Isle of Skye, Scotland

Black Cuillin
Originally uploaded by .s.s.

I fancied some boulders in the Black Cuillin mountains, next to the sea and Glen Brittle. But as I approached the boulders, my mind had already wandered away from them.

I was excitedly watching the jagged, rocky peaks above appear and disappear with each passing cloud. I didn't even stop to touch the boulders as I passed by.

I walked higher. Past streams, waterfalls, and lochs. The grass, sheep, and wildflowers gave way to bare rock. I climbed scree, sliding with every step, until I reached a buttress of ledgy slabs.

The Gabro rock was very, very grippy. I scrambled towards the ridge above. Climbing the ledges was a succession of easy boulder problems that lead me into the clouds. Each passing cloud bringing a temporary white-out.

I mantled onto the famous Cuillin ridge and let out a gasp. The misty black and white world of the windward slope gave way to the technicolor world of the leeward side. The vivid blues and greens of the lochs, turf, and clear sky below were fresh. The exposure was invigorating.

I followed the ridge north over Charlie's Peak and up Sgurr Alisdair, the tallest mountain on the Isle of Skye. At one point I encountered a fully-equipped (harnesses, ropes, helmets, boots, rucksack) guided party of four that was being belayed down a steep section. They gave quite a look when they saw me rocking my slip on Vans, Dabtronics tote, and repping the Brooklyn hat! I smiled as I downclimbed through.

The climbing was V0 minus-minus-minus (5.5 tops). But moving over alpine rock completely unburdened of gear made me feel like a kid in a candy store. Alas, the Cuillin are such a civilized size that by nightfall I was just another adult in the pub.

Magic Pond at Pawtuckaway

I went for a hike into the center of pawtuckaway to find the magic pond boulders. I took some pictures and searched around for more rocks. There are some nice big boulders out there with many clean crack lines. a number of more difficult lines too. The thin overhanging seam looked real hard but possible. THe tall face in the bottom picture has a cool line of crimps moving up and left from the big block start... the end will be tricky though. I haven't explored all the way around the pond yet. The bugs were getting too heinous, I'll return in the fall.

New Bouldarz in Dacks.

Worth explorin'? Mayhaps, Mayhaps.

Fat Bonsai FA

Izzy is walking!

Fat Bonsai from EM on Vimeo.

The Concave

Sport Climbing in Little River Canyon, Alabama.
More pics to come, yay-er!


The Price is Right


Word Up

Private Muscles

From the archives.

Old summer dabbin... from EM on Vimeo.

Siblings reunited!

toddknopke.com

Who's afraid of Poison Ivy?

Iron Lion
Originally uploaded by ericmonasterio.
Three Star Crack
Originally uploaded by ericmonasterio.

Some images from late spring.

Little River Canyon, Alabama

Heyheyhey, Dabbers!

I finally made it to the Little River Canyon two weekends ago. Its getting brutally hot down here, but I lucked out that weekend. It was actually supposed to rain but it held out so the clouds ended up providing good shade, w00t! Yesh, weather-gods are out-run once again, muahaha!!!

So the Canyon is actually a legit National Preserve. Vurry wild once you descend into it, managable once you get there; however, there is no published guidebook for the area. Very cool drive up to the top of the preserve, but very easy to get lost if you don't know where you're going. I'm psyched to do more climbing up there and check out the other walls, and I heeeaar that the water bouldering is plusplus. Most of you have probably heard of the Concave, yes? I'm not even going over there until it cools off and I lose some of the slothy-fatness.

I had to get back to the city early so I was only able to climb at the Unshackled Wall. DOPE. This place is sooper good, great lines, great rock, and STEEP, STEEP, STEEP. Must get stronger. Here's a couple of "Iron Mike", steepest 12a in the Canyon? REALLY COOL BLOCKY features (actually reminded me of the gunks a bit, like the last half of Gelsa but on roids or something), good holds, steep with the cruxy move 2 bolts from the end. More to come once I procure the pics.






Iron Mike photo credit : Samy Kunze

It nears...

dabathon is coming...
Originally uploaded by ericmonasterio.

dabathon! More to come...

flying rican

finally rabid

rabid wolverine from todd knopke on Vimeo.

ROCKTOWN : 2 Classics

Hey Daaaabbbbers!!

Took a study break late last night and decided to start a video.

Never a good idea when I need to get work done. Hah! Stayed up till the wee hours of the morning to finish this. I don't know if you guys have met Mr. Ben Gerhardstein, he's done some time up in the northeast (RI&Midwest), currently he is an ATL resident / local strong-mo / beer enthusiast dirtysouthbeerclub / among other things. Soooo, here's a short one of him cleaning up 2 Rocktown classics in a day. Yay-er!!



You lose out on the draw this time, Vimeo! Waiting on line...ppppfffttt!! Vimeo has been essentially a none-functioning sight for me now. Is anyone else having that problem?

Oh! Also, anyone wanna hook a dabber up with a copy of iMovie?! My is buggy as hell, many features don't work and my comp is too crotchety for fcp. Anyone? W00t!! Hope all is well out there!

-CHL

Valentine's Day Massacre : Round 2

After being introduced to VDM and Sandrock the previous week (Round 1 blow-by-blow) , psyche was high and I returned to Centre, AL with Mr. Tommy Calhoun the following weekend. We didn't really discuss the game-plan for the day but it was silently understood that we would be returning to the "Valentine's Day Massacre" at some point in the day to give it a good -GRRRRRRR!!!- and try to send the thang.

More pics to come, but in short TC put it down quickly and I followed suit 2 burns later; however, I did not send without getting a good 'ol fashion scare. Hah.

After successfully pulling thorough the crux moves, you encounter a reachy move out left to a good crack. For me, it was a move requiring a bit of OOMF that's not quite static nor too dynamic...I didn't go dynamic enough. Stalled JUST short of the crack, probably by a couple centimeters as shown in the first picture. My hand was there for a couple seconds as I tried to crank it out that little bit. Alas, I had not teh juice and I went for quite the ride.....



In retrospect, the picture above makes me cringe a bit. Rope-behind-the-leg. AH! Tunnel-vision/pump/desperation i guess, hahaha. Also, I REALLY wasn't planning on skipping the bolt that was by my stomach but I think my bouldering mentality kicked in and I just started gunning. I had also played it out it my head and knew that I could skip it and most likely avoid a ground fall. This conclusion was helped by the fact that TC had my belay so I knew I had a good catch. Sorry bout that Mr. Calhoun. Hah! Well, here's the rest of it....





Living to tell the tale, eh? Haha, the fall wasn't as heinous as it may seem. My leg getting tangled in the rope helped slow down the fall quite a bit and i was able to spot the rock and get my arm out in time. Walked away with very minor injuries. Some rope burn and bruising but I've had much worse. I rested for about 15 min. to depump and ride out the crazy adrenaline-shakes. Snagged the redpoint on the next burn. Yay-er.

Valentine's Day Massacre / 5.13a
4th ascent: TC. 5th ascent: CHL

P.S. - Thanks for the catch Mr. Calhoun! Also, Dabbers get down here sometime and run some laps on this thing!!! It is quite gooood! ++ Pic 1 by Jason Plemmons and fall sequence by Kelly Dalton. w00t!

Dabathon III

Yuki mIm
Originally uploaded by ericmonasterio.

Is it a go? When? Who's in? Need a bike? Rain alternatives? Let's hear it.

90 degrees and rising

With no transition, summer arrived in NC. 90 degrees yesterday and hours of bushwhacking made for a miserable day. We found one gem on the creek and some other promising roofs, but good luck, this is full on jungle warfare bouldering.

From bouldering

From bouldering

Deer Crack

In Raheem's back yard lurk many large boulders. Many are choss. Others, like this one, are bullet. We were out searching and followed some deer to this spot. We cleaned and climbed several lines. Here's a V4+ / bass inspired video of the beautiful crack line. WoOT!

Deer Crack from EM on Vimeo.

Climbing With tEh Ropz

Whattap dabbers?!?!

So, bouldering season is winding down for me. And for the first time I think I am going to try and put some serious effort into some sport-styley climbing. There seems to be a good bit of quality sport areas down in the southeast. I never really had the motivation to check them out until now. PSYCHED!

Currently, I've only checked out Foster Falls and SandRock, located in Jasper/TN and Centre/AL, respectively. Here is a shot from Foster Falls, really aesthetic area. The waterfall was raging due to the rain we've been getting lately and the river runs down a small valley alongside the cliffband. Vur Nice!

Here's a route called "Ethnic Cleansing". Super cool problem, I'm sure all yous-guys would be psyched on it / crush it. Has some bouldery moves for sure, even a jump out of a roof to a jug seam! Blind toss for me, yay-er! So much fun. Will have more pictures up on flickr soon. Hope all is well out there!

*EDIT - Foster Falls Set for a few more shots, with notes.*

Whiskey Run!

Proudness
Whiskey Run! from EM on Vimeo.

SLIDER

Whattup Dabbers?!?!

Here's a short vid from a day out at HP40. I think from sometime late Jan. or early Feb.? Some of you met Mr. John Hur when we were at LRC this past southtronic trip.

Well, here he is crushing Slider, an HP40 classic. Yay-er!!


Slider - HP40 Bouldering from Redcrashpad on Vimeo.

Big Linkage

I was just cruising the new website of one of my favorite artists and to my surprise I saw a link back to DABTRONICS!
Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!
tomsachs.org/links

dabathon! the question?

May 9th and June 20th? {the true solistice is on a sunday, so I figured people might want to do a saturday instead}
who is in?

DABATHON! (The Movie)

Here is some motivation for the Spring Dabathon.

dabathon 2008 from EM on Vimeo.

Yikes!

GK and I drove up to the Gunks yesterday for a good old fashioned carriage road session. lots of problems went down, but I only took my camera out once or twice. Here are some action shots of Yikes featuring GK and the crew we hooked up with.

droitdroitdroit

From bouldering

saturday was good. looking forward to rejoining such sessions full-time in april...

patones

it's been a long time waiting but i have finally made my way to some insane rock 45-60 min. outside of madrid. with the help of adam and heidi, more krushing should be done soon.

patones...
a plethora of insane juggy and fingery sport climbs staring from IV's all the way to 9's. it's the beginning of the season and leading in the high winds and strong sun was a different experience. 20 foot rocks felt exposed and warm sun became chilly from the wind blasting your face and body; but nonetheless, still a balmy 65 degrees. barely any chalk was needed for the gnarly deep pockets that chews up fingers.
Little and big potholes along the routes made holds present yet disappear once you move off of them. There is even potential for some trad; but may not be worth the effort for the overall heavily bolted cliff with climbs separated only by a foot.

the climb in the picture has 7's to 9's. and i wait patiently for dab crew to run up it. hopefully by then the winds die down and the biner's don't fly in the wind. But even still many more climbs and full day of fun can be done.

the season is getting fresh. the beta is being built. i climb and i wait.
(more pictures on flickr)

Slam Dance

Highbridge Dirt Jumps from The Supermarket on Vimeo.

i haven't been climbing because my finger is screwed up. so i went out and bought a bmx bike.
i found this place up by the cloisters with a dirt jump park. it's so sick. so i'd been throwing myself at the big ones. awesome. success. this was the first day out of 3 that i have been able to clear them. i was cruising them. wiping my hiney with the rear tire. then i bailed. first time wasn't so bad. was caught leaning back too far on the first kicker and the rear wheel hit first and the bike shot out from under me and every joint cracked in unison upon impact. nothing serious. redeemed myself by hitting them again and again. i started to gettin' good. sun was going down and i was getting ready to call it a day but it was too much fun to stop and it's suppose to snow tonight. started pedaling at the first one and i knew before i hit it that i wasn't going fast enough. nose dive to slam dance and that was it for me. my wrist got jammed and it's super stiff and sore. might take some time for this thing to heal up... cause it feels broken.

Moore's Wall

From bouldering

From bouldering

From bouldering

From bouldering

Just another Sunday south of Mason-Dixon...

Boone, NC

From bouldering

From bouldering

From bouldering

From bouldering

From bouldering

Introducing dabtronics NC. These people mean bidness, and on this front I will let the photos speak for themselves (though not of the highest caliber in terms of composition or quality). Strong peeps down here. Projects were begun that only time will keep from sending. I keep telling you fools to get off yer asses and make a dabtronics mid-atlantic trip. Giant blocks hidden in the forest, projects ripe for yankee poaching, stout and aesthetic climbing at all grades, beautiful stone (imagine a state full of PGC), cheap accomodations, strong and humble locals, 50 degree winter days, BBQ, and the state even went blue in the last election. Need I state my case any more vigor?
More updates to come...

dirty dirty south....heeeeeee Ya!

click the photo to see more.

Central Park Goodness

EM sends Private Angel at Cat Rock.