u/Kaotus

I won’t be spraying every episode on here, but wanted to highlight this episode as it’s with a member of our own community here and recent winner of the route/boulder of the month club, /u/over57boulderer!

Bouldering development is heavily overlooked on this subreddit despite likely being the most accessible and practiced form of development in climbing, so we sat down with Todd to talk about what he’s learned throughout a lifetime of it. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

Wanted to get the opinion of folks here, I’ve been working on a new ~800ft alpine line this season. The wall its at previously was moderately popular, in that most times I was there there would be between 0-1 other parties distributed amongst its quarter mile face.

For whatever reason, this season, it has been getting shithoused. There were days where there were ~7 parties on a single line simultaneously.

Unfortunately, the new line I’ve been working on is striking distance to one of these newly hyperpopular lines. I’ve tried going at 4am on a weekday, afternoon on a weekend, on rainy forecast days (this is at 13000ft btw, so super not ideal. A group of 5 was struck by lightning and someone died this day) and I have no had a single day where I haven’t had another party on the line next to me.

I have had probably a collective 2 hours over 6 days of working where I’ve had a clear window to remove what little loose rock exists on the route. I had a situation yesterday where I just wanted to check if I’m an asshole or not.

Most folks will hike in from the top and rap in for this formation due to the nature of access to the wall. Yesterday a party walked up to the top and saw us trundling some large blocks as I had finally gotten a (what ended up to be 10 minutes long) clear window to knock them off. They offered to climb another route, and I told them I appreciated it but I’d be stopping trundling anything when their ropes got level with us regardless of which route they were on on this side of the wall, as we still had a lot of gardening and some hand-drilling to do in the meantime.

They went ahead and rapped the line directly below us, and almost immediately complained that there was still dirt falling on them. I reminded them we were still cleaning out cracks, so dirt was still gonna be falling (and also was standing in an ankle deep pile of dirt, so dirt was gonna be falling even if we stopped cleaning). They weren’t very happy and made some comments throughout the day which I ignored.

I just wanted an honest litmus test here, am I being an asshole developing at this wall at all? Should I be going in the middle of the night to do this? Should I discontinue any work as soon as someone gets to the wall, even if there’s no larger-than-usual risk of hitting them with something other than dirt, and I was there first?

It’s not super relevant at this point, the route is nearly done, but I’ve gotten some mixed feedback on this and figured I’d ask here.

I have been developing a new rock climbing area in a region surrounded by several world-class courses (Bucksnort, Beaver Ranch, Bear Mountain), and this area is no different in that I think it would be really conducive to a fun course. That being said, it's all USFS land, so any sort of permanent fixtures are a no-go.

I've been considering going out there and coming up with a course using a portable basket. Are there any courses like that with any sort of acceptance? If so, I'd be happy to actually put forth some good effort into properly documenting it so someone could replicate it themselves on a visit. If not, I'm happy to just rip it myself.

To enter, simply either comment here or message myself with your submission.

RULES:

• Submissions must have pictures, a name, and a general region (feel free to get specific, but just saying "British Columbia," or "Colorado," or "Greece" is fine too). Include as much detail as you'd like, any stories you have, etc.
• Submissions must either be NEW boulders/routes OR NEWLY REBOLTED routes. Sport, Trad, Boulder, Ice, Drytool - it's all kosher.
• Submissions must be submitted by the last day of the month to be considered for that month. Submissions should aim to be developed in the month they're being submitted in, but we'll allow some fudge factor. This is on the honor system, though

That's all! We'll likely be randomly selecting routes/boulders to feature with the caveat that any submission that's sufficiently rad may overule the random selection to be highlighted. Winning posts will get pinned at the top of the sub for the month. Looking forward to seeing what everyone has been up to!

I've been having more and more people say they're doing this or suggest I do it. Has anybody out here actually done this? Does it work? What sort of situations would you suggest it for?

Thanks for the submissions all! Courtesy of a delay in posting due to me being in the alpine yesterday, Todd got his submission in and it was randomly selected out of the 3! Also making it our first boulder of the month.

What Todd has to say about the line:

"The Lyon's Share V7

FA on June 9

1/4 mile from a very popular TH. Folks have looked at it before, but not been done. The base was "protected" by a nasty and big manzanita bush, which burned in the Caldor Fire of 2021.

As a bouldering FA, this is a dream problem, tall and slightly overhanging, climbs the only holds from jug start following an obvious line that ends at the apex. V1 intro to 2 move V6 to V4 scary match then easy moves to top out.

Even better was having the pin DM'ed to me from Jimmy Webb."

To enter, simply either comment here or message myself with your submission.

RULES:

• Submissions must have pictures, a name, and a general region (feel free to get specific, but just saying "British Columbia," or "Colorado," or "Greece" is fine too). Include as much detail as you'd like, any stories you have, etc.
• Submissions must either be NEW boulders/routes OR NEWLY REBOLTED routes. Sport, Trad, Boulder, Ice, Drytool - it's all kosher.
• Submissions must be submitted by the last day of the month to be considered for that month. Submissions should aim to be developed in the month they're being submitted in, but we'll allow some fudge factor. This is on the honor system, though

That's all! We'll likely be randomly selecting routes/boulders to feature with the caveat that any submission that's sufficiently rad may overule the random selection to be highlighted. Winning posts will get pinned at the top of the sub for the month. Looking forward to seeing what everyone has been up to!

Hey folks,

Today we're introducing a new "Serious" flair. This subreddit has become a great place for honest, good-faith discussions on serious, often hard-to-discuss topics. That being said, we've also seen low-effort and bad-faith interactions crop up when users from other communities hop in. As a method towards combating this, if you'd like to require a higher standard for entry on threads about a specific topic, feel free to hit it with the "Serious" flair. This will trigger the automod to leave a pinned comment letting users know that low-effort comments, or those that fail to engage with the source material, or not tolerated, and is an indicator to the mod teams to watch those threads a little bit more closely.

Conversely, remember, we have a "Meme" flair!! Jeremiah I know you're in here, stop giving all of your content to the climbing memes MP thread - they won't love you like we do baby

An hour southwest of Denver, nestled between a couple of ghost towns and a spider web of mountain bike trails, one can find a climbing area called "Wonderland". Known largely for grand, sweeping views of the watershed of the South Platte River, textured granite that sticks underfoot like Velcro, and a self-appointed ambassador who won't stop overselling its virtues across any air, sound, and data wave that will let him transmit his ilk — sorry about that, by the way.

To paint a better picture, Wonderland sits in a bowl. To the north and east are the southern flanks of the Front Range. Far away from the rugged peaks that form many of the tallest mountains in America further north. To the west, Kenosha Pass. The headwaters of the South Platte River, and the intersection of the Front Range and Kenosha and Tarryall mountain ranges that form Wonderland's southern boundary: Lost Creek Wilderness.

Along the northern boundary of Wonderland you can find the North Fork of the South Platte River. Once a meaningful hub for travel in Colorado, the old Narrow Gauge Railroad that used to run along its banks was eventually abandoned. Repeated failures of the line, swallowed up by the unpredictable surges in the water flow, caused the state to say "To hell with it" and blast a trail through the mountainside above.

Looking along the waterway, you can still find old railroad ties, soaked in creosote, lodged in the boulder fields along its rapids. Dedicated explorers may even be rewarded with ghost towns of the trading posts past. Here, the grounds are scattered with the remains of old buildings and mineshafts, pulled down into the decomposed granite that makes up the riverbank.

Wonderland has become a home to me over the last five years of "developing" it into a recreation area. I try my hardest to explain to people the mystical quality the area has, but you'll never really know how it feels until you're out there, a part of it all.

My love affair with the region started in 2021. I'm an avid rock climber, and was scouring Google Earth, looking for large rock formations on the satellite view that may host potential for new climbing routes. Wonderland was impossible to miss. Dozens of fins of granite lining a light tan hillside. A trailhead right in the center that would provide a launching off point to everything. Just an hour away, car-to-car, from my home.

I immediately dug into all of the guides to the South Platte watershed I could find. I'd been climbing here for years, but somehow never heard of this area. Each one had the same story — plenty of climbing in the flanks of the front range to the north and east. The rolling hills of Kenosha Pass had some small boulders, but exploration had been largely unsuccessful there. Lost Creek Wilderness had a strict "no documentation" ethic, but decades of local hard-men had sworn up and down that, not only were there enormous amounts of world-class climbing there, but that they had already done it all.

The bowl that defines Wonderland, however, was notably omitted from just about every single guide. I found it hard to believe — this region was one of the birthplaces of rock climbing in America. Vertical pioneers had been establishing new climbs here since the 50s; how could this area have been missed?

Only one guide — the most recent, published still over a decade ago, made any mention of it. A footnote in a map near the end of the book spoke of a local named Jay who had started exploring the region in the early 2000s. He spoke highly of it and its potential, giving it the moniker "Wonderland" — but based on the fact that he had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth after installing just a few routes, nobody bothered to take him seriously. The timing of things didn't help — the climbing scene in the South Platte at the time had come to a screeching halt, shifting instead to the limestone cliffs found further west.

I pored over maps and online databases all night, trying to find anything I could about Wonderland. I stumbled upon one other breadcrumb — over a decade prior, a user by the name of "MountainManny" showed up on a climbing forum. He raved about 5-star climbs, towering chunks of stone, with a lifetime's supply of more. He gave very few details besides some generalized GPS pins and some strangely zoomed-in photos of holds that looked too good to be true.

"Like it was molded to your hand," said the photo caption. With promises of "More details to come May 2013", he too apparently vanished before making good on his promise.

Frustrated at the lack of clear answers and armed with a weapons-grade dose of curiosity, I called in sick to work and drove down to check it out. I couldn't believe what I found.

It was everything I had thought it would be and more. I spent the day hiking a dozen miles around hillsides, stumbling upon formation after formation of perfect granite. Domes stretching hundreds of feet high. Clean cracks and cleaner faces. A largely untouched hillside, hidden amongst the Ponderosa Pines.

That became my weekly ritual. I would load up my truck camper on a Friday afternoon and stay until the latest I could manage on Sunday. Building trails, installing fixed hardware on rock formations to allow safe passage, and clearing brush and loose, dangerous rock from the surrounding areas.

It didn't take long to find the same level of excitement and connection to the area that those few who came before me had. Like it became a part of your DNA, or perhaps you became a part of its.

From a climber's perspective, it truly is a paradise. Sometimes it almost feels like gravity is distorted up there, where you can move over minuscule pieces of rock at steep angles as if you're simply walking up a staircase. The shoe rubber eaten and fingertip skin lost are small prices to pay for the Velcro-like friction that makes even the most novice scrambler feel like Spiderman.

I finally came across my first signs of old traffic in the region a few months after my first visit. A 300' tall, 1/4mi wide dome, I came to find out, was called "Pleasure Dome" decades prior by John. From the ridgeline over, I could see the distinct glint of plated steel bolts shining among smooth, gray granite slabs. I hustled over to finally lay eyes on the work of someone other than me.

A few minutes later, and I was swinging across the face on the rope I had anchored to a large Pine above. I shook my head and laughed as soon as I saw the first few bolts — I had spent years replacing old, rusty, unsafe, fixed hardware around the Denver climbing regions already, and seen quite a few odd bolts in my day. These may have taken the cake.

The bolts looked like they had been installed from low-earth orbit. Craters formed around the bolts, which looked heavily overdrilled. The hangers — small metal plates attached to the bolts to give a place for a climber to clip a carabiner, and thus, their rope — looked countersunk and folded into the crater. It looked like someone was trying to shove the entire thing into the wall itself, as though they were shoving one more piece of trash into an overflowing garbage can.

I made a mental note to come back and replace those bolts before I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. Fingerprints on the wall. Normally, climbers are easily tracked by a trail of chalk they leave on the wall — a tool used to help alleviate the sweaty hands that plague us due to heat or fear or both.

These prints were different. The opposite, in fact. They looked wet, oily — all too common on warm days, but very temporary — and I was alone. In March. At nearly 8000'.

I neared the prints, and a goofy grin grew across my face. "Like it was molded to your hand", I said aloud. I rubbed my hand across not wet, oily prints — but instead, seemingly perfectly carved finger slots in the rock. I sat back in my harness, breathing a bit easier, and looked across the formation.

Everywhere, I was seeing holds that seemed intentionally placed for climbers. Cracks, with spaces perfectly curled around a hand. Footholds the exact shape of the toe of a climbing shoe. Hell, I even found a depression on the slab that I could press my entire body against, functionally "lying down" in the middle of a route.

"Wonderland provides" slipped out of my mouth and became the mantra for my time in the area. With its otherworldly features, I didn't understand how this area had stayed under the radar for so long.

Months blurred into years, and my obsession grew. As I rolled over the 100-new-climbs benchmark, I figured it was time for me to start a guide of my own to the region. I had no interest in keeping this place to myself — I wanted to see others here. To see them enjoy the panoramas, experience the mind-bending climbing, and find the same feeling of home here that I had.

My buy-in doubled down with my work on the book. More and more money was spent on hardware for the walls and gas for the commute. That invoice paled in comparison to the figure on sweat equity I was spending on trail improvements, lichen removal, and tours to all of the formations to take reference photos.

I left my job to focus on the work I was doing out there. I had been wanting to leave for years. This newfound passion gave me the nudge I needed to take the leap. Suddenly, I had even more time to give to this area.

"Wonderland provides" was truer than ever. More time uncovered more formations. More artefacts from groups who had spent time in the region previously. More beautiful views. More one-of-a-kind climbs.

I practically started living out there. The velocity at which I was depositing shoe rubber and hand skin to the wall and tool handles seemed worth the trade-off of getting to know this area intimately. A day didn't go by without me finding something new — hoof prints in the dirt, halfway buried bones of old mountain lion kill sites, fruiting raspberry bushes just barely peeking out of the loose hillsides of granite pea gravel.

I couldn't stop working — from sunup to sundown, I was doing something to move towards the completion of this guidebook. I wanted to share this place with others. Work, eat, sleep. I was constantly hungry, unable to keep up with the calorie intake to sustain this new workload. The bottoms of my feet were raw. I felt like I had worn down through the callouses. But still, I was rewarded by every minute spent out there.

A few weeks ago, I shifted gears into the final touches of the guidebook, repeating some climbs to ensure I had accurate information for the guidebook. I started with the line I was proudest of in the region: Man-Eater. A gaping maw of a chimney that winds its way 150ft laterally across a formation at the very bottom of the ridgeline.

The feature itself is truly awe-inspiring. While the difficulty of the climb is pretty low, it speaks to you — in a very "speak into the void, and it speaks back" way. You'll feel it when you get to the base.

I swallowed back my hesitancy and started up the route, quickly finding my rhythm moving through this chimney, back against the enormous overhang that forms the outside of the chimney, feet against the underneath slab that forms the front. I shuffled my way across it, every detail matching my original notes. The bolts seemed a bit deeper in the rock than I remembered; however, the granite almost mounded around the sides of the hangers. The climb felt more natural, too. The footholds felt better shaped to my shoes, the wall behind me better matched the curve of my spine.

I chalked it up to having better technique on the repeat ascent and made my way back to the truck. I took my shirt off to give myself a lazy campsite-scrub with a wash rag before I lay down for the night and caught sight of my back in the reflection of my car window.

My back was bright red and nearly bare — road rash from neck to waist. I quickly grabbed my shirt to scan it for tears that could have allowed it, but it looked relatively unscathed. Furthermore, my back wasn't the uneven, splotchy mess you'd expect from dragging it across coarse granite. It was smooth. Clean. As if a single layer of skin had been cleanly and evenly removed. Not too deep. Not too painful.

My stomach roared louder than my back, however, and I didn't have the mental capacity to think through what had just happened until I got more food inside of me. By the time I finished scavenging through the last of the food I had in my truck, I was too tired to care. I chalked it up as a side effect of too much climbing and hiking with a heavy pack all at once — in fact, something to be proud of, a badge of honor, and called it an end to my day.

I've been spending the last few weeks out here. It's been a warm spring here in Colorado, and everything is starting to bloom. Waking up with the sustenance from longer days. My work is slowing down a bit. The guidebook is getting closer to completion. It doesn't help that my body is holding up worse than ever. I can't use chalk while climbing anymore; my palms are largely open wounds at this point. Don't get me started on my feet — the woe of climbing shoes.

The climbing out here keeps getting better. Every time I get on a route, I find a new perfect hold or three. "Like it was molded to your hand", I say — every time. "Wonderland Provides". It's a good luck ritual at this point — the climbers' Hail Mary. You'll be doing it too. It's hard work. Ravenous work.

I've managed to recruit a few others to help at this point. There's no shortage of climbers in Denver. They, like me, can't believe what they're seeing out here. They've only begun to whet their appetite on what this area holds, but they're finding more discoveries of their own. Happy to sacrifice their own time, skin, and shoe rubber to the cause.

One of them had really taken to it. He built a small free solo circuit near camp. We told him it was dangerous. "It just feels right," he said. "Like it was molded to my hand". At the end of each day, he did laps on the circuit until his skin was raw, fingers bleeding from their cuticles. He burned through his shoes early on, and so, stopped using them.

He got dropped off by a friend this weekend. Said they’d coordinate pickup on Monday for a trip Yosemite, but I don’t think he’s planning on going anywhere now. He spent most of Sunday still out on the wall. I could hear movement through the night. He didn’t come back to camp, but that happens here. His lines are cleaner now. More efficient. We'd never seen toe holds on a route before. The rock fit him better than it did before. The rock has a habit of adding where something was once removed. Wonderland provides.

That’s usually how it goes.

I haven’t left since February. The truck doesn’t really move anymore anyway. The tires have started to settle into the gravel like everything else out here does when it stays long enough. It’s easier that way. Less transition.

We’ve been getting more people in. They bring supplies on their way through, groceries, gear, whatever we need. It all gets used. Nothing stays unused for long here. There’s more of everything now than there used to be. No longer starving for more. Seeing the hunger of this new crop has given me more energy than ever.

The guidebook is nearly done. We’re running out of untouched lines, but it doesn’t feel like scarcity. Existing routes just keep improving. Holds settle deeper. Molded to your hand — same as always. Movement becomes simpler. You stop needing to think about it so much.

It’s hard to explain if you’re not here yet. Things don’t really need explaining once you’re part of them. You just understand what belongs where. Wonderland provides.

The climbing community is going to take to this place quickly. It’s already starting.

Bring friends when you come — it won't take long for you to settle in.

You'll feel right at home.