A Serious Idea About Bouldering

[actionhero]

I think mountainproject.com is the best database I've come across. And no, the FAist is not required, but often that info is unavailable or unclear. Frequently, however, if something gets posted without FA info, someone who knows will follow up and give a little background. Consensus quality and number grades.

But really your idea isn't a serious idea about bouldering, it's an idea about spraying. Sprayer.

[600#gorilla]

But really your idea isn't a serious idea about bouldering, it's an idea about spraying.

i'm coming around to the idea that spray

may be the fatal flaw of all guides and grades.

[toivo]

i sandbag. i admit it. it's a matter of modesty.

and then you get there and the problems astound and confound. inscrutable, what?

think of it as encouragement.

[Lox]

It's like depositing courage in an account your grandchildren can use.

[ScreamingMedic]

carpet roller since 2002 bishes

[toivo]

you should go to a place like North of Lake Superior, to see the billion square miles or so of boulders that no-one has or will ever climb once, much less twice. The mark you'd make is, like they say, pissing in the ocean.

Dude, There are so many boulders out there to climb coming along all the time, you don't have to worry about that, just climb, boulders will come.

let's be realistic. most people don't live near an endless boulder field.

for them, the Global Bouldering FA Database would add an extra dimension to the sport, to their local crag.

and if you're not into seeking and scrubbing, you'd at least be able to find cool stuff "not in the guide". you're being idealistic.

bug is right on this one. north shore of lake superior is untapped. basically zero development, except right around thunder bay. the rest of it is either ice or multipitch trad over the lake. but the boulders have been neglected.

the most obvious potential is at cape gargantua, jackfish creek, and pukaskwa. nice car camping, 5km beaches to oneself. some kind of boat would help access to island boulders (e.g picture island at pukaskwa) but the lake can easily kill you. also they're surfing up there now. global warming has made the lake swimmable.

i like the uncertainty of first ascents. you walk up to something, especially if it's an obvious line, and then try. last week, new schist, scooped overhanging fin up to roof, looks super easy. thinking 'maybe work the moves and come back with a camera for the top out'. for history and all. heheheheh. denied. the first ascent makes things more basic than egos and numbers allow.

in terms of the idea of a database, that would be a mission. it's a challenge to find out who did something first even within a local climbing ommunity. but maybe interesting to start asking those questions at a distance. i think people would generally like to have those kinds of questions asked of them.

[toivo]

potential firsts:

http://www.naturallysuperior.com/gallery-images/?g2_itemId=501

ok looking campsites.

[Lox]

Half the photos in that gallery are broken!

[toivo]

true. that's the kind of potential that you just hold off for the future. something for the imagination to get used to.

[toivo]

http://www.naturallysuperior.com/gallery-images/?g2_itemId=3409
completely off topic.