Higher and Harder

My obsession with Man on the Moon started with my ever growing love for taller boulders. Over the past two years i feel i have climbed alot of the high ball boulders that have been established at the New while also adding a few of my own. High ball bouldering is my favorite type of climbing. Something about being in the No fall zone and being able to remain clam takes me to a place that nothing else comes close to. When i first saw the Line it was considered a project in the old New River Gorge bouldering guide book. It seemed unreasonable to try and boulder it at first. Its A perfect 25ish foot face with good holds down low that lead to a blank section about 3/4 the way up followed by what look like jugs from the ground. The landing isn't exactly ideal. The farther up you go the more the ground slopes away, so 25 ft of climbing can turn into a 30 ft fall from the top which is border line soloing in my book. I finally decided last fall to rap the boulder and see exactly what the deal was.  The very first thing i noticed was that the top out was no joke. The lip of the boulder is just a large sloper with one thumb catch for your right hand. and above the lip where two small crimps 1/4 pad and 1/2 pad. I didn't really think to much about it i figure it was manageable and kept lowering. i got down to the blank section and I felt like it was pretty straight forward.  I was stoked . I rallied up about 10 pads for the first day and i decided that i would have to try and go ground up without trying any moves on the rope. I got completely shut down, it was way harder then i originally thought. I ended going back a few days later and worked out the moves on a single line while pulling rope as i was climbing. this wasn't an easy thing to do this boulder is steep and the holds are very small. i ended up having to get my girl friend Michelle to come out and pull me into the wall just so i could work the moves out. I figured out the top pretty fast. It ended up not being very hard just extremely technical and i felt like falling off the top was a good possibility if i was even a little pumped. That first day on the rope i never could quite do the crux move in the blank section but i still felt like i saw the way to do it. I felt like it was all about sticking that move one time and it would be over. I went back about a month later after some cooler temps came around and tried again. this time i was making it to the crux but wasn't even getting close to sticking the move. I ended up back on the rope that day just trying that single move over and over. i must have tried it 30 times that day. Then it happened I stuck The Move. I couldn't believe it . I yelled in excitement It goes i cant believe it goes. From that second on i knew i had to climb this boulder. I have to name my projects before i send them. for me its like my own little way to make it seem like its really a climb. If i call something a project to much it gets in my head that its to hard for me or i would have done it already. I figured standing on top of this boulder would be the closest feeling i would ever get to standing on the moon. Man on the Moon seemed fitting. I went back multiple times over the fall and even into the winter i spent roughly 10 days putting effort into it over a 4 month time frame

.  I couldn't try it day after day because i knew i would have to be at 100% or i could possibly fall off the top. One day while working it I ended up sticking the crux move and did the next move to the Jug. as soon as I hit the jug I realized that I was too pumped to do the top. I shook out for a few seconds on the jug and made two more moves to the lip and then I backed off I knew that if I would have tried the mantle I would have taken the worst possible fall and probably would have been really hurt. I had mixed feeling about that moment. I was happy because I knew that I could do it but I realized that it would take confidence to top this thing out. I knew that this boulder was very close to the limit of what I was capable physically but mentally I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to pull it off. I was scared to fall off the top. with no Health insurance I couldn't really afford a serious injury. I went back by myself and worked the top out into submission doing it over and over until I felt that there was no doubt in my sequence. I went back a few times after that and couldn't stick the crux again. I started to think that the time I bailed was my time and I let it slip away. It started to mess with my head. I wanted to climb this boulder so bad. I took about a month off from trying it i worked on my core my power and my endurance. I wanted to be in the best shape of my life for my next attempts . I was ready, i remember telling Michelle that morning that today is the day. i felt light confident and I wasn't putting any pressure on my self to send i was just going to go for it. i was either going to send or die. Click on the Link to My vimeo page to see the raw footage.https://vimeo.com/69916032



Photo taken by Pat Goodman