Daniel Woods

American Gangster

Lately, I have been thinking about alot of things, making decisions, and stressed out. It sounds depressing, but that is how I have felt. Mostly, with money and trying to conserve so that I am not a poor, homeless bastard with nothing. The Euro is almost double the USD (1.49), so this means that whenever I buy groceries, gas, go out, pay for my car, the price is never what it seems and my bank account is sucking the will outa me. It sucks to login and check your account expecting to have so and so dollars, but the only thing you see is 0! So recently I have boggled with the idea of returning back to the US early, eliminating 1 month of  rental car payments ( which would be around 1300 euros left to pay) and the stress of hitting rock bottom, instead of keeping my eye on the prize which is many amazing boulders. Does not help to wake up to cold drizzle and fog either. The thing about Innsbruck is that it is situated in a valley, so the sun intake is about a few hours everyday. I am used to perfect CO weather, always dry and cold, with the exception of a few days and endless amount of climbing. Well the decision was made and I am leaving back the 6th of Dec. to San Francisco, CA, where the TNF summit meeting is being held, then taking a one way back to CO, off to Nashville for a couple weeks, hitting up Kansas for christmas on the way back, then back to CO for preparation of the Hueco Tanks season. WOW have so much traveling ahead of me. I have to go back anyway for the summit so making 3 Euro trips in total does not make sense, plus will save me A TON of $$$. I am ready to come back anyway, 5 months is a long time and you start appreciating the little things that America has to offer (like burritos, sushi, whole foods, theatres, bowling alleys, my skateboard, friends etc). Well enough talk about this, now for some good news!

So in the last week, miracuously we had a couple days of killer weather. Waking up to blue skies and crisp fresh air would put a smile on anyones face (unless you were a sad bastard) and this did the trick for me. I took advantage of these days, got up early, rallied a crew of Austrians and swerved left to the Zillertal! The thing about this area is whenever the opportunity for good weather comes your way, you fucking take advantage of it and stop everything else that you are doing (even if Dreamtime, now broken, is sitting right in front of your face)and bust into the lush, green valley full of granite boulders. Hmmmm maybe that is why Zillertal is so green because of all the rain it recieves? Anyway I did just this and visited an amazing area called the Sundergrund in the Zillergrund valley. Here you drive up a narrow dark road that is always wet since it recieves no sun at all, pass a couple pastures with cows grazing, and arrive to a parking lot. The hike is 20 minutes uphill and usually very cold and dark until you turn the corner and magically the sun is shining in your face lighting up the snow covered Alps and green pastures… so surreal and picture esqe. I seriously almost dropped a turrd in my pants when I saw the sun and immediately knew… today was a good day. We continued to up the road another 10 minutes to a giant boulder field in the pasture. Here holds classic problems such as the Exploited and Spirit along with a couple projects. Usually I would be motivated to try projects but today I just wanted to climb as much as I could. The granite here is perfect, similar to Brione with a sand paper friction, so when it is cold and dry… climbing feels like cheating. I warmed up then got motivated for Exploited. The funny thing about this boulder is that it takes the center of this giant bloc (about 20 metres high) but drops off once it reaches the jug on the slab… from here I think it would be impossible to top it out. I geard up and figured out the compression moves then fired the line off in a few tries. Like I said when its good conditions climbing feels like cheating and this problem did not feel so hard but I could imagine how it would feel in 10 degrees warmer of weather. After this my friend Korni took me to an amazing boulder up in the woods which holds 2 4 star lines. The original is called Camorro which means (mafia) and starts out with a couple moves of 8A+ then bails left to the jug crack. I figured out the moves quick and dispatched it in a couple tries. If you take the direct (more logical) path it is a project. We tried the stand for about an hour, but the moves did not seem to go. Originally, you took a jug undercling with the left and incut crimp with the right, reach statically to the small, sloping edge with the right, place your feet and double dyno to the lip which is downward sloping. Korni had just broken the jug undercling so now the hold was made into an awkward gaston which made it difficult to reach the edge. After many tries failing on both the first move and coming nowhere close to the last, I discovered the thought of going up with the left hand then hand foot matching my right foot next to my hand, pulling with one arm, and statically reaching the lip. Now I knew the stand would go for sure. After a couple more failure attepmts I was able to connect the two moves but had to drop off due to too much moss on the top out. Now game time had started. To me this line was not a stand, when I looked back at the line, it should start on the obvious jug and climb into these two power moves. This would mean climbing a 3 move 8A+ straight into another 2 move 8A+ with all the same style of one arm pulling on a 45 degree overhang. It was starting to get dark and I knew that I had to clean the topout first before making real attempts, so the decision to just come back was made.

Day 2

Wow Zillertal is on a role with prime weather. Woke up again to sun and colder conditions. Psyche was extremely high to go try “the proj” and at 10 a.m. I was out in my beamer on my way to pick up friends Emi and Martin then busting the move back to Sundergrund. We arrived at the boulder when the sun was crawling in through the thick forest, making the air feel extremely dry. Today was a day that chalk was not even needed… another sign of a perfect day. I warmed up and tried to climb the topout through the moss but this was not possible. Emi had a rope stashed up there for about 3 years and it was extremely dirty and had a couple core shots but this did not fucking stop me from getting the job done. I rapped off slowly turding my pants everytime I heard the rope crack, hoping it would not break (the boulder is about 30 feet tall so falling would not have been good). I scrubbed the shit out of the slab for about an hour or two getting pumped out of my mind. My new realization is that cleaning boulders is the perfect warm up and actually pretty fun to do. Discovering holds hidden beneath the moss and chalking them up is such a satisfying feeling. It is like a work of art, you create something to have have a final outcome. The sun was starting to go down and conditions were prime… it was time to try the proj! I fell off the long move to the crimp a couple times from the start and finally stuck it failing to reach the lip due to my foot slipping. I was just giving rapid goes and started to become fatigued. When I was resting Emi made a comment on how this was the best conditions he had ever seen in the zillertal and at this boulder. Normally the humidity in the forest is so high that the holds become black after a few goes. The thing about this climb too is that it is a friction climb so imagining the moves in shit conditions was somewhat like watching a horror flick. A switch clicked in my head and I knew this was one of the only opportunites I had to do the proj before the rain came back. I went over to the start and fell on the intro moves. Pressure was building and I knew that only a couple more attempts were left in me. I settled down and tried to relax. The bottom was executed perfectly and fast, hit the long move perfect, stuffed the right toe in and pulled as hard as I fucking could to the lip catching it and staying tight into the wall. Did the final swing out and topped out. The feeling was amazing and this was probably one of the purest boulders I have done. It is funny how your motivation changes when you know that one day is all you will get of good conditions. I named the line American Gangster since the left exit has to do with the Itialia mafia. As for the grade I slapped on 8B+ but who knows repeats will tell. Regardless of the difficulty, the line was attracting and that was my motive to climb up it. After we went just 10 metres up the hill to an egg shaped compression boulder where a 7B was completed from the stand. Martin showed me some new beta for the sit and I executed it getting the FA of Slapshot. Martin did it a couple goes right after me. These two blocs are some of the best I have climbed on in the Zillertal and I was fortunate to take advantage of the weather and do them. Now I have 1 week left before heading home. The Rain has returned back to Innsbruck or I should say snow now so chances of climbing in Z tal r scarce. Hmmm what now maybe Buegeleisen is on the horizon….

IMS results

IMS results have been posted on the News Feed Page

Innsbrooklyn

As of now I am sitting in my room trying to ignore this fever that kicked in last night. It has ranged from 38 to 39.9 C which is 102 and 104F. Basically life has been miserable and I am taking drugs to overcome this virus. On Friday I leave for the boulder jam in South Tirol so hopefully it evacuates by then. Other than that the sun hasnt come out in like 3 days, it is supposed to be shit weather all next week, and the areas are getting soaked, so hopes of sending the zillertal routes is looking slim. This is the bad thing about winter is the limitations it brings for being outside. All we can do now in the upcoming weeks is snowboard, walk around the old town or go to Tivoli. Switzerland should be getting prime so time to switch focus into bouldering. The other night we got bored from just chilling inside all day so the camera was whipped out and the photoshoot began. must say this camera is pretty badass and just shooting random things is fun. No telling what the next few days will bring besides getting over this plague and going inside… maybe some snowboarding/skiing put into the mix (its just too damn expensive to go everytime and build a rhythm, definately getting a board on the return to the U.S., shit is addicting).

The new site

Well I finally decided to go for it and get a website. In my mind it is a good way to upload trip updates, videos, photos, and upcoming events for everyone to know what is going down (since I do the same thing) so here it is. I have just bought a Rebel T1I camera and my girlfriend Courtney has been taking alot of sick photos with it so the gallery should always be full. Currently we have been on a 5 month roadtrip going all across Europe starting the journey in Gap, France and arriving to our final destination here in Innsbruck, Austria. We arrived July 28th in Geneve, Switzerland awaiting a train to take us to Gap where we would soon meet up with Dave Graham, Jon Cardwell, Isaac Caldeiro, and Seth Giles. Missing the last train out, we both slept in the airport, got up at 6 a.m., took the 7 hour train to Gap, and met up with our friends. First stop on the trip, Ceuse! I have always wanted to go here since I first started climbing. The white limestone with grey streaks running down the sides of the walls, crowning the top of this huge mountain in which you can see everything, makes for a surreal setting. The climbing is very technical with small pockets and crimps. My goal was to get warmed up to the area then attempt classics like Bah Bah Black Sheep, Dire Limites, La Chronique de la Haine, and Realization. One thing I soon realized was climbing in Ceuse in August is a mistake. The average temperature was from 25 to 30 degrees celsius which is basically hot as balls in fahrenheit. Everyone is still on vacation so you have to wait in line for 30 minutes just to make an attempt, which sucks since you wait until 3 just to walk up the 1 hour epic trudge uphill due to the heat, wait an hour, then start warming up. The average amount of pitches we got in per day was around 3 or 4. With all these setbacks, I was still able to manage ascents of Bah Bah Black Sheep, Dire Limites, La Chronique de la Haine, and Violente Illusion. I tried Realization multiple times and was able to one hang to the crux but the grease was just too much and it felt impossible. Due to the poor conditions, we decided to make a move to Southern France to climb at an area near Nice called the Gorges du Loup.

This place holds classics such as Kinematix, Trip Tic Tonic, Abyss, and Punt X. I was really motivated on this style because it was not so much friction dependent as Ceuse, more tufas and powerful climbing. There were many sectors throughout the Gorge but the one I zeroed in on was Deverse which is paradise if you are looking for long resistant hard routes. We started off well at this area, Courtney sent her first 6c (Willie Wonka) then moved on to do a classic 7a (Hopi Birthday), then finished off sending Satan Petit Coeur 7b all within a couple of weeks. She has only been climbing now for a year and learned so much so quickly that it was impressive to see her put down these routes. I think I was more motivated about her doing the Satan Petit Coeur than she was. It is always nice to see people who can rise above the fear and other factors climbing brings, do their thing, and take shit down. I took this motivation and ended up doing routes such as Kinematix, Trip tic Tonic, and 7 p.m. JP Chaud. I had a heartbreaker with Punt X falling pulling over the lip to the jug crimper but just had no more friction or energy to stay on the wall. I even came back to try in better conditions but if you get into a rhythm where only one route matters and you put all of this uneccessary pressure on yourself to send… it wont get done. Basically, I obsessed over it for 2 weeks and my attempts after were just getting worse and worse so I dropped the ball and made the move to Rodellar, Spain.

Rodellar is probably one of the best areas I have climbed at (in my opinion better than Ceuse). There is so much variety of climbing and the scenery is priceless. You have multiple sectors all throughout the gorge with Gran Bovida and The Ventanas being the most popular. The Ventanas is popular for having a double arch feature with two main caves on either side. The left cave is more open and the right is steeper. One of my main goals was to try Los Inconformistas which starts the same as Barachos but exits right. It is the ultimate power endurence testpiece with a 7c+ boulder to start leading into a 7c+ route section, followed by a 7C+/8A outro. I tried for 2 days with just 2 tries each day, then caught a virus from the American crew which set me back for another 3 days of no climbing. During this time too the weather started getting colder and motivation was leaving. Innsbruck was also on my mind and it seemed appealing to have a nice city with amazing climbing all around to go to. I felt as if I needed a break to re think some things and gain back my motivation. I had one day left (still sick as shit) so I decided to give it the A muerte attempt. I finished it off first try and was satisfied to make the move. The next day we packed up the car and drove 15 hours to Innsbruck where I am currently stationed.

For the remaining two months, Courtney and I will be living here doing our thing. It is cold but prime for bouldering which I am motivated on. We have both been climbing in the gym alot and I have made a couple trips to Zillertal and tried some amazing routes. Hopefully, this weather wont put an end to doing them! If so then Swiss is just a few hours away with many things to try. Innsbruck is like a 2nd home to me, so many friends and fun times. It can be the vortex though of good and bad things. Everyone here is always psyched so every night I find myself going out and spending alot of money on drinks and it is starting to catch up with me. Now I am motivated to switch the focus on getting shit accomplished then settle the night off with a good time . Should hopefully have a lot more to update so sit back and enjoy my site!