Wideboyz Film Available For Download

We now have (through the medium of ultra-hi-tech internet wizardry) available the Wideboyz Film on download! I'd like to claim that I've put it up here because I'm so much more technically advanced than Pete... but no, it's because Pete now lives in a house full of Chinchillas and no internet connection. Sad, but true.

If you'd like to download the film in all it's glory - get the know the nasty world that revolves round wide cracks, macho posturing, Stevie Haston and wondergirl US wad Pamela Pack - then please click here!








If you're having problems with that link then try the raw link at:

http://www.digitalgoodsstore.com/c/udeRKd/7ZeILf

Enjoy!

What a Week! Newspapers and The Golden Piton Award

This last week has been a very strange one indeed. It’s been hectic, frantic and surreal – I’m not really sure if any of it has happened to be honest….

Dreaming of wide again?

Since coming back from the USA last year, there’s been loads of great feedback from mine and Pete Whittaker’s trip and it’s amazing to see (and hear) of some people that are now inspired to climbing some offwidths. God help your souls! Mostly, it’s been reassuring to be back in the climbing community talking the same old banter and getting grief off everyone for how bad my grading on routes is.

This week though, things took a turn for the more weird as an interview that I did with a journalist a few weeks back seemed to slowly seep from the woodwork. The London Metro said “Jammed in a Crevice” the Daily Mail said “They’ve Cracked It” [ha, ha, ha] and the Star stated “It’s Tough at the Top”. What made the popular media interested in this obscure niche of climbing, I really don’t know. Within just a few hours I was asked to do an interview with BBC Radio Sheffield and one for BBC News 24 – crikey, I thought – do they actually know what an offwidth is??!!

Daily Mail antics http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2098610/Theyve-cracked-Two-British-climbers-conquer-160ft-fissure-Utah-national-park.html

All in all, it was pretty good fun and I had an interesting insight into some TV and radio studios. I also found out that the Daily Mail comments pages are much funnier than UKC and that climbing forums are proper friendly bunch really. The fun hasn’t quite ended though, as both Pete and I have been asked to do something with Channel Five TV and I have a slot on BBC Sheffield this coming week at 10.35-10.55am (22nd Feb) if you’d like to hear about decisions that changed my life. Makes me sound old and past it?

Here’s the programme’s interviewer http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p001d7gs

Finally……………

Pete and I are very honoured to have been awarded a Golden Piton Award for crack climbing. I’m not totally sure what it all means, but with any luck I might be able to melt down the piton to make some ultra-soft RPs???

http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/features/2012_golden_piton_awards/index2.html

More Embarrassment? Wide Boyz Lectures

Yup, can it get any more embarrassing than standing up on a stage and talking about how I kept Pete warm at night with Alex's onions or how I got lost in Newcastle for an hour with two Satnavs?

How about this video of myself screaming for starters?

Rumours about Pete's underwear, what Stevie really thinks, unseen video footage, tales of Onion Power and more.

Lecture 1: Cambridge - 21st Jan + Masterclass on cracks
Lecture 2: Lutterworth (south of Nottingham) 31st Jan
Lecture 3: Shaff expert night - 23rd Feb
Lecture 4: Outside Hathersage - 31st March
Crack School in The Peak - 1st April. Surely a joke??! 


If anyone wants tickets for the 21st Jan date, email me and I can pass on details. All other tickets are to be sorted soon.... 

The Final Count and What's Next?

Now that we've finally settled back into the dampness of England and unpacked 42kg of size 6 Friends, it's time for some deep reflection, pondering and musing.........

Right, who needs a big friend? Going cheap.....

IS IT 'ECK!

Let's get the tick list out (for the geeks amongst us) and then work out what's next?

63 Days in the Wide Wilderness


Below is a list of what Pete and I climbed during our trip to the States, which includes some boulder problems (some of which were actually longer than other routes at Vedauwoo!). I've written it down in grade order, as making it chronological would require some level of organisation. I've left the original grades of the routes on, rather than the new suggested grades, for the sake of diplomacy.

(B) Denotes boulder problem - long or short and whether I felt like I would pass out or not...
(Sb) Denotes major sandbag - Scarpelli Style.

Oh God, not another list...

Century Crack                                                                    5.14b
Army of Darkness                                                               5.13d
Gabriel                                                                                5.13b
The Price of Evil                                                                  5.13b
Eight Ounces to Freedom (B)                                              5.13b
Simiantics (B)                                                                      5.13b
Angry Pirate Finish                                                              5.13a
Monsters Inc (B)                                                                 5.13a
Belly Full of Bad Berries                                                      5.13a
Lucille                                                                                 5.13a
Spatial Relations                                                                  5.13a
The Vag                                                                              5.13a
The Warden (B)                                                                  5.13a
Trench Warfare Extension                                                   5.13a
Witness The Wideness                                                        5.12d/5.13a
The Brad                                                                            5.12d/5.13a
Trench Warfare                                                                   5.12d
What the Big Boys Eat                                                        5.12c
On a Wing and a Prayer                                                      5.12c
New World Order (B)                                                         5.12c
World's Hardest (B)                                                            5.12b
Trip Master Monkey (Sb)                                                    5.12b
Squat                                                                                   5.12b
Brother from Another Planet                                                 5.12a/b
Big Baby                                                                              5.11b/c
Worm Drive (Sb)                                                                 5.11b
Big Pink (Sb)                                                                       5.11b
Torpedo Right (Sb)                                                              5.11a

There's probably a few I've forgotten there - and I'll have got a few of the grades wrong. It's all good though, because if anyone out there gets really psyched, all you need to do is print off this list, buy your self 7 pairs of shoes and 37metres of athletic tape!

What's Next?

That's the question that we asked ourselves many times over during the last 2 weeks of the trip. Mostly so far, it's been a mixture of doing interviews, magazine articles and preparing some lectures - which is all very normal and "back to reality." So..........................

It's time for some challenges again I think. Climbing Challenges. Nothing normal, nothing particularly sensible. Details coming up in the next blog post.

Wide Boyz Lecture? Roll up if you think you have problems. 

Goodbye and Thanks for all the Fish

It's a bit of a sad goodbye to the USA today - we have finally reached the end of our trip and there's no more climbing in store for us. We've had an absolutely incredible time, climbing way beyond our expectations and have met some really cool people along the way. Before we left though, we decided to check out one last offwidth project on the White Rim and also to do some easy (and nice!) climbing in Indian Creek.

The project down on the rim, looked incredible - it's a proper beast of a line. We'd found it on a drive a week before, but held off until we had a car and some skin grown back.We had enticed crack climbing specialist Mason Earle to come down to try the route with us an he seemed pretty pscyhed. Mason seems to have done 5.13+ cracks from tips to offwidth and seems like a really well rounded climber so we were excited he wanted to come with us. I think probably the offer of a possible first ascent on a pristine 50ft roof crack was something to do with it.....

Mason Earle on Witness the Wideness

Intially we had to overcome the problem of the Shafer Trial road that led to the climb being closed. After finding out we would get fined by the National Park Service for going down when it was closed, we took the risk and went for it. After 15minutes of trying to solve the combination on the lock, a talk with the ranger and a 75 dollar fine later we were at the route.

The climbing on the route is amazing and is split down into 3 sections. The first section involves a few thin hand jams and an invert into a squeeze chimney. The chimney then climbs like a shorter version of the sidewinder section on Lucille. This leads to a chimney rest then some de-Leavittation into a short section which climbs like the end of Gabriel. the final section is a bombay chimney with hand, fist and hand stacks in the back. All in all a pretty involved and varied route, with a number of invert squeezing techniques involved. To our surprise we all managed to tick the route one after the other in a period of about an hour.

Pete onsighting the FA of Witness the Wideness, 5.12d/5.13a

Even though the roof is pretty big and looks daunting the climbing on it is not so bad and most of it is restful, so its definitely a worthwhile route for anyone seeking out this sort of madness, or for anyone wanting a bit of a training route for harder ones like Gabriel. The access to the route is one of the easiest for the White Rim, so there is no excuses for not getting down there. From the ranger station in Canyonlands its no more then a 15minute drive - convenient for getting fined by the Ranger then!

Invert armbars - lovely!

Overall we reckoned it to be around 5.12d/13a, which might seem tricky to some, but for a 50ft offwidth roof its definitely not too bad.

After leaving the White Rim for the final time, headed over to Moab for a night's kip...... and guess who we came across??? Dave Simmonite, Mike Hutton and Martin Kocsis - the UK massive! The usual banter ensued, but most importantly, Dave gave me and Pete a quick lesson on photographic composition. Half and hour later, we were psyched. Yes...... RULE OF THIRDS!

Pete show's he's got what it takes in a photographer's world. Holy moly.

Saw an American using Dragon Cams.... short stem sir???

Ouellet, Ekins, Randall, Whittaker, Pack, Anderson & Kingsbury (c) Mike Hutton

Here is a google map of where 'Witness the Wideness' can be found.


View Larger Map

...and a photo of what it looks like from below

'Witness the Wideness' from below...get to it!