackle tackle problems yeah for sure I think um you know and and also my root setting experience I think has a lot to do with that because when you root set you I would set you know I set 11 ABS Nationals I set ABS Nationals for eight years that was kind of national competition that's a lot yeah and I was part of a four-person team you know it's like these are the four root Setters that are going to set the comp uh I was headsetter one year and often I was kind of given the opportunity to set the hardest problem so typically men's four which would decide the comp would be my responsibility and you learn so much by putting those holes on the wall climbing on the boulder yourself and then watching what what people do on them and we would always try to you know we were trying to figure out how are they gonna how are they going to break this what are they going to do they're they're smarter I just I assume they're smart Now smarter climber than I am so what's he going to do to try to you know he's I'm gonna think of 10 options he's gonna think of 15 so what are those five options that I'm not thinking of and just kind of walking through that process of of coming up with different beta and being open-minded to like they might try anything well and when you deal got with amazing climbers uh you know they start being able to break beta in ways are hard for you to imagine because that slopey pinch uh you think is really not so good maybe Jimmy or Daniel can just they're like this jug what were you talking about oh I can just do a one arm pullup and Rose move through this you think wow like so it's it's cool to yeah expand your horizons by by that sense so uh those abs Nationals um that was a different era and the type of holds the the way the climbers were tested was different and I I guess I just love to hear you know because you are open-minded and you've kind of stayed current uh the whole time and and there's developing too which uh helps you stay at The Cutting Edge what do you think about comp climbing now uh where do you think it's going um I'm not looking for a you know a negative or positive critique just like where the when you uh flip on YouTube and you see you know ifsc World Cup uh and see what they're doing now you know what does that evoke from you as a as a Setter and and an athlete yeah climbing as the climbing competition scene has changed dramatically in the last 15 years and when I was really setting the most uh there was a big emphasis on power I was setting power problems to separate Chris Sharma and Daniel Woods and Mal and now we see what I think people call kind of risk risky moves or risk moves where there's a lot of volumes a lot of um kind of balance bance things a lot of things that are kind of maybe puzzling a little bit like there's a real puzzle that maybe someone can fall the first time fall the second time and figure out and do the third time whereas a power problem um you know if you don't do it the first time you're there's diminishing returns right and I think I think it is really cool that we have expanded into because I got another story to tell so I set an ABS Nationals in Sacramento uh 2004 I believe it was and my um I was going to set men's number three out of four problems so was the third hardest problem and they had I asked them if they had a boss and the guy was like yeah we get you know we've got one and so I could the the old Pusher hold and shout out to Jared brought it out yeah shout out to Jared Rock absolutely and uh so I I set the hold on the ground and put a tape box around it and I think the the owner of the gym or the manager of the gym but lost it was just like what are you doing this is outrage you put a hold on the like this beautiful boss hold you just put on the ground and climbers are gonna I was like yeah they're gonna step on the boss and they're gonna jump off the boss onto the wall and uh he was really upset with me for doing that or even suggesting that could be a possibility so I think it's cool to see you know this kind of new style of climbing um and and just the way that they're really pushing you know you see crack Boulders and I I think that's great I think they should expand as much as they can I do simultaneously think that um you know I always when I was setting there was a put climbing was starting to blow up and we're stting to see the First World Cups United States and there was a push to sell root setting and what I mean by that is we're selling the roots the climbers are doing crazy things they're doing a big Dyno they're doing a our pullup they're doing a huge Rose move we're selling that movement to an audience that can understand that it's they watch someone crimp their way up a V12 that doesn't look very exciting but if they do a gigantic Rose move boy that gets people on their feet and so I always pushed back on the idea that we needed to really change climbing a lot because I felt that climbing was cool in and of itself and that we should just allow it to be cool and we shouldn't be selling it we shouldn't be selling Rose moves to Subaru so they can make money off it I always just loved climbing in and of itself and I'm like we should just set a competition that allows Chris Sharma and Daniel Woods to show why they're so powerful or Alex pooo or brook rabitu or all these competitors why they're so amazing and I think they do a better job of balancing that between showing off the competitors because I think when you look at a sport like skateboarding you know it's like let's put Tony Hawk on the ramp and let him do a 900 and just let him go off and that's all I ever felt like a root Setter is I want to see these competitors just go off and there is a thing that I know that Daniel Woods can do amorphously that makes him so amazing so let's give him the opportunity to do that thing and sometimes I think with uh you know he's going to struggle in in these World Cups and I think there's a space I think there's a space being created right now for people like Daniel to compete in a power climbing competition and and kind of bring that back and allow them just to be climbers like everyone climbs in the gym you know yeah I think uh I think You' listen to that Carlo podcast and he some of that uh TBF the the boulderfield Masters uh kind of comp thing they're doing which you know and Carlo incredible competitor I I really like seeing Carlo push that forward because he he's done a lot of setting maybe I'm not sure if he's ever done a lot of like ABS or sanctioned comp setting but he knows how to set damn does he know how to compete and he he seems to bridge this gap of kind of the I don't want to say old school and new school but I think he has appreciation for all sorts of climbing and uh that discussion we had with him around competition got me excited just because it's like maybe we could do this differently and when you talk about some of the things that Daniel can do um that maybe does not get showcased if you put him on you know the qualifier slab Boulder um yeah I'll never forget the last Nationals I competed at I I don't remember the year off the top of my head but was either 2015 2016 and it ended with him doing men's number four you know sealing the Victory and it was like this power pinch problem and it just you know made me just love CL watching him do Daniel does where he is world class in some specific type of movements a lot of type of movements and showcasing that and the crowd just on their feet so I love what you're saying where climbing is cool let's let climbers be who they are and I understand I don't know I can really make an argument for all sorts of uh every different angle that uh you know competition is uh headed in but uh it's just fun to hear your perspective on that you know I think there you know I and I mean no disrespect whatsoever to that we've seen seen a lot of really good American competitors lately and they really excel at these kind of athletic Boulders I think that's awesome you know but I also think there's space for to wa I would love to watch Drew rwana uh Jimmy Web Daniel Woods just throw down on some real hard powerful Boulders and and just see what happens I think that'd be great and it's it's just fascinating to me that there are these people who train in the gym places like cats or wherever and they are they've develop this incredible skill and there's really no place besides going outside to allow them to Showcase that and I think there's there's there's space for it and I I think it'd be awesome if if we could get that going yeah plus one to that uh just uh before we you know we should start wrapping it up um but I uh I just want to just really quickly uh touch on uh World Cup type uh clim or comp climbing and the grading around that and you know we we had this really uh interesting discussion around defining a boulder problem actually those Boulder problems are very clearly defined um you know how do we think about grading in that context do you think that grades uh can be applied like how we grade outdoor climbs can be easily applied there there there's that whole risk scale which we don't need to Define I would assume our our listeners uh understand that um but yeah like how do we think about grading with comp climbs because that's a really common question I'm sure you got was hey Jamie how hard was men's number four yeah I mean people would ask all the time and I would say it's as hard as you know I I would basically defer and never assign a vgr I think that's almost impossible especially given the style of these new problems it would be almost impossible to say because and I think oftentimes the clms are probably easier than people think they are although they're very hard there has to be something that's someone can do in a in a you know a small time frame and so you know I don't know that there's anyone in the world that can walk up to 4 v12s that I can just do them flash flash flash flash like that would be really ridiculous um after doing qualifiers and semis and flying there although I bet you that men's number yeah that that men's number four because I did I grilled Max zuk and was on that uh Team setting that year and he put about V12 if anyone was curious hopefully uh hopefully I'm right there and and you know maybe certainly it's it's people have I do believe that climbers have gotten stronger um but I think that yeah the idea that you're tired you're under pressure to climb you've just climbed back to back to back like yeah people could do V four v12s in a day for sure but can they do them in a confined you know a time sequence in front of a crowd that would be hard and I I was always surprised at how relatively easy the problem like the men's number four would be v11 and we put Daniel and Jimmy on it and noie on it and they would often not do it or maybe Chris does it and Daniel doesn't or something hard one person sorry as as hard as it is to to you know believe I think for a lot of people like having climbed with those guys um it's watching them do v11 or V12 they really can in quite a few circumstances just really Cruise hard V12 and Flash like it it's it's not for sure they really con crush it so it's just it's it's good to it's good to uh bring that into the realm of uh comp clim but I guess I I wanted to so you listen to the Tristan podcast um and uh you know it's interesting hearing because you guys both have put a lot of thought into grading and You Tristan had this idea around just uh grading being wholly objective and I kind of took issue with that I don't know how much I said during that podcast I might have gone into it in the next podcast me and Tim did I'm not I think there's you know a big spectrum of objective is a very as a philosopher that's a very strong word that's like exists you know outside of our our uh experience um but you know I think if he was here he might push back against that idea that what is the grades on those um uh Those comp climbs it's like no there is a grade and he would argue that there's a right and wrong grade and that we could pick it apart maybe in the future we'd have more tools to better quantify but we could say that was the 11.8 you know um because of X Y and Z and yeah I don't know uh I don't want to I'm not looking to pit you guys against each other just like it's you know that's a very extreme end of the scale to to say like it's objective that you know that was this great at that day no arguing um we can try to dive into what actually is but fundamentally there is something and so I don't know is there anything there you want to pick out oh yeah so so many things that come to mind number one what is a grade so what what does that mean uh what that means is that you know a hundred people went and said they felt like it was about this hard right so that's to me seems completely not objective at all it's just what people felt like it was to them and that opinion is also wildly influenced and I would make the argument that grades have inflated wildly over the last 20 years uh because there are a number of vectors that are basically pulling grades up and there's nothing that's necessarily incentivizing people to take lower grades and so I think that the media social media uh you know we look at a website like adaa which maybe isn't as popular as it once was but it people still do use it and they literally give people points for for taking a higher grade and the only disincentive is that Yen Larson will say that you're brave and humble or that uh you get italics by your name or something and that's seen as like if your scorecard is full of metalics that's not desirable or something but that's a I think a mild uh deterrent compared to the incentive which is you literally get ranked higher compared to your peers and you get more points um I also think that there is Corporate influence from the gyms the gyms want you to have a nice experience and I C I know C someone's going to say well my gym is the hardest gym in the I mean sure there are small communities where there are gyms where people grade stiffly but I think a lot of the big gyms there's no incentive for the gym to smack people down by setting a 12a and calling it 11b and in fact when I worked at Movement we had we literally had a route that we would call the investor 512 that was a little friendly a little soft so the gyms I think have a monetary incentive to make things softer and so if you are a kid and you grow up climbing the gym for 10 years that's what your that's what your scale is that is also softening things um you know you look at people who um you look at people who like uh you know they they repeat a climb and they want to downgrade it what does the Instagram post look like I'm I'm you know I don't want to offend anyone I'm really sorry I shouldn't have you know I I I I just I want to give it's it's totally apologetic does anyone apologize when they take a higher grade never they just take it and they're like yeah and everyone goes you're amazing so I think that not only are grades not objective because they are people's opinions but the scale itself if there's any kind of legitimacy to it is also inflating all the time and I think one more point of evidence that I want to bring up for this is you know the basically the only hard unrepeated problem in Colorado is meat hook and it's from the 70s and people will always put up by Jim Holloway people have gone there Paul Robinson went there I went there I tried it people go there and try it and they go oh this is stupid this is whatever but no one has done it and so if you are not repeating a boulder problem from the 70s and you just dismiss it as oh it's just dismissive this isn't cool I don't like this it's still a clim that no one has done and that to me says well yeah you can climb all these Boulders with big numbers on them but are they really that much harder than what was done in the past and like there's no evidence to suggest right now that they are because no one can do the thing that was done in the 70s now do I think that's v17 probably not but I do think there is this inflation going on and if you're a younger climber it's really hard to see if you haven't don't have the experience to look over a long timeline and I think there's evidence to suggest that there's incentive vectors that are pushing that that those grades up all the time and there's very little that's pushing it down higher numbers on Instagram means more likes yeah that's a just a Charlie Munger quote just uh don't what is it oh I'm gonna butcher it but it's justay only pay attention to incentives like that that is what drives behavior and yeah being uh Brave and humble um per Jen Larson I hope people get that reference I love that that's was just too good um yeah it's really interesting I I know for a fact that uh Jim's in fact I would I would actually agree with this make them soft like what you know you're at the end of the day for a Mega Gym like movement they're they're trying to sell you know birthday parties and and stuff and they're trying to have people have a good time and I and although that means that you often get kind of spack down when you go outdoors I actually argue that better to get people hooked on climbing and enjoy their thing like you know I would guess if you looked at the numbers uh if people go once like the people who go then you know take the step and go twice because they had fun are more likely to go three times and on and on and on and I don't have a problem with uh gyms at when they just put up these random climbs uh to make them soft although this is something this could definitely lead into a discussion around uh you know the moon board and uh you know the benchmarks there and the ranking there and and on and on people say Ben Ben Moon's climbs are really hard his benchmarks are so hard that's what they say right like the V4 Benchmark is like super hard the hard times V6 is tough yeah I've heard a number of people say well the the ones that Ben moonet are really hard that were the great dude I so I I I've pushed back on this too where uh people say it's really um really hard and I like I'm not so sure it is uh I think it's a style that people don't don't love I I also think it's it's a style I happen to be good at so I I I do well on the moon board but you know I I like do a problem and it reminds me of when we would uh do spray wall sessions uh where we'd have a really small spray wall and we would be you know climbing on mainly because we had done the other heart problems so our friends would come to us and they'd say okay Josh like I did this V10 over here you know could you set me a V10 here or a v9 I'd like to work with I'd like to climb with you guys and we'd climb something we'd be like this is about v9 but it would be like a two move v9 and they would think like oh this is impossible and I'm like they're like no way is this v9 this is like v11 I'm like it's not like it I know you can't do it I know you think it's really hard but you go on the moon board and typically it's a it's like easy easy one move and you go like okay that was a V8 move and V8 moves are freaking hard but that doesn't mean it's not a V8 uh and yes that's that's kind of my hot take so one thing I know that people will push back on is they'll say you're just an old crusty climber who thinks that your generation was stronger or something and I'm not necessarily making a judgment that the that the the grade like I think the grades are inflating I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing I just think I'm pointing it out and then I'm also saying that uh um in terms of um like an objective I know climbers want a metric right they want to know am I improving what climb should I get on I think grades at their best are a guideline to like oh this would be a nice thing that would be kind of challenging maybe I could do it in a day that's a really nice use of grades but in terms of an objective measure um we certainly I don't think we have I mean maybe Tristan would argue that there's technology that will happen in the future where we can measure forces total force exerted on the climb or something that would give us a a relative um you know a grade or something um but I don't we don't have that now grades are just your opinion I also uh two quick points I want to make is that I think that just because there are bigger numbers doesn't mean climbers are stronger I think that climbers are stronger but I don't think the evidence for that is that there are more bigger numbers so I just want to kind of point that out as a as a as a philosophical Point yeah yeah and the other thing is that there was a climber Mela kamti uh he was a very good climber I think he got in a car accident uh he's fine he's he's alive but he he kind of got derailed a little bit from his climbing but he was a mathematician and he presented a grading philosophy that I've never heard anyone else talk about which I think is really interesting and it basically looked at if we take a random sample of a climber what's the probability that they're going to climb this Bolder problem so if we have something like high Plaines Drifter which is a very you know I don't know how many ascents are on Kaaya or adaa or whatever or how many total of sents it has but what would you know if we have 20,000 people 10,000 people that have climbed it what's the probability that we pick one of those climbers and they're going to do it and then we can basically make a probability distribution and we would look at something like burden of dreams and it's let's say there's 10 million climbers in the world two people can do that so the probability would be two out of 10 million and that would actually give us a mathematical it would actually give us real information on How likely someone is to climb and he presented that idea and he wrote he had all the math for it which is pretty awesome um but he presented idea obviously didn't catch on at all but I thought I thought it was really interesting because I felt like it was instead of just asking people how they feel about something when because if we like if if I told you to run a mile Josh and I said well I'm not gonna tell you exactly how long the mile is and I'm also not going to tell you when to stop but just whenever you feel like you've run a mile you can just tell me people would think that was totally ridiculous right they would be like oh this is this is how and then there'd be some guy who would run half a mile B well there I ran a mile probably a mile so that's kind of the I feel like that's kind of an analogy for the for the the way the grading skill works right now and it's really hard to sort out and so I thought that Mel's uh mathematical probability equation was pretty interesting in terms of getting getting actual we never had the numbers to do it right we never had enough people it was always like well I don't know maybe a hundred people have climbed High PL shrifter but I think now there's so many people that have done it that we could actually take a take a sample yeah God the the the data I I'm a I'm definitely a I don't know if I'm a data guy or a data nerd but I see the the potential I think everyone I think that's one of the attractions of things like the moon board where you go okay like now we have a very constrained data set um yeah that's an interesting idea I think it intuitively makes sense because you know something happened where uh Sean rabitu did uh alane and then like three other people did it we go like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa like uh maybe this isn't V7 uh but it also makes me think of hypnotized Minds where it's like okay Daniel does hypnotize minds and then people try it it's right there it's by the way right off the road beautiful line very just very accessible uh and then rustom correct me if I'm wrong uh I'm a little hazy now but I remember rustom coming and just kind of doing it pretty pretty quickly um but the argument there would be uh on this probability curve like Russ is a very unique kind of climber uh he was he's very small very strong fingers and and incredible CL I don't want dude he's incredible but it just actually gives a Credence to that like kind of idea where okay yeah but that still means it's hard because this one guy who kind of I don't want to say specializes in that but it wasn't stunning I don't think to the to the climbing Community when he did it yeah I think those are really interesting case in points I think the mathematical um kind of take on it would account for all that right it's be a random it'd be totally random sample so you would include people who are specifically attuned to that climb and there'd be a lot of people who are specifically not attuned to that climb equally um I also think that there is kind of the in between solution would be you know we take an app like Kaa and you allow people this is kind of ridiculous but you basically encourage a system where hey when you do a Boller problem you're going behind the voting booth no one sees what you write and you just give your honest opinion about what you think it is if you think Paint It Black is V12 then you just put that down and that's your it's your private voting booth you get to submit your opinion and then we look at all the we look at the consensus and that's what it is and all I mean that takes all the climbers to agree that yes I'm going to be honest I'm not going to try try to take more points I think they're incentivized to take more points but I think there could be a a space there for people to kind of privately hey we encourage you to say whatever you want if you think it's V7 call V7 if you think it's V10 call V10 and then they submit and then we actually have a consensus it's still not an objective measure by any means um it does it does really help climbing with a bunch of different types of climbers who excel at different things where I have some pretty glaring weaknesses and I would say I'm also really damn good at uh some specific types of climbing and it's helped me like I'll climb on something that's v9 and I will just think to myself Jesus this is hard like I just think it's like if you you know had to tell I would be like no this is like the hardest thing I've ever been on or climbed uh but you know the grade doesn't get that and It's tricky because as I set as I would set more and spend more times with people who excelled at that I would say you know what this is v9 it's just really hard for me yeah I think you know one example I used to use is I went to Waco uh I spent months in Waco a long time ago and I kind of set out to climb as many v9s as I could and that was just a random grade but there were a lot of good ones and I was like I just want to climb all of them and so I I didn't Climb Every v9 in Waco by any means but I climbed a number of them and what I found was some were flash some went down couple tries some took three days and I was like there is a gigantic Spectrum often times people see seek out the uh you know the clim that they they know that it kind of fits them they have strong fingers so they're going to go try Frogger or something and then they do it in five tries and go v9 is not that bad but if you climbed all the v9s or you climbed a sample of 20 of them you would find that yeah maybe you're really good at Frogger but something else that's really slopy like uh I think there's a problem called tryhard which is like extremely slopy and big pinches um really difficult totally opposite Styles so when I climbed all of them I was like wow there's a big spectrum of what v9 could be and if I just went to Waco and set got on the things I think I would do fast I would have climbed 5 v9 Flash and I would have been like oh W wo's soft or this is easy or whatever but you know it's it's also hard to account for that Spectrum which I think it should account for a spectrum like every V10 can't be ridiculously hard we have to have v10s that are like okay that's not the hardest V10 but you you get 10 points for that um but I just I think that's interesting when you start really delving into out kind of a a bigger and bigger tick list at a certain grade you'll find that some are not so bad and some are really hard and how does that fit into a sped I gota ask what is the best v9 in Waco and maybe what's the softest and which one was the hardest for you I think uh Frogger is probably for me was probably the softest the French tickler is the best one I think that one gets the most stars I love that one uh I think you're talking to Eric I I don't know Eric mentioned that maybe Eric Jerome that maybe you were speaking with him I I hope that he talks about the star system and the quality I think the French stickler would get a lot of stars I think it's a great Boulder problem I uh I did that one weirdly uh I I did some kind of weird dyo move I don't think I maybe I didn't do the French tickler I or or the the the the the namesake match I like did gastone or something and I did I did not do the match I did a there's a really bad crimp outright and I just grabbed that and put my foot up and locked it off and grab left hand to the thing I I think I went up right hand to the yeah there's a video somewhere on YouTube of me doing that um it was awesome oh man um yeah damn was great uh last it's interesting to see how oh go ahead go ahead I was just gonna say like we've talked about great inflation something that I've pointed out about Waco that I thought was interesting is I would argue that in some ways like just cuz I know you're in technology as well like technology we think of as deflationary and the reason why I I bring that up is that I've argued in the past that people have called Waco soft um and the thing is is that Waco got established when there weren't a lot of climbing gyms and a roof is very difficult to find and the technique on the roof is very difficult but if you grew up like I did uh climbing on a bunch of steep stuff uh in the gym all of a sudden that roof I'm like oh these are jugs like it's no big deal just heal hook your way through it and so we've seen some grades on Classics come down in Waco due to the new technology of climbing gyms I just find it interesting it's just a little you know side note that sometimes grades can be pulled down you know like I'm sure dinos got pulled down when everyone started dining everything you know all a sudden that you know V12 Dino was like ah it's like V7 you guys like that wasn't that bad that's a really great op obervation because I think that you're absolutely right when I started climbing there were it was hard to find a cave anywhere in a gym to go climb in um and the caves often weren't really great and then suddenly slowly over time there was a shift where people only wanted to climb in a cave and they only wanted to climb on steep stuff and that shifted the perception of what's difficult and what's not difficult and so when that perception of difficulty shifts how does an objective like grades couldn't possibly be because people would feel that Waco was really hard when they started going there and then now they would feel like it was really easy because it's they're basically climbing on moon boards and then they go to Waco which is kind of moon boardy so they would feel oh this isn't that bad because this is all I've trained on but then they may find something like meat hook which is not like Waco the problem at Horsetooth that's unrepeated as being extremely difficult because that's not the style they're training at so all those things are like swirling around as we move through time and like how do we how do we say in any way possible that objectively this is v15 ah I like I like that we've got we got the the the villain saying grades are objective we got the sheriff saying grades are subjective and clearly uh that's I'm I'm I joke about pitting you guys on each side of the spectrum U and it's because it's always somewhere somewhere in the middle there right where um and I I shouldn't say that you are wholly on the subjective side but I I actually I kind of I'm more on the subjective side because you just we we're the one that imbu meaning into that rock by you know defining what the B if we're going to Define what the boulder is then clearly we've already arbitrarily put constraints and so then anything we do deeper into there is kind of us applying our grading system onto it but uh maybe Tristan will come back and have a uh a rebuttal against that Tristan put in the comments you know I think I I really appreciate uh Tristan's opinions and I think it's awesome you know I always always prefer someone to have thought through something and come to some conclusion that we can then kind of toss about intellectually I think that's and as long as we can be mature about it then that's that's great you know I think that's awesome and I think I would much rather hear that than a kind of a watered down saturated Instagram post about how everything's amazing and they love climbing you know trist's clearly put thought into it and I I appreciate that you know I think that's awesome um yeah so there's a lot a lot to talk about yeah no it's interesting well but hopefully we've provided like this balanced uh there there's this love of climbing I mean dude clearly you you spend uh tons of time out there finding new Boulders contributing to the community in that way loving the outdoors loving the the feeling of moving over a rock and and moving your body and i' love you know diving into the the grading aspect I I love it all you know and uh that's why uh I'm glad that we got to come on in this idea of you being the sheriff as someone who might call one out for uh starting at the wrong place uh quote unquote is is not really what it's all about it's all about having opinions discussing them honing our opinions I mean nothing gosh nothing hones your opinion better than explaining it articulating it and then uh hearing other people disagree as long as we can uh you know do that in a constructive way then it's actually fun instead of some kind of shouting match or ego thing is just like hey this is fun you guys let's talk about it and I really you know I think Instagram is a terrible place to have those debates it's awful tone is lost it's just no place to do it and so I think allowing people to speak in a long form conversation is really you can really at least touch the iceberg that may be there on what climbing is for people how they flush out their ideas how they think about things what they actually what they actually think so yeah it's awesome okay well let's actually start wrapping up here I'm going to give you a couple of quotequote Rapid Fire um we'll see how that goes but there just ones I just can't resist um actually this one is uh is Max's question uh is what's the best Boulder in the US that no one knows about or or doesn't talk I I he may have said no one knows about but my general sense would be kind of like under the underrated Boulder problem that's actually amazing and I don't care about the grade uh or what I mean is it could be a hard one or an easy one uh yeah what comes to mind I'm gonna say the re the Revenant which is a boulder prom that Jimmy put up we Jimmy Webb and I and our good friend doin um uh a couple other people went into the Wind Rivers we backpacked in nine 10 miles uh right in heart of grizzly country Jimmy put up a v15 roof uh it's amazing I would is there a video of that isn't there a video of that okay cool I I'll try find video does that not count no uh because there's videos of everything um now days but that's cool uh I love I you know God it's so freaking hard to backpack out in the middle of new nowhere and the establish a v15 he's such a beast yeah Jimmy we we took we went two years to the same boulder um there are other a lot of other Boulders around but two years the same boulder horse packed in and Jimmy cut his finger really badly the first year came back the next year to do it super awesome the Revenant actually comes coming back to life um a Revenant just the definition is basically like a corpse that's been reanimated uh but brought back to life and so I think Jimmy kind of felt like this was dead and then brought back to life but amazing beautiful roof uncontrived obvious start just an amazing Boulder bom beautiful setting overneath over a lake yeah this rapid fire with Jamie is not good no no it's good it's good um okay what about uh your favorite Boulder and and why uh my favorite Boulder is the hunter which is a boulder problem that I put up uh in on the Colorado Wyoming border it's a Sandstone problem and it's V12 it's a singular line I worked on it for I went alone to this mountain maybe 15 days hiked up a thousand foot um mountain and some days I would do the hike twice so I take three pads hike up a thousand feet come back down to my car grab three more pads hike up a thousand feet uh there were bears and elk in the forest I was always up up on a rope it's kind of tall I was up on a rope alone and just a beautiful expression I think for me artistically of like what I want to pursue in climbing so I don't think anyone really goes there it was almost the problem I said for the unheralded one but um I don't think anyone really goes there but it's it's beautiful it's awesome any any pictures after my I I could share a picture uh I it is named after my friend Davin uh who is I think the best Boulder hunter that I know and he found the Boulder so it's called the Hunter in honor of Don doin last one just because it's the the namesake of the podcast as uh what do you think makes a boulder a test piece what makes a boulder a test piece it has to be a classic problem it has to have some easy access I think because Jimmy's problem is amazing it's beautiful it's going to be hard for people to test themselves against it so for it to be in a well-traveled location I think it needs to have a lot of stars uh so it needs to have a flat Landing it's helpful if it's an obvious start it's helpful for a lot of people to have done it and I think typically it would also incorporate maybe a little bit of scariness or there's something kind of a little spicier about it like I think a midnight lightning is the classic test piece and yes it's a V8 it's a tough tough for the grade it seems like that's kind of a pattern for a test piece and then also it's got that that mantle which technically probably is V4 V5 but it is spicy when you're up there for the first time and I think that is a key component of a test piece well said I love it all right Jamie I think the other award we may we may get on this podcast is probably the longest one yet uh just absolute pleasure uh talking to you I'm so glad through the magic of podcasting we got to connect and uh you know I just I'm gonna be really enjoying uh finding all the gems in this podcast to to share on Instagram and just to reflect on uh you know there was more questions but I got I gotta tell you I'm getting I'm getting tired my wife is about to kick me out of the the office um but uh yeah uh really fun um Jamie uh thanks for everything you do in in climbing you've contributed a huge amount uh and I it shows and when we talk when we talked I think you just your knowledge of climbing your insightfulness was just really wonderful and uh you know if there's anything you want to leave the listeners with any uh anything about you know stewardship or anything that comes to mind that we didn't say uh feel free to to let them know otherwise uh we can just maybe do a round two at a later date yeah I first of all that's very humbling and thank you I really appreciate you even considering that you would have me on your podcast so thank you so much for that it was great to get to know you and just have this conversation and be able to able to flush out my ideas in a long form so thank you I appreciate that and if I was going to leave anyone with anything I would say you know there's a saying that says goes something like you're not in traffic you are traffic and so if you are concerned about the access uh that you these areas that climat no one can no one can do more than you can so if you you know any anyone that steps up to help you know make a donation to the access fund go out to a local cleanup um all that stuff is always appreciated and goes a long way towards building good relationships with the land managers so I'll leave you with that that's that's a really good reminder uh yeah give back to the community I I think that as you get older you appreciate that more and more I just love those people who make Trails clean up uh and no matter how good you are you think you pack it all out that little piece of tape fell off fell in the dirt got covered up you thought you you know were good but we always make an impact so thanks for reminding everyone of that and uh thanks again Jamie really appreciate it yeah thank you thanks for tuning in if you'd like to learn more about testpiece climbing you can check us out at testpiece climbing.com and even book a session with one of our coaches