HERITAGE • Official Trailer from Born Denali on Vimeo.

This was the 4th feature length film that I have produced behind The Swiss Account, On The Circuit, and Chasing Winter.  However, it was the first film that I produced solely under our new label, Born Denali, which encompasses the work of both myself and my talented girlfriend Mary Mecklenburg.  This was the most work that either of us had put into a film project and we learned a lot.  To be honest, we had no idea it was going to be a film until after the 2012 Swiss Trip was over.  We sat down and looked through all the footage post trip and realized we had more than we expected.  I really enjoy documenting my climbing experiences through film and due to my productivity that season on the climbing front, we came away with a ton of content.  Sharing that content with the world was the obvious next step.

As with the last 2 films, we decided to sell the film for a relatively cheap price (compared to other climbing films on the market).  We sell our climbing films because:

1. It requires a ton of work to produce a feature length film featuring some of the hardest boulder problems in the world.  As a two person crew with only 1 camera (now 2) and with myself being the climber as well, I am constantly transitioning between setting up shots, working V14′s and V15′s, sending V14′s and V15′s, repeating V14′s and V15′s for different angles, and hauling around camera gear as well as pads and climbing equipment.  I’m not complaining, it’s all good training, but sometimes I would rather not climb that boulder I just sent for the 5th time and go try something different.

2. Camera equipment costs a ton of money and climbing in Switzerland costs even more.  Remember, I rock climb for a living, which means I make very little money anyways.  Sponsors help, but this is still the climbing industry.  I happily traded a steady job and solid income for constant world wide travel on a shoe-string budget.  I certainly can’t be expected to give away my work for free.

3. Free climbing media ruins the value exchange and internal economy within the industry.  The amount of free climbing videos on the internet dilutes the demand for quality content.  And the majority of quality content that is being distributed for free is paid for by climbing companies for use as advertisements.  These videos utilize athletes who for the most part see none of that money trickle down to them for their massive role in making the production happen.  Climbing media companies are making huge profits off the accomplishments of the athletes while the athletes are getting very little in return.  The exchange for “exposure” just isn’t worth it anymore.  It all seems kind of backwards to me.  That’s why I produce my own content featuring mainly myself.  I’m not using anybody, nobody is using me.  And the laws of a capitalist economy thrive.  If I don’t produce a product worth purchasing, I make the product better, or stop producing.

Hopefully that all makes sense.

With the advent of Vimeo On Demand, it’s becoming easier and easier for boutique film producers such as myself to easily distribute our creative content and receive fair compensation.  I also believe that the Vimeo On Demand platform will be the future state of most media consumption.  As wireless internet becomes more and more ubiquitous on a world wide scale, on demand streaming content will continue to take the place of hard copies.  I figure, why not adapt early?

If you have any questions or comments about the film, or about my views towards media, feel free to ask.  We have some big fall plans coming up and I will launch into that in another post.  For now, thanks for checking out the film and reading my blog!

A couple days ago I headed back into the Alpine, Wild Basin to be exact, for a no expectations day on the rocks with my good friend Jonny Hork.  From the the moment we entered the vibrant, forested landscape and began the approach I could already feel some life returning to my dormant mind.  Psych was high.  First stop was the problem Tetris, which without direction proved a little difficult to find, but eventually we spotted the compression classic.  With zero expectations and hardly a warmup, I pulled off the ground from the obvious start holds and executed the moves to the top out.  Without much beta to work with (likely circumstances on a flash go), I fumbled the last rock over onto the slab top out.  Surprised with the effort, I took a try or two to sort the top, and climbed the boulder on my 2nd go from the start.  I’m not a huge fan of the grading system in general, but I do choose to participate, and I always take the time to assess and compare the difficulties of individual challenges to other problems that I have experiences with.  V10 felt like an appropriate grade for Tetris.  Similar to Whispers of Wisdom but a touch less powerful and committing.

I understand this is a far cry from the original proposal of V13 and the consensus of V12, but it is my opinion and I’m entitled to that.  And the same goes for my V12 grade proposal for The Grey (originally proposed at V14), which I quickly repeated later that day.  You can take it or leave it.  They are purely opinions from one person.  I know people in the past have had issues with my grading proposals, but in my defense I do take the time to assess things as rationally as possible.  I compare and contrast style, conditions, type of rock, my current fitness, etc.  It’s all an important part of the process. At the risk of coming across as an egotistical prick, I will continue to give my personal opinion on the grades of things that I have experience with.  And to all the haters, maybe it’s time to really assess the potential truth that the real ego is coming from the other side of the table.  I gain nothing career wise by downgrading and have never expected too, but I do sleep a little better at night knowing that I was honest with myself and the world about that little number attached to those little pieces of rock that we love to obsess over.  It would be really inspiring to see some of the “capable others” step to the plate and offer more personal opinions in regards to the numbers, instead of continuing to propagate the media frenzy that follows these sometimes overhyped ascents.  We need to step away from our need for instant community applause and be content with the few accomplishments that are at first understated but may ultimately transform into legend.

I know this little climbing day report quickly turned into an opinionated rant, but this type of stuff has been on my mind lately and I feel that it needs to be said.  I hope some constructive conversation may come of it.

This weekend I am off to Vail for my 6th? annual Vail Bouldering World Cup at the Go Pro Mountain Games.  I’m excited to get out of town, enjoy Vail, and represent America on our home turf.  Hope to see everyone up there.

Here’s some video of my send of The Grey:

The Grey • Wild Basin from Carlo Traversi on Vimeo.

I have also had the opportunity to use my camera equipment for something other than climbing (how refreshing!) and took some photos of my girlfriend looking pretty in the last light looking over Boulder.  I figured it would be cool to share the resulting images on the blog.  Maybe someday I will put together a photo site to share the massive amount of images hidden on my hard drives.  As much as I love shooting and sharing climbing shots, it’s cool to explore something new.

The majority of the clinic was based around preparing youth climbers from the area for the upcoming USA Climbing competition series.  Having grown up climbing in the youth series as well as more recently competing in a large amount of National and International events; Kevin, Alex, and I had a lot to offer the kids in terms of strategy and preparation techniques.  While Kevin pulled aside half the kids for a workshop on dealing with stress and other mental factors, Alex and I ran the other half of the kids through a mock competition.  We did our best to simulate a real world event by including isolation and not providing any beta during their climbing time.  During their rest periods, we reviewed each individual kids’ strengths and weaknesses and gave them new tools to improve their overall competition strategies.  After one group ran through the comp, we took a quick break, switched groups and ran through the comp again with the 2nd group.  All told I think it was an extremely beneficial clinic for the kids.  We were able to watch them progressively apply the strategic tools given to them as they moved from one comp problem to the next.  All the kids tried as hard as they could and were extremely receptive to all the new information.  They are definitely going to have a more successful competition season because of it.

Day 2 ran similarly with a new group of kids from both the Phoenix and Tucson areas.  After the youth, we taught semi-private lessons with adults who were interested in improving their climbing technique and learning new ways to assess and improve on their weaknesses.  Overall, I was really impressed with friendliness and open mindedness of the community of climbers in the Tucson area.  Everyone (including the amazing staff at The Bloc) were really welcoming and seemed to be psyched on us being there.  All in all it was a great weekend.

I encourage anyone out there who is interested in having a PCI Clinic in their area to express interest to the management at their local gym and/or contact Pro Climbers International.  We are always looking for new places to teach and new communities to visit.

Here are a few photos from the weekend courtesy of Emily Pancost Photography:

We spent the past week in the forest of Fontainebleau, France along with Clark Shelk, owner of Revolution and Pusher, and some Austrian and German friends.  It rained a lot and even snowed a little, but we managed to sneak in a few days of climbing.  The forest continued to teach me things about my climbing and I enjoyed watching my brother’s wide eyed amazement at the bouldering playground that is Fontainebleau.  Having traveled so extensively in the past few year, it really puts things into perspective when I bring someone new to these enchanted areas.  They are magical environments and I am lucky to be able to enjoy them more frequently than most.  Here are some photos from our days in France:

G and Clark…Best buds.

Holding down the corner.

?

Clark Shelk!

The Crew… Flo, G, Clark, and Peter

Making the Chateau look good!

European Ashtray

Cigarette Ashtray…Loved and Forgotten.

G doing work on Atresie 8A

Representing for the short people on The Big Island 8C

Blowtorching holds to dry them.  This is a practice that was largely unknown to me until my trip to Sweden this last September.  Here’s a little backstory.  I was invited to come climb in Vastervik, Sweden for the International Boulder Meet by the Tourism Bureau.  I had seen some photos and video of the area in the past and the quality and quantity of the rock and lines looked enticing enough to make the trip worthwhile.  Out of the 10 day trip, we encountered a few wet days.  Nothing out of the ordinary for Sweden.  After the rain, the crew was motivated to climb so we ventured out to the boulders.  After finding a few of the top outs wet and some of the holds were dripping, we were supplied with blow torches to speed up the drying process.  With no prior experience with the ethics of blowtorching and with a crew of people also engaging in the practice, I dried a few holds in this manner.  It was an isolated incident and I have never used a blowtorch since.  At the time I had no reason to believe that it could be damaging to the rock.  The holds that we dried didn’t break or show any signs of damage afterwards.  If I had known otherwise, I definitely would not have used it.  It is most certainly not worth damaging rock just to get an extra day of climbing.  Unfortunately, out of the number of people using the blowtorch, of course, I was caught on camera.  And the following has ensued:

https://vimeo.com/52712636 (Comments Section)

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=531974

http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,21222.0.html)

Following the aggressive and sometimes unnecessarily harsh response from some members of the climbing community and some time to reflect, I feel the need to respond to this issue in a public manner.  But first, I want to publicly apologize for my actions and agree that the practice of blowtorching rock is not an acceptable practice.  That being said, this particular issue and the way it was handled and responded to by the online climbing community brings up a variety of questions and concerns that I have:

1. Ethically, how does the blowtorching of rock compare to chipping, manufacturing, comfortizing, and gluing of holds (practices that have frequently taken place in the past and continue to be practiced by the leading role models of climbing)?

2. As a climbing culture, supposedly more connected than ever via the internet, how have we progressed to the point of being so quick to judge and ridicule others, whom we’ve never met, purely from information gathered from blogs and videos?

3. The amount of unnecessarily negative comments that continually get posted on climbing message boards world wide is continuing to increase.  As a climbing professional who has received his fair share of “hate” mail/comments, am I expected to spend my free time sorting through the potential issues that warrant a response?

4. Are professional climbers required to assume the responsibility of  ”setting a consistent example for others” even when there isn’t a shared set of global ethics?  Seems like a lot to assume.  For example,would Alex Honnold be held partly responsible for the death of a free soloist who was inspired by his accomplishments in that realm?

5. As a community, is it possible for us to agree on a shared set of ethics in regards to the development of new lines and the care and maintenance of existing ones?

6. As climbing continues to grow, is it possible for us to adapt to the exponentially increasing changes in our climbing environment?  I certainly hope so.  But how do we ensure that we adapt in a positive, constructive manner prior to catastrophe?  For example, the increased traffic of less knowledgeable, “new” climbers to our outdoor areas.  New ethics will come into play and how do they get circulated?

And on a more philosophical note…

7. Moving forward can we observe the world around us day by day without making quick judgements, but instead, constantly try to see things from another’s perpective?  Just because we have arrived at our own set of conclusions in one way, doesn’t mean someone else’s experiences haven’t led them down a different path filled with different conclusions that in their mind are rightly justified.

I’m looking forward to hearing some responses.  But please, keep it constructive. 

CHASING WINTER • Official Trailer from Carlo Traversi on Vimeo.

Vastervik Bouldering from Bearcam Media on Vimeo.

Jan Hojer nabbing a quick 2nd Ascent of Momentum in Val Bavona, CH

Grabbing the crux right hand crimp

It was a super impressive effort on his part and I was psyched to be a part of the action.  I ended the day with a couple near sends, giving up entirely on keeping the foot on for the crux and just holding the swing.  I nearly held it probably 5 times, but a lack of skin on my right hand was causing the crimp to slip when I really needed it to stick.  A few days of rest and a few more goes and I feel confident I can finish it up.

Getting close to completing the crux move.

While it seems that the 8C grade is probably not going to hold, all things considered, this is a FANTASTIC addition from Nalle to the area of Val Bavona.  Another line that ranks extremely high in terms of quality and uniqueness of moves.  It’s rare to find such gymnastic hard edge climbing here in Swiss and this boulder fits the ticket.

Wandering around in the woods a bit more today I found probably 6 new hard lines that are in need of some cleaning and climbing.  These consistent experiences in Val Bavona further emphasize the vast potential that surrounds us.  It’s motivating for the future.

On the way out of the Valley we made a quick stop at the Cart Project.  Gave it a couple tries.  Feels doable.  Pretty sweet moves.

To fill the time between successes and failures on the rock, I’ve been shooting a ton of video and some photos.  I deeply enjoy this type of creative outlet.  I’ve never been a good artist (drawing, painting, etc.), but I have a lasting appreciation for the artistic aesthetics of the world.  A camera seems to be the easiest way for me to bring my own vision to light.  The footage from my time here will be featured in a new film released as an HD Download.  Keep an eye out!  I can guarantee high quality, entertaining, and inspiring climbing footage as well as an engaging story line.  Here’s some screens:

Heritage V14  - First Ascent

Heritage V14  - First Ascent

Vecchio Leone V13

Cresciano

New Base Line V14

Mystic Stylez V14

Practice Of The Wild V15

Practice Of The Wild V15 – Double Clutch to the Mail Slot

The rock of Brione

The Crack Line 8B – Chironico