Photos by bvb

jvb starts to work into the off-fingers crux at the lip of the B.C.O.F. This thing has a bad size for everybody...

In a hurry to pack up and get out to an unclimbed 18' roof crack in an area near Priest Draw, I tried to cut open a gatorade bottle with a $50.00 german high-carbon steel paring knife and wound up damn near cutting off my finger instead. Here I am four hours after my second surgery, indulging in a little frontier "anasthesia". Moral of the story? Don't Drink and Knife ;-}

Climbing at Big Rocks is all about big roofs on highly colorful bullet stone. This classic V5 roof charges 7' of full horizontal on letterbox pockets and sloping huecos, and is only one of the four problems that tackle this five star formation.

Curt belays some hottie at Nuevo, January, 1985. Check at all that hair!

Description: Another legendary California mystery hardman from the 70's and 80's, Rick's gig was soloing Woodson 5.12's and El Cap spook routes. Here's Rick leading the massive Undertow Roof at Mt. Woodson, circa mid 80's. Like many Woodson rarities and obscurities, it's likely this route has not seen a chalk mark in 15 years.

Actually, you gotta hike past the Manx boulders to get to this. And yeah, this is me in the standard pose from the standard angle of a standard V3 problem. But what the hell, we had a great time that day...we were bouldering with Peggy Oki, pioneering Skateboarder, member of the original Zephyr skate team, soul sister watercolor artist, and, after a week with us, a fully transformed hard-core boulderer. Chalk up another one for the pebble wrestlers!

Of all my way-too-many not-quite-flashes, 23 years later this is one of the tragic near-misses that still stings. On my very first ever attempt at the Beaver, betaless and wearing tennies, I powered through dozens of ill-concieved and off-sequence moves, finally pumping off the big jugs on the VERY LAST MOVE. Please God, someone just shoot me.

In the early 80's, NOBODY had the Stem Gem more wired than Mikey (aka Vawto, aka the Watusi). Barefoot, backwards, in the blistering noontime sun, and he could camp out there for hours. Just another mid-week bouldering sesh in the Monument...

J-Tree. '86. The typical scene outside our truck early in the morning. Bruce, the original climbing t-shirt kingpin and inventor of the first bouldering crashpad, is clearly in desperate need of java. Jocelyn, however, has obviously had too much. This ain't no #$@*% wienie roast, babe...

jvb on yet another airy, standard-issue 25-footer woodson highball: the robbin's crack. if you think the ropeless trip up is scary, better put on the diapers for the descent -- downclimbing the crack! photo shot back in march, 1985.

Back in the day, only a handful of American female climbers could boast this kind of buffed-out rip. Sharon was one of 'em. After a steady, multi-year diet of 5.11 and 5.12 cracks, big walls, french limestone, alpine epics, hard bouldering, and multi-month road trips, she had some serious cut. Here she is in her prime, Spring 1987, warming up on some generic Jtree mega-classic...guess the route!

bvb pauses for a brief refresher in the lodge parking lot after a killer day on the crags, summer of '77. wish you were here...

Somehow we conned Dick into watching our 4 month old while we dashed out to Hammond Pond for a quick sesh. He's actually a pretty good babysitter, as long as you keep him amply supplied with Old English 800.

Round about the late '70's, on what must of been our 50th ascent of this route, Alan (Pywiac) dropped the belay rope just long enough to snap this photo. I didn't notice, 'cause I was zeroed in on the upcoming runout on nickles and dimes...the Friend on my rack was a just-past-prototype unit that alan brought from Jardine for $18.00 bucks...what a rip-off!

Yosemite Valley, Spring of 1986, and the lovely Jocelyn Van Belle is inches away from ticking her first 5.12 flash on Peter's Out, an old Croft route established in 1979.(Jocie's on a TR though -- lose style points for that, I guess.) You can tell by the look on her face that she is zeroed in on those tips jams with laser-like focus. And she's looking pretty damn good, I'd say, for someone who hasn't showered in two weeks. My wife...I think I'll keep her.

Here's Jocelyn on, like, lap number 8, trying to bust the record for the most consecutive solo laps on Jaws back in 1985. Can you spell wired? 18 years later, and she can still huck laps on the sucker like it's a 5.6 slab, despite the fact that this inch-and-a-quarter ankle-breaker has a bad size for everybody. Me? I wanna Top Rope. Go figure.

Underground hardman and archetypal all-arounder John Wason geckos his way through the insecure stemming and palming on this most classic of all J-Tree classics.

Tom Lindner hiking Stairway To Heaven, winter of 1985. During this era, Tom held undisputed King of the Hill status, and had a solo circuit that consisted of about 15 or 20 V4 - V6 "boulder problems" that averaged 30' high and featured no-nonsense "Game Over" landings. To this very day, Tom defines the term Hardcore.

Jocelyn putting the smackdown on Starving In Stereo, 1986. At the time, Starving vied with the Lie Detector for "Hardest Climb At Woodson" status. Either way, you knew for damn sure that you'd better bring some tape...

Scattered among the old-growth poderosa pines in the Hankry Mountains of Eastern Utah are the Western hemisphere's finest nuggets. Bullet rock, sandbox landings, and a low-key scene that will have the most high-strung climbers taking afternooon naps. Have at it, grommets.

After working the route in miserable, wet, on-and-off snow conditions for two weeks in February and March of 1988, I had the match wired and was getting to the lip every time. Six or seven bad slappers from the mantle dimmed my enthusiasm a bit, and in late March the frikkin' Park Service transferred me to Boston. Haven't been back to the Valley since. After 15 years, it's probably time, eh? With pads, spotters and decent shoes, who knows...?

Your humble poseur, uh, I mean poster, on the second ascent of the elusive and mysterious "Bachar Cracker Of New England." After I conned Sherman into the mandatory six-hour deforestation project required to clear the lip-and-slab topout, he bagged the first ascent(sonofabitch!) and I jetted up first thing the following spring determined to go full-on sendfest. To my knowledge, Verm and I have the only two ticks, but by now ya gotta figure the Franconia homeboys have been keeping busy on it...New England climbers, can you correct me on this?

80's crackmaster jocelyn van belle running multiple solo laps on jaws, at mount woodson, winter of 1985. she did the route about nine times this day with nary a gobi...

Anonymous hardman (aka bvb), in full mid-70's hairfarmer mode, hiking an obscure V6 Woodson highball, circa 1978. But enough about the route and the burly skill clearly in evidence...let's check out those threads! for today's bouldering outfit, our hero, clearly willing to take the most outrageous fashion risks, will be sporting a pair of Haines long underwear, neatly paired with a "tighty whitey" wifebeater tank top and cleverly accesorized with a pair of dainty powder blue corduroy shorts. grey sweat socks provide a firm anchor for the loose cuffs of the long undies, ensuring they don't ride up on those big woodson high step moves -- an often feared fashion faux pas to be avoided at all costs. rounding out today's sporting ensemble will be a length of green 2" tubular webbing, cleverly color coordinated with bob's green RR's (at the time, one of the few available alternatives to eb's) and a home-made chalkbag supported by a $2.35 cent eiger oval beaner looped through the webbing. yes ladies and gentlemen, fashion-forward style sense like this comes along once in a generation...thank god...

A sixteen year old mike paul soloing this venerable woodson highball testpiece in tennis shoes. 1977, no spotters, no spectators, and WAY pre-pads. What this photo does not show is that Mike's already ten feet up, with twenty feet to go, and a quarry of ankle busting blocks litters the route's base. Bouldering the way it was, way back in the day...immaculate technique and nerves of steel had to substitute for pads, spotters, and dreams of sponsorship...