CATS Climbing

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noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Fri, 16 Aug 2030 23:44:00 +0000

Welcome to CATS Climbing! This site is your source to the greatest climbing gym in the country, and the best climbing in Colorado. Here you will find the latest CATS happenings, and a guide to many of the best problems in CATS with pictures and videos to help you find your way.

CATS Ethics

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:17:00 +0000

What I am addressing here is heel hooking and matching on holds.

Climbing at CATS is not rock climbing.

A small Facebook thread is what motivated me to write this. Basically it came up that "there's a gym in Boulder that doesn't allow heel hooking". This prompted responses such as:

"WHAT?! No heel hooking?! How will you climb? Not to mention, what a bizarre restriction!"
"That's craziness!"
"WTF? that makes no sense"

Now I will give them that there is probably a certain level of misunderstanding, as perhaps they think it is a completely enforced, defacto rule in a standard climbing gym, such as no swearing. That is not quite the way that it works in CATS. If you happen to stop in or are not terribly experienced we are certainly not going to pull you off the wall for heel hooking. However there is certainly confusion, and negativity coming from those who do understand that it is a matter of ethics here at CATS and not a true "gym rule", partially given that CATS is only part climbing gym and does not employ any full time staff exclusively for climbing purposes.

Although the end purpose of getting stronger often differs greatly, for instance Ryan Silven, Angie Payne and myself all climb in CATS to get stronger, but for different reasons. But again climbing in CATS or any gym is not rock climbing. People are not completing problems here to tick off a list, post on 8a.nu or brag to sponsors. You climb in the gym to train, especially at the Colorado Athletic Training School. And although almost tangential, I would like to point out that the primary usefulness of gym climbing is in training strength, not technique. If you want to be able to rock climb well, you had better climb on rock. Climbing in Movement for months is only going to prepare you so much for understanding how to move through Spanish limestone. However doing constant laps and suicides at Movement can give you the basic endurance to not be completely overwhelmed.

We try to embrace making things harder not easier and becoming stronger climbers at CATS. It should be no ones goal in the gym to claw your way up a boulder by whatever means. This makes no sense, to me at least. All gym climbing is incredibly contrived, at a gym with the hold density of CATS 99% of holds on the wall are "off" for whatever problem you are working on. It is not some quantum leap in contrivance to not allow heel hooking. We want you to become a better climber.

When you are climbing on crimps you are training finger strength, when doing long moves on bad jibs we are training core tension. When you heel hook inside what are you training? To even say you are "training" heel hooking I believe to be quite a stretch, heel hooking outdoors is completely different than heel hooking inside. Yes indoor crimps are not shaped the exact same as outdoor crimps, but your ability to hold onto a small edge is the same regardless; it is a basic strength. Heel hooking rarely come down to whatever the hell muscle in your leg is needed. Heel hooks are much more subtle, involving positioning and specific torque. This makes "training" heel hooking quite impractical and something much better learned on the specific problem you are trying outside.

The next point to make is that of priorities. If you were given the choice of training: calf raises so your legs would not pump out as easily on slab climbs or campus boarding. The obvious answer would be campusing as it builds a much wider and more useful set of strengths. In this poor example you can of course choose to do both. However when on a climb you cannot choose to do both. You can choose to train heel hooking, but when you choose to heel hook, depending on the move you are choosing to make a sacrifice in training finger strength, power, lock off, or most frequently tension. Or you can choose to not heel hook which will require more from you and make you a better climbing. Again the goal should not be to make things easier.

The last point I will make regarding these end results is in the process of climbing your projects and your personal best. Lets say you find a project you would like to do with a hard heel hook, and you have not been "training" heel hooks. It will feel hard at first, someone who has been heel hooking in the gym does it faster lets say. However it is still putting your heel on a hold. You will figure out how to place it, how to torque it, how to use it. In the second scenario lets say you want to do a hard project that does not have a heel hook in the crux. I would say if you are not strong enough to grab a small hold, isolate it off of one foot and do a long pull. It is certainly much more difficult, if not impossible to learn those strengths in any sort of realistic time period. And heel hooking does in fact impede the progression of finger strength (and others) because you are just putting your body weight on your legs and bone structure which are use to that stress.

I feel like the points to be made against matching on small holds are even more obvious and I will not go into depth. It is the same basic principle as mentioned previously. Although to clarify this in regards to matching as an intermediate (bring a hand into match on a hold and then move with that hand again). But first I think an easy question to ask to help explain, and show the errors of matching is simply: Why?? Why would you choose to match on that hold? The only possible thing I can think of is "to help me send the problem". Well why are you trying to send this problem? We have already established this is not rock climbing, this is not in the middle of a competition with money on the line. You are trying to complete this problem in the gym to become a stronger climber. I think it is pretty clear that in simple campus board perspectives it is maybe V6(??) to go from rung 1 to rung 5, match and then go to rung 9. While it is about V15(??) to go from 1 to 5 to 9 without matching. Matching as an intermediate greatly reduces the number of muscles groups and strength required to do a move.

Do we still have fun in CATS even though we do not match and heel hook? Certainly! We are not all sitting around with stopwatches and protein shakes. I think it is universal that people enjoy progressing; being able to do more climbs, send projects and move up to harder ones. We at CATS enjoy that the most as well. Heel hooking itself is not that fun, we would rather progress and become stronger climbers.

Steep Wall Reset

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:00:00 +0000

I thought I should inform you all that a couple weeks ago I completely stripped the Steep Wall. At Rob's request the Micky Mouse remains, but nothing else. Sadly yes Organic, Petzl and Epic are no more. This change was motivated by myself however, the Steep Wall at CATS is my favorite wall anywhere. Because of it's width, and lack of attention in terms of getting a constant supply of new holds, it was approaching the point of being stale. So I stayed in CATS until 1:30am on a Friday night and stripped the entire thing. The re-setting took a bit longer but all the holds that are going to be up are now up. There will still be some fine tuning over the next few weeks, as Danielson may make some adjustments and as some problems are set set, but the steep is completely fresh now and ready to go.

The main wall has been getting a very steady supply of new amazing holds including some yet-to-be-on-the-market very purist slopes which are actually a reshape of a BEAUTIFUL old E-Grips set. CATS is really starting to get pretty well done in terms of holds, we will continue to get more, but the Main Wall for instance is essentially devoid of holds that are not fantastic. Because of this I have started improving the Ramp Wall and even the Cave Entrance Overhang. So there are a variety of completely new lines emerging in areas previously unclimbed.

I would like to start posting more, but on November 3rd I defend my Thesis so I should be pretty busy until then.

Bubble Wrap

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:50:00 +0000

The most infamous project in CATS if not Colorado. This was a series of holds that Chris Danielson put up a few years ago hoping that it would be quite a testpiece however I do not think anyone predicted that it would be ubsent for as long as it has been. Just off the top of my head I know Daniel Woods, Carlo Traversi, Paul Robinson, Seth Allred, Kyle Owen, Garret Gregor, Alex Puccio, and Andre DeFelice have all tried it. Carlo has said he has spent at least 15 days on the problem, and coming off of his recent 5 day ascent of the Game this holds some meaning.

A fantastic testpeice full of power, contact strength and tension.

Brown Disc 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:31:00 +0000

The second, shorter, more intense climb I recently set revolving around a thin disc like E-Grips Ian's Tribal crimp. If you want something short and powerful and do not hate crimps this would be the climb to try. I find the climb to be very straightforward yet actually interesting and unique. I think this is mostly due to the actual nature of the line and the direction in which it climbs. Very much a typical boulder problem in design; a few somewhat difficult moves to a very difficult crux, to a desperate finish move. Video is here.

Sustained Watermelon

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:21:00 +0000

What I hope will become a newer classic. When I sent this boulder, for me personally, it was perfectly sustained with a crux. Others have mentioned that the crux is actually very likely the first move. Regardless I am quite happy with this climb, there is a good variety of movement, power and controlled climbing, with the possibility of falling on any number of moves. But once again if you fall on the first move repeatedly do not be discouraged. Here is the video where you can hopefully observe the nature of the climb.

High Step

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:12:00 +0000

This is an excellent climb if you enjoy crimps, lockoffs and can bring your foot high. The climbing is not terribly dynamic as long as you can commit to a throw to the lip off a slopey edge. This climb is relatively sustained; there are very few truely easy moves. The only easy moves on the entire climb is probably the first move and the third. The cruxes are probably the high step and getting out of it, and then shortly afterwards a very long lockoff to a very slopey edge. But I am happy to say that it is not very height dependant as it has seen ascents from 5'3" to 5'9".

Here is the video.

The Barndoor Boulder

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 21:54:00 +0000

A standard V9 with a tendancy towards edges but certainly not something I would call crimpy. A line mostly inspired by the desire to link as many of my new ETCH Watermelon holds as possible. Watermelon because they are from different sets but came in the same color. This would be suggested to someone wanting to break into a solid V9 without a very paticular style, not overly crimpy, powerful or tension based. It is some suspense moves, a hard barndoor move and then a touch of spice to the top. You do a few nice intro moves with a touch of power and tension, then you swing your feet far left onto a good jib and execute a difficult barndoor move to a flat red 2tex edge. From there you stand to the Teknik Creamsicle, pull into a bad undercling pinch then grab a flat edge and jump to the top.

Here is the video.

Grip A and Grip B

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:15:00 +0000

This is a very important post about what I believe far too many coaches and climbers neglect; grip positions. To simply state my thesis up front; I firmly believe that one should grip edges in only one of two ways; Grip position A or Grip position B.

Here we have grip position A.

This is the most powerful way to hold an edge.

One should keep in mind that whenever you are setting up for a powerful move or a hard lockoff, or really some sort of movement that is near your limit, the hand that you are moving off of should generally be in Grip position A.

Here we have Grip position B.

This is a very versatile grip which serves a number of functions, one of which is to prevent people who think Grip A is too stressful on the fingers from bitching at me.

Essentially the main purpose of this grip is increased tension and to a smaller extent some energy savings. This grip should be much more commonly used on steep walls and on very poor edges, or those where the danger of dry firing may be high.

The basic logic behind Grip B is to address the weaknesses of Grip A. Grip A requires more energy, pulls in one direction, and one cannot really do a move pre-Gripped A. Grip B is really the more dynamic grip. On dynamic moves and deadpoints one should hit edges in Grip B.

First off it is easy to hit a hold immediately into Grip B. On this note it is easy to explain some of the tension element. So on a dynamic move on the steep, you move up at the hold, your fingers connect on the hold and your body then starts to move away from the wall, right as you hit the hold your thumb should engage into Grip B, which then resists the outwards sag of your body. I think it is pretty easy to see and most people would agree it is pretty absurd to hit a hold in Grip A, if you have a video of someone going for a hold with their thumb over their fingers before on the hold please share. It is possible I suppose but completely loony.

Most people then of course hit holds open handed or half crimped without the thumb; like when climbing on campus rungs. Hitting holds without the thumb is of course very easy to do but is neglecting a very strong digit and a very high force generating grip. When actively using the thumb you have a greater chance of staying on the wall. This also will help keep your feet on as it prevents your body from moving away from the wall.

The other important and even more neglected use for Grip B is as the lower hand when the upper hand starts to connect with the next hold. In this case it is used for the same general reason; increased tension in the outwards dimension. So this is the very crucial to the steep A to B Flip. You power off a hold in Grip A and as your upper hand starts to connect on the next hold your lower hand should flip to B to help it, and your body stay on the wall. This is even more relevant if your feet cut as in this situation the lower hand will be doing next to nothing if it is not in Grip B.

And as a detail alluded to earlier, Grip B is superior on holds that you may be afraid of dry firing off of, or very poor side pulling edges. When you are in Grip A on a very poor edge you may be applying too much force in general and certainly too much force straight down. Grip B will force you to spread your weight over a slightly larger surface area on your fingers and will be applying pressure to the bottom of the hold with your thumb. This is even more relevant to very poor side pulls where if one attempts to straight A them there is too much downwards force for your hand to stay securely.

In this video you can see the B-A-B flip. Although in this particular shoot my hand cuts, but you get the idea.

And here you see a better example of hitting something with more speed in B and then flipping to A. The third to last move to the pale blue, but there are some good flips on the bottom as well but they are harder to see.

I believe that this is a very large part of training that is very neglected. I am not perfect and I am sure if you go through my videos you can find some poor grip positions. But I try to climb on edges using only these two grips. Essentially the two biggest problem most people have climbing this way is that they either overuse Grip A, or they climb half-crimped but neglect the thumb. There is no advantage to climbing without the thumb pinching the bottom of the hold (Grip B). I am aware there is some argument that training with the thumb over the finger(Grip A) is bad because it is simply a crutch for your fingers. I would say that you should train in a way that you climb and that if you never train Grip A then you will be unprepared for it outdoors. But climbing without using the thumb at all is a waste and not superior in any way that I can think of.

Grip A delivers maximum strength on a hold. Grip B is for energy savings and increased tension.

If your look at a lot of the really strong climbers like Daniel, and I think the biggest exponent of Grip A and B; Jon Cardwell (Lots of fantastic A B action between 1:10 - 1:40). You see that they do not frequently half-crimp without the thumb. That is a lazy grip.

I think keeping in mind these two grips and using them as exclusively as possible will certainly make you a stronger better climber. It is one of my most important pieces of advice for those who are looking for some.

None of this applies to route climbers.

Red Hornytoad

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:20:00 +0000

The long, physical, feature testpiece. I had originally done the Boss encouter with an amazing Floating Iron Cross move, but sadly feet first seems to work. Daniel recieved the FA very shortly before putting up the Game in Boulder Canyon.

FA: Daniel Woods

Other Ascents: Paul Robinson

Best and Worst Hold of the Week 2

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 02:15:00 +0000

Old Comfy Crimp and Lippy Crimp

This week I will review two very basic looking positive crimps, one shaped very well and the other not so well.

First up for our Best Hold of the Week we have this black, well aged, E-Grips Comfy Crimp. The E-Grips line of Comfy Crimps is an old school classic that is still very much in production and is essential to any overhung wall. Throughout E-Grips' history, I, personally, am aware of three generations of texture: Old Exfoliating, Old Glass, and Modern. Between the Glass and Exfoliating textures I am not actually sure which is older, the Exfoliating generation is however much more common in CATS compared to the Glass generation. The Comfy Crimp that is featured here is a member of my favorite generation of the three; the mythical glass generation. Having a hard glassy surface has a number of advantages. Because the surface of the hold is not very porous it does not get shoe rubber or chalk embedded in it, the hold can get chalk stuck onto the surface, but with a proper brushing it is as good as new. I will not restate all of my texture points made in the previous post, but it is also great to be able to pull hard on these holds for hours and days without any wear to your skin. I am not even entirely sure why holds are not this texture now, perhaps they chip easier.

Now onto the shape. Once again I apologize for not having posted a Grip A and Grip B blog post yet. For now just know Grip A is full closed and Grip B is what is pictured to the left. It is very easy to shape a hold which feels fine for a full closed crimp, it takes much more subtlety to shape a good Grip B. But this crimp does a great job. Sometimes Grip B works well simply because there is enough texture for the skin to grip the bottom of the hold well. But it is much cooler and more motivating if there is actually micro-features that you are pinching. Micro-features here are quite crucial as mentioned earlier this hold has very little texture. So the subtle little divots in the hold actually play an important feature in making the hold a pinchable edge. The simplest reason though perhaps that I like this hold is simply the way the actual grab of the hold is shaped. This may be somewhat subjective, but I really love gently rounded incuts. I am known for loving razors and such but really my favorite holds are rounded edges with a very small incut in the back. In the case of this hold the incut is quite large, but it is the same idea. These holds allow you to hit the edge with quite a lot of speed without hurting your fingers, there is no edge to catch on your pad, there is no texture to grate your skin. In addition the sides of the hold are in effect "open" which make the hold much more versatile as a side-pull of gaston, I will discuss how some holds fail to take this into account shortly within this post. In summary this is very positive friendly hold that is great on the steep and can be used anywhere from V4 to V11 or to VGodKnowsWhat if turned aggressively enough.

Now we move onto the worst hold of the week. An overly lippy, close sided, oddly lengthed crimp. First I will address a very obvious issue when you grab it. It is not really 4 fingers but feels odd to use 3. Because this hold was for some reason designed like a watering trough, if you put only 3 fingers in, your fingers sort of slosh around in the hold, there is not something in the back where you can bite into to hold your fingers in place. On the previous hold, if you decide to crimp for 3 fingers for the hell of it, you are fine as you can crimp down into the back of the hold. But this hold is designed completely differently. Like I just said, seriously this crimp is like a watering trough, there is a flat surface on the inside and a big lip surrounding it. You can technically fit 4 fingers in the hold, but it is not comfortable as your fingers start to want to break free of the stupid cramped urethane walls imprisoning them. If the hold was not close sided it can sometimes be ok to scrunch 4 fingers on a small hold as the pinkie may just barely wrap around the side of the hold or something along those lines, but with this design that is not possible. There are even more problems with this close sided design. It makes this hold extra uncomfortable if used as a gaston or side pull. This is because, lets say the hold is turned 55 degrees clock wise and is intended to be a left hand gaston, what ends up happening is that your pointer finger will be smooshed down onto the side lip that this hold has. So you will actually be pulling down onto the side of your finger, the same thing happens as a sidepull except with your pinkie. This is dumb for a few reasons. First this is very uncomfortable on your fingers. Secondly, thank God, there are not too many problems with down pulling slot crimps. This is what that type of pulling is replicating. I am not saying they are not out there, my first V9 revolved around a downpulling vertical slot/seam. But let me tell you they suck, massive blood blister on the side of my left ring finger for the exact reason I was discussing above; you are pulling down onto the side of your finger. Even for use as a foothold this closed design is useless and inferior. When the hold is rotated you either have to turn your foot oddly to toe into the good part of just edge on the stupid lip. I am not saying having bad feet is bad but I rather it be an actual bad foot not this weird standing on the side of a lip business. So we have now established that these holds are quite poor for sidepulls or gastons. But is it good for downpulling if you have either really small or really fat fingers? The answer still, impressively, is no.
Here is a slightly out of focus shot of the hold with my fingers on/in it. The pointer is dropped for a better view. It would be better if I had more photographs but I was having trouble shooting this hold. But one of the problems you should be able to see here. When you are established and pulling on the hold there is excessive contact from the lip of the hold onto random parts of your finger. I say random because where the lip is contacting your finger is not where you want to or can really pull from. This makes pulling on the hold actually quite painful as much of your weight hits low on your finger near your crease. An additional problem with using this hold even in a down pulling position is when you think about hitting the hold at speed. Basically you painfully catch that stupid huge lip on the crease of your finger. This causes not only stupid pain, but also potentially injury related pain as you can actually bruise your tendon/pulley, at least in my experience.

In summary big lips cause comfort problems, potentially will lead to more injuries and suck even harder if it is a huge closed lip. Rounded glass textured incuts are very versatile and can be trained on quite easily for a variety of moves and difficulties.

I will not post a Hold of the Week this coming week, but I will make a Blog post.

Best and Worst Hold of the Week 1

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 05:31:00 +0000

The Dolphin Pinch and the Duck Pinch

To start things off with this series I decided to pick two holds which I have a fair bit to say about and that contrast well together. This is also a good example of an ancient CATS style hold, a Straight Up, beating a modern Teknik hold.

First, above, we have the Best, the Dolphin Pinch, dubbed by Ryan Silven, as it looks like a Dolphin. More importantly to this disscusion as I am not holding this hold superior due to the superiority of dolphins over ducks, is the fact that it is textured like a dolphin. One of my least favorite things about climbing at the Spot and Movement, is the fact that my skin may often give out before my fingers. It gives you the standard "gym skin" that you get from almost all gyms, the textured holds eat away your skin(and shoes), and climbing on it for multiple days leaves your fingers pink and purple and out of shape for anything outdoors. Also, quite importantly, it is better to grip a hold than have a hold grip you. Textured holds are not as good for training on multiple levels; bad for your skin and requires less crushing strength. The shape of this hold is also quite pure and versatile. As you can see the hold is in a position for the right hand, in this position the finger side is the smaller side, a way that I frequently like it, which emphasizes the pinching crushing nature of pinches. If I want to train fingers I will climb on crimps. But at the same time if you want, this hold can be rotated around to be used as a left as more of a slopey edge with a smaller thumb catch.

In summary this is a great hold as it has perfect texture and is thin in a sense which makes it hard but also slopey not a thin edge like pinch. It has been recently used to make "The Dolphin Pinch Problem" which I will feature soon.

And here, to the left, we have not "the" but "a" Duck pinch. Duck pinches are a title that I came up with to describe this stupid style of slopey pinch that hold makers continue to make for some reason. I hate pockets, but I understand that strangely some people want to climb routes, and then stranger still; routes with pockets. So I get that they are a specific grip that some people would like to be strong at. The Duck pinch grip however has no such rationale. They are not a specific type of grip ever encountered outside and do not make you stronger in any way. Training Duck pinches does not even necessarily make you stronger at Duck pinches. Essentially one can train edges, slopers and pinches(and I guess pockets). But if you take someone who trains on slopers and pinches and someone who trains Duck pinches and then have some sort of hideous duck pinch competition, the Duck Pincher will lose. But now perhaps I have gone to far without illustrating the Duck Pinch Grip.

Here you can see my hand gripping the hold.

My hand looks like a duck. As if my hand is saying "quack quack"

This is a Duck pinch.

You can detect Duck pinches at your home gym by simply squeezing a questionable pinch. If your hand looks like a duck, it is a Duck pinch and should be removed with the greatest of haste.

Duck pinches are stupid as you can not really utilize your thumb to pinch it but at the same time you cannot just hold it like sloper. Yes they can be meat wraped but lets not even go there.

But you may also be asking "Hey what if you just pinch it like a normal skinny pinch? The same way you hold the Dolphin pinch."

Well here is a picture of the grip in question. I can explain why this doesn't work slightly but you may have to go and try this at home to fully understand. As you can see there is a great deal of plastic between the point of contact and the edge of the hold. This means through that due to the terrible duck slope of the hold that if you try to actually crush and pull off of the hold this way two things may happen: one your hand will slide off the hold, or two your hand will collapse into the above Duck pinch position. Gripping it properly simply does not work well. It is like if you take a proper sloper like the ETCH Egg or something worse would be an even better example, like the slopey side of the ETCH Breastplate, and try to crimp it, it does not really work; it either feels like shit(the Egg) or literally does not work(the Breastplate).

Hopefully now you may understand why I hate Duck pinches, and why slopey non-textured pinches emphasizing thumbs are excellent.

This is my first post of the series so please let me know what you like and do not like.

It's Alive

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 04:30:00 +0000

Well instead of an update telling you that there will not be updates, I have good news that I am going to start trying to put some time into the site again. I am still working through some ideas, but I will first off start posting videos and problems again, although I am not sure about the picture guides. Secondly I am going to start a blog series "Best and Worst Hold of the Week", where I feature two holds and explain why I love and hate them. I can promise some other blog posts as well regarding grip positions, holds vs. movement, and others. I of course cannot fill you in on all the news that occured but I will just start things off again with what has been happening recently.

For some news in a slightly familiar vein for those who visited the site previously, my friend Sasha Diguilian made a very impressive flash ascent of LaSportiva, this is the first female flash, something along the lines of 3rd female ascent and a rare flash for either gender. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that she had never been in CATS before and could not even make out the stickers so I actually had to point it out as she went.

Outside of the steep we definitely have a newest hardest climb usurping Keen Extension and Red HornyToad. It was set by myself and Ryan Silven and lacks a good name, not that we ever have "good" names in CATS. I suppose it will just be refered to as the V15/16, or perhaps in true CATS form; OrangeRedYellow as that is the crux sequence. Enough holds have changed since my old photo database that I cannot highlight the holds, I can take new pictures but I no longer have access to the quality camera that I did. But given that this is the first or second hardest climb in CATS I will take pictures next week to put up in the guide section. I will try hard to get footage of Daniel doing it, but not sure when he will be around and it took him three days so it is not on the circuit yet.

That is all of the news for now. But I will start updating again. So tell your friends and check in for new posts here, in the blog, and on the Vimeo Channel.

Current Status

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 02:30:00 +0000

Hello, I know it has been awhile since much of anything has happened on this site, but I thought I would give an update on what is going on. Honestly one of the main reasons there has not been allot of activity here is because there is too much activity on the walls. Since my last post, and more importantly since last I took photos of the walls, there have been innumerable changes to the walls. Most problems up on this site remain but some do not. But most all of the new problems being put are with holds that are not in any of my pictures. The photos of CATS were originally taken with my father's 15mp camera which allows for the detail needed. I do not currently have that on hand. So CATS Climbing as a guide is getting more difficult. I can still take video, and I have some video on the CATS Climbing video page that I have not linked to this site, but there is not really a great reason why that has not been updated in the past. In the present/last month or two, both sites have seen very little activity because I have been resting/nursing a tendon injury. It is now rested, and I discovered this last week, not healed at all. So I am not sure what my current climbing status is or will be in the near future.

So this is not a post promising more updates or a renewed energy in the site, but I thought I would let people know what is going on. CATS itself is as always literally better than ever with a plethora of new holds and problems. So I welcome everyone to come visit and if you need any help climbing there let me know.

Pure Crimps

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:02:00 +0000

A somewhat thin, very pure, short, crimp line. People find it to be painful, but the edges are not sharp at all, they are just very thin so it is more of a maybe bruising sort of thing. There is a pretty obvious small pocket crimp directly over the lip on the left side of the main wall, and just up and right of that a better more rounded crimp of the same series, from these two holds you do a jump to the large green Frank Loyd Wright jug, the right hand starts on a sand colored straight thin crimp of the same series as the crimps above left hand starts down and left on a grey and pink old crimp that is a very similar style to the right hand, you get the good red spike jib as a foot. The video is here http://vimeo.com/9300504

And for the request in the comments:

Start on two of the yellow circles(the razors I think) go to blue, come into green and jump to a jug? It will of course be hard to simulate without coming into CATS.

Recent Sends and Updates

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:59:00 +0000

As I am being increasingly bothered by people telling me to update the website, I will provide the latest and most important news. Daniel has finnally returned from Europe(but is now in Hueco) and had the new best day in CATS history flashing 3 V12s and a V13, he also FLASHED the first ascent of a new Razor Ladder V14 in the steep, and sent a V15 in the steep after maybe 5 tries, and that is the short summary of the night. In more recent news Alex Puccio made a very impressive first Female Ascent of Keen! She helped set the problem nearly 2 years ago and has tried it a few sporadic times since but had not put much work into it. The problem, perhaps unlike Clear Blue Skies, really comes down to sticking the very long cross through 2nd move off of a heel hook. To say Alex is in good shape would be an understatement, I am starting to wonder if there is any move with a heel Alex cannot do.

In other news although we have not gotten many new holds since my last post(Chris! Get in here!) we have continued moving many holds and making many improvements. I am right in the middle of drastically improving the steep wall. Things are certainly getting better and not just because they are different, but the cost is that there are some problems listed on the site here which are a bit different now. Not many honestly, but if you have any questions feel free to ask, or come in on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday.

Winter Holiday

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:56:00 +0000

Sorry again the site is going completely stale, but on the other hand no one seems to care. I have been very very busy with school work and as of late have not even been into CATS as much I would like. I bought two more sets of holds and Danielson threw in some extras, so the walls are just getting better and better, be sure to check out the steep. I suppose people have realised that my beta for Green Horny Toad is not the way and it has seen two more repeats to Andre and Paul. Besides the massive numbers of new holds not too much news as of now. I will be heading down to Hueco soon. Hope everyone enjoys their winter break.

Thanksgiving and New Holds

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:44:00 +0000

Sorry that there has not been a lot of activity on the site recently. I have been putting a little more time into school. Also things have been a bit dry on the video side of things, but good news is that my friend Gabor is doing a video piece on training in Boulder, similar to the Patxi section of Progression that will include a lot of amazing HD CATS footage including UNCUT footage of Campus number 5. More good news is that I with some help from Chris Danielson got 30 new E-Grips holds that are absolutely amazing! The steep is the most transformed, but lots of new holds around in general as some other holds have been moved around, such as the Death Star in a more usable spot and I liberated a nice Lunar Flat out of the steep. Seeing how much of a difference these holds made actually just makes me want more, so there will definitely be some new ones for Christmas as well. A difficulty this brings up is that my photographs for CATS are outdated now as the walls are a bit different. I will have to decide whether to take more pictures, or just rely on video plus me being there to show problems. What do you think? Do the guide pictures help at all or should I abandon them? Remember as always if you see me in there to just ask for problems.
I am leaving for Maryland tomorrow to go climbing at my old stomping ground of Earth Treks, CATS may be closed some of these days, sorry I do not remember the details, but just call in. When I return I will probably write another blog post regarding ET vs. CATS and the changes they created in my climbing.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Hard Ascents

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:39:00 +0000

Gabor Szekely and Paul Robinson have made a couple hard ascents this last week with Paul getting the second ascent of the crimp testpiece Keen Extension, and Gabor repeating Green Horny Toad for it's third ascent, after maybe a year drought of no ascents of the problem. CATS also recently gained an amazing new unreleased sloper on the lower section of the wall, that makes for countless new lines. Not too much else right now, I will try to get some more videos up this Friday unless I go to Joe's Valley.

Keen Extension

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:36:00 +0000

I finished up my 3rd project of the season with the first ascent of the extension to the Clear Blue Skies simulator Keen. Keen extension adds maybe a CATS V11 ontop of Keen, very very small holds and a big lock-off. Keen Extension will still get V13, as Keen is pretty low in the grade, the extension is high in the grade. In comparison to Clear Blue Skies, Keen Extension is a problem harder than CBS into a problem as hard as CBS. This is probably the crimpiest climb I have done in CATS based on the ammount of finger death I felt when I was done with it. I will add it into the guide when I have video of the send and I also do not have a good picture because it uses new holds I put up just for this climb. Still is looking for a second ascent!

In site news, I have added a steep V9 and V12 and a super classic campus problem.

The Doable Climb

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:24:00 +0000

A very good powerful and tensiony pinch climb out of the steep on fantastic pinches. I was trying to make climbs in the steep and was having trouble making climbs that could actually be done. But then I saw this amazing line which actually worked out to be V9, so I named it the Doable climb because unlike most stuff I was trying that day, it was actually doable. A really amazingly obvious line of pinches, strange I had not seen it before, here is the video: http://vimeo.com/7118084 for the finish you are supposed to do a fun little come in to the Bubble Wrap Tufa Pinch, and then match, slipped in the video, oh well. I will give one picture of the start to be clear but then it is pretty easy to follow from orange E-Grips mini jug, to blue Water Tufa, to pink Water Tufa, to Bubble Wrap Tufa Pinch, into Epic Taped ETCH pinch to the black ringer jug far out right.

The Small Holds Climb

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:04:00 +0000

Another steep crimping testpiece, most of the difficulty of this climb is due to the size of the holds. The movement between them though is also not trivial or just tick tacking up small holds, a very hard jump in the bottom to a very small hold to a pretty long cross through off meager feet near the end. Here is the video: http://vimeo.com/7118495 I actually tweak my finger a little bit in the video. The second move, I grab a crimp and start to close it, and if you watch closely it snaps closed strangely, which hurts my pinky and ring finger, strange. Here are pictures as though as it is hard to see exactly how the climb goes just by video. The pictures do not show the start; Start Organic/Petzl with a small blue jib down and left then go to first crimp shown etc.

First Ascent: James O'Connor

Other Ascents: Daniel Woods, Paul Robinson

Sloper Campus

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Slightly separate from Campus Numbers 1-5, this climbs up the main wall. The line was visualized by Jamie Emerson shortly after we got a bunch of cool new holds including two sick Teknik holds. Maybe the most tension oriented campus problem, the moves are only difficult because of the holds, not too much power involved. I actually flashed the line this summer which is why I feel I cannot call it V12, so far it has seen two other ascents but no flashes. Big hands could be a serious advantage if it allows you to pinch the holds, therefore eliminating the need for tension. Here is the video: http://vimeo.com/7050168 Should be a very obvious line with the video's help. 5.10 Taped Circle sloper, Big Blue, yellow teknik, purple Teknik edge, Egg, Jug. Quiet a fun testpiece.

First Blog post, Epic video, Organic.

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Not too much news. I now have video of Paul sending Epic up, and I have added the classic steep testpiece Organic into the V13 section, along with footage and my first actual blog style post in the Blog section of the site. Sorry I did not get video of left wall Keen up, but I have been fighting sickness. One thing of note is that there has been a strangely epic move linking all the lower Bubble Wrap holds, with a very awkward heel hook that had only been done by the heel hook master Alex Puccio. This move had been unrepeated for maybe a year until this Thursday when Andre De Felice stuck the move for its second ascent. The problem remains unclimbed.

Organic

noreply@blogger.com (James O) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:05:00 +0000

This last week I sent what has probably been my longest indoor project. And it reveals one of the most unique aspects of CATS which I think many have a hard time as seeing as being a positive feature, but I think is perfect for training and the way climbing in CATS works.

I set Organic only a few months after moving out to Colorado. I was psyched to set something hard, really hard, in the steep that I could work for years and that would make me stronger. When I was finished setting I was sure I had just set a V15 and there were numerous moves I simply could not do, the 4th move, the 6th move, the 8th move and the last move. As one of my favorite things in climbing is hard moves, right after I set it I worked it for a few weeks with Seth Allred, mainly trying the 6th move, off of the wood and to the pinch. We would hit the pinch and just swing off the climb. Eventually we learned how to hold a crazy circular swing for the move, and I did the other moves in a very low percentage manner. The especially frustrating one was the quite easy 4th move, everyone except me could easily do that move, it was just some non-square tension sort of move I really did not understand. Now that the moves had gone, and linking was still way out of my league, I gave the climb a rest for awhile. At some point or another Daniel returned from somewhere amazing and on his flash burn stuck the pinch with his feet staying. I was pretty mind blown, I had not even considered having your feet not cut. In another half an hour Daniel had the first ascent, and I realized the climb was probably not 8C and that I was very weak. At this point I think it is Spring 09, and I tried the pinch move again after a few months not trying. The holds feel good, I feel in ok shape, but for some reason I come off the problem completely differently and cannot repeat the move. Summer temps are setting in and I give the climb a rest again. Now that school is over and alpine season is prime, I spend 5 days a week in CATS and just climb climb climb. Late summer, the temps are not prime yet but I am curious and pull back onto Organic. All the moves feel easy, you just grab the pinch and tighten up, and somehow the mysterious bottom hard move is inconsequential, as it should be. After another month or so, as soon as the temps are out of the upper 70s low 80s, I hop on and narrowly fall on the second crux from the bottom and am soon falling post crux. This last Monday, I warmed up very briefly and pulled on. Every move just went perfectly, hitting all the holds perfectly with a new level of control. After 8 hard moves out of a 70degree(?) overhang I come to the last hold. This hold is complete shit, it would literally be a very very miserable crimp on a face that no one would use, even in CATS it would be one of the absolute worst holds on the main wall. You have to pinch it because if you crimped it you would just dry fire off because there is nothing to crimp on. None the less I simply pulled up to it, and with surprising lack of desperation stuck the flat brick Teknik finish hold. For me this was the end of an era. A little over a year ago I had set this climb thinking years of work and V15. Now it is done.

I am guessing that this is probably what it is like to send a project outside. A sign of progression, the end of a chapter, the next step.

This is something that is unique to CATS as far as gyms go, this cannot happen at the Spot or Movement. The purpose of this post is not to rag on other gyms, there is definitely an appeal to new set problems every few weeks or whatever. But CATS is about getting stronger, training, becoming a better climber. Being able to have actual hard projects is great way of measuring this progression and a great reward when you do get stronger. It is a great feeling when things are out of your league completely and then before you know it, the moves just aren't that hard anymore.

So I encourage you all to have projects and be dedicated. You won't get stronger doing climbs that are not hard for you.