Written In Stone Season 3: The History of Modern Bouldering
Jordan Cannon on the Salathe
“Let us take as a concrete example the most complex game in the climbing hierarchy – bouldering. It is complex by definition since it has more rules than any other climbing-game, rules which prohibit nearly everything – ropes, pitons, and belayers. All that is left is the individual standing in front of a rock problem.
But why so many restrictions? Only because boulders are too accessible; they don’t defend themselves well enough. For example, it would be an absurdity to use a ladder to reach the top of a boulder in Fontainebleau, but to use the same ladder to bridge a crevasse in the Khumbu Icefall would be reasonable since Everest defends itself so well that one ladder no longer tips the scales toward certain success. Thus the basic principle of a handicap is applied to maintain a degree of uncertainty as to the eventual outcome, and from this very uncertainty stems the adventure and personal satisfaction of climbing.”
“Games Climbers Play” by Lito Tejada-Flores in 1967
Little did Lito Tejada-Flores know how right he actually was. In fact, over the 10 or 15 years after his essay appeared, bouldering would shape shift into something entirely different. Over the next 40 or 50 years, it would continue shape-shifting – new tools, new ethics, new areas, new athletes – until it was transformed into something that barely resembles how it all began.
Or… is that true?
I’m not so sure. Despite the kneepad debates and inflating grades and massive pad landings that rival any gym floor and giant crowds at popular areas, bouldering is, at it’s core, mostly unchanged.
That’s what I’d argue anyway. Maybe by the end of this season, I’ll change my mind.
Because for season 3 of Written in Stone, we are going deep into the most complex of the climbing-games – bouldering.
We’re starting all the way back in late 1800’s Great Britain to meet the climber who first recognized that HOW you climb something is as important as WHAT you climbed. He revolutionized climbing techniques and showed other climbers that tiny holds could actually be useful. He not only embraced bouldering as it’s own pursuit, but also held the very first bouldering competitions - pre 1900! We’ll get to know his protege - an occultist and practitioner of dark magic who likely wrote the first bouldering guide - and loved a good sandbag.
We’ll go to France in the 1930s and 40s, where, with World War 2 planes flying bombing missions overhead - and one crashing in the forest, disrupting an otherwise great day of bouldering - climbers were taking the first steps toward shaping this complex game into what it is that we now recognize. So many climbers, in fact, that the two main factions couldn’t agree about what mattered and what didn’t – but one climber in particular had an influence that still continues today, not only for the shoes he invented but in the way that he approached climbing on boulders.
Then we’ll move to the US, in the 1950s and 60s, where a gymnast and mathematics student began exploring the possibilities of movement on the boulders at various destinations around the country. He’d invent a rating system for this new thing he was doing, and his style, among other things, would impact the game forever after. In fact it might be most present in today’s world cup climbers who so often seem to defy gravity.
Measured and thoughtful, but also brutally strong, he became a living myth - the bouldering version of Johnny Appleseed, planting the seeds of this complex game he was playing both in the boulderfields and via articles he’d write that would be read the world over. Some of the hardest moves ever done on rock are a direct result of his influence, and this was apparent throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, as more and more people took up the challenge he’d laid out.
Then, as the 1990s dawned, one of those acolytes, a strong willed, irreverent boulderer on a stone crusade to a bouldering mecca in Texas would help introduce two new ideas – and both would further popularize the game and shape it into bouldering as we now know it. Fueled by these innovations, by the end of the decade, new meccas are being discovered - or rediscovered - all over the world. Switzerland. South Africa. Germany. Australia. And all across the US.
In each of those areas, wildly strong and specialized boulderers are quiety prowling the deserts and forests, often with little to no fanfare or publicity. The boulders they leave behind are harder, taller, and more impressive than ever. Last great projects in every major established area are falling.
Just in time for the internet to set off the final explosion.
The complex game got more complex. More rules. New tools. Higher grades that just kept – and still continue – creeping up.
This season is how we got there. The history of modern bouldering. And this season, we’re going to try to do it all via video. Audio too, of course, but I come across a ton of visuals for some of these stories, and you should see those too. Not every episode will make it to video… I mean, while I’ve got a great researcher helping this season – Efix Roy – on the production side I’m a one man show. But I’ll do what I can.
I’ve also got several bonus episodes planned so if you haven’t yet, join our Patreon, the Secret Stoners Club – it’s free – and you’ll get bonus materials throughout the season.
And as always, this show is 100% rooted in the facts, but like Todd Skinner always said, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
