The Opium Den Projkt, It goes.....and I can do all the moves now....its time to link it up...and send...plus....it has two exits one hard and one weird and hard. Which one shall it be?? fotos courtesy Sam Johnson

The HIDEOUT!

On Sunday Dean, Mike Cwik and I rallied out to lolo for some climbing. The objective was to FA two lines that we had cleaned and were waiting for the snow to finally melt off the topouts. We produced two amazing lines. Names are yet to be determined but the following foto will do. The right line where I am standing goes at V6? from the sit and the left most line of flakes goes at likely V3/4 sack. Some more photos of boulders in the area from this winter!

Loho and Lolo!

Yesterday my friend Ry and I headed out for an afternoon session at Losthorse. The drive takes quite a while now that summer/construction season is more or less upon us. Several bits of 25 mph. We made an attempt to drive up to the Stallion boulders but got thwarted by soft snowy roads and turned back. We arrived, cracked another brew and checked out some potential lines and then warmed up on the clear cut boulder and then moved on to the John Wayne boulder. Ry wanted to work the South Face V7 next to the Duke. I wasn't really planning on climbing a ton but decided to give it a few tries and finally put the thing to rest. Ry made steady progress and should send his next time out. What a beautiful day it was with nice spring sun and a slight breeze. The South Face is substantially easier under ideal conditions as opposed to a greasy summer day. We then set our sights on moving a large boulder out of the way of a good moderate next to the SF. It proved to be easier than expected using caveman techniques and a safe landing soon followed. After that motivation fell through and we had a smoke and took off for the rig. Then the dog took off for 1/2 and hour..great excuse for being late!

Today, I kind of blew off work to head out to Lolo this afternoon to catch up with Sammy, Scotty and Jessie. It was another awesome day here in western MT with great temps and clean air and a near high speed dirt road head on, on the way in. ScarrY! Slow down son! yeah, shit got my heart pumpin, had to bail off the road a bit. The trio parked in a more convenient location and I traveled overland to check out how things were melting out at the Hideout and then trugged over several ridges to make it to the Opium den. The Opium Den is a near dead horizontal roof with a few lines but the beauty exists in a singular pure pocket proj that climbs nearly a dozen feet out the underside of the roof. I have tried this problem for many years but today was the breaking point. At first I thought this problems was going to be somewhere above my grasp deep into the double digits, which it likely is for those of you who are less that 6'. Sorry, another reach/height dependent problem in lolo. Its still going to be hard but likely 7C or 7C+. Anyhow, I figured out the beta from the jug undercling and was able to do the move several times from that point up to the big horizontal. Scotty also did the big reach/tension move. Good work dog. There was only one move that I wasn't able to do today, which is a left-had crossthrough to a more or less flat hold with a suggestion of a lip to a super core intensive throw to the undercling, Burley!!!

Sam has a bum ankle and Jessie has tendinosis/isis or something so they didn't try a whole lot. After the ass kick we made it down to some block Dean n Scotty cleaned which proved to be a bust, as in we floundered with wrecked skin. Then for giggles we jumped back up to a line I had been spying for some time, cleaned it roughly and started working it out. It goes, just one big last throw at the end to a SHARP good hold. I punted a bit, we were tired and so I had one more smoke and took off over yonder to my truck. On the way back I found remnants of a crystal and spooked up three elk on the way out. Sweet. More adventures and hopefully some pics. Sorry my camera is a crap point and shoot to I don't take many photos, however, Jessie and Sam got some amazing pics on Overdose in the Den, I'll beg for them to post and you should too!