“You just start putting chalk on rock and climbing”: A Conversation with “The Sherriff”

Colorado climber Jamie Emerson is known for a lot of things.  He climbs pretty hard, but mostly on boulders.  He is an established route setter and forerunner for climbing competitions across the United States.  He recently authored a guidebook to bouldering in Rocky Mountain National Park and Mount Evans.  But, most famously (or infamously) he hosts www.b3bouldering.com, a popular website given to his exploits in climbing and just about any other damn things that strikes his fancy for rock wrestlers.  He’s so outspoken about grades and starting positions and most of the ephemera fogging up the climbing universe that he’s earned the nickname, “The Sherriff”.  He is also one of the most cerebral speakers of our funky little climber-verse that it’s always a pleasure (for ClimbTalk, at least) to hear him voice his opinions and ideas in real time in the studio.  We had him in a couple weeks ago.  It’ll either get you thinking or stoke your ire.  Enjoy!

Mike Brooks:  This is ClimbTalk, I’m Mike Brooks.  Dave McAllister from www.pumpfactoryroad.com co-host, and in the studio we have Jamie Emerson.  Jamie, thank you for joining us for ClimbTalk.

Jamie Emerson:  Thank you for having me.

MB:  Jamie, you were climbing where today with Kilian [Fischhuber] and Anna [Stohr]?

JE:  I was climbing at Rocky Mountain National Park, at Endovalley.

 DM:  Let’s talk about who Kilian and Anna are.  Introduce us, real quick.

JE:  It’s my understanding that Kilian and Anna are the current World Champions in bouldering.  They’ve been extremely successful comp climbers for a long time and they have a very high reputation.  They climb really hard problems outside, too, all the time.

MB:  You’re a competition climber/course setter.

JE:  I’m not a competition climber – I’m a course setter.  I’ve never done any competitions.

DM:  Why not?  You’re a course eand you’re a forerunner…

JE:  There’s one reason:  Because I make more money setting.  [laughter]  That’s the only reason.

DM:  So, how was it out at Endovalley with those guys?

JE:  It was awesome.  They’re great to climb with; they have great senses of humor.  We have a really good time together.  They both climbed really well.  Anna did Cambrian Explosion, a V10 – she did it pretty quickly.  And Kilian did the king line, Flux for Life, Carlo Traversi first ascent.  He did it in a couple of hours.  It was really impressive.

MB:  How hard was that?

JE:  V13.

DM:  It’s so improbable-looking, too.  The footwork on it is out of this world.

MB:  You’ve seen it, Dave?

DM:  Many times.  Only seen it, as well.  I’ve touched it…

JE:  Never climbed on it?

DM:  No way, I couldn’t even start it.

MB:  Jamie, you have a new bouldering guide out.  Is this route we’re talking about in your guidebook?

JE:  No, Endovalley was not included in the guidebook because I didn’t have enough information to do an accurate job.  I think guidebooks don’t succeed when there’s a lack of information, and I didn’t have enough information to do it properly.  So, I excluded it from the guidebook.

DM:  Let’s talk about the guidebook.  This is Rocky Mountain National Park and Mount Evans Bouldering.

JE:  That’s right.  Sharp End Publishing.

DM:  When the guidebook left the galleys and you could spread it around to a couple people, like Peter Beal and [other] people to review it, were you nervous about the reviews it was going to get, about how people would accept a guidebook to a fragile ecosystem?

JE:  Interesting question.  First of all, I had done as much fore-work as I could to let people know what I was doing and to talk to the rangers.  I had a long meeting with the rangers at Rocky Mountain National Park and Mt. Evans and we talked about the implications of the guidebook.  They were fine with it; they thought it was a great idea.  They thought not only was it a good idea, that it was acceptable, but that it would help them manage the land better.  Because they would have a better understanding of where things were, if there was an accident how they can get to certain places.  They both seemed really excited about it.

I got very little resistance from anybody in the community.  I got one person that wrote me an email that was upset and her reasons, I thought, were really valid.  I took a really long time and responded as well as I could and tried to address every single one of them.  [I] said, “I appreciate your concern, but I think it’s acceptable because of this and this and this.”

…what was the second part of the question?

DM:  Were you nervous how it’d be reviewed?  It’s your first book, right?

JE:  Yes, I’ve never written a book before.  I just wanted people to like it.  I wanted people to feel it was a book that was helpful to them.  And it was about everyone that had climbed in the Park and they could really use it.  I wanted the usability to be really high and I wanted people to feel like, “I climb in Colorado, Colorado is important to me.”  I spent a lot of time in Rocky Mountain National Park and Mt. Evans and this is kind of my book, too.  I really wanted to convey that.  It seems like, so far, people have received it really well.

MB:  Jamie, did you consult any other guidebook authors about the layout, format, etc.?

JE:  I did.  I talked to Matt Wilder a little bit…

DM:  He did the Hueco [Tanks] guidebook.

JE:  He did the Hueco guidebook and the Yosemite guidebook, as well.  But, I really relied on Fred [Knapp] and Heidi [Knapp].  They run Sharp End Publishing.  They gave me a lot of leeway, but at the same time kind of said, “Hey, this is what we expect.”  It was a really awesome learning experience for me.  I feel I got maybe not quite a degree but an associate’s degree or something, because it was two years of work and learning two or three new programs.  They really let me make it my own, which was awesome, on their part.

DM:  I know that you’re a reader.  It must have been cool to see the publishing process from the inside out.  Instead of being a voyeur inside somebody else’s book, you’re the guy writing it and going through this whole publishing process.

JE:  You know, that’s an interesting thing, because I found that it’s so easy to get lost in the woods and not see the whole forest.  I’m looking at the moss on some little branch when you’re trying to create this gigantic forest.  That was a real challenge for me.  At one point they were like, “Okay, the guidebook looks great.  You’re done.  We need to stop.”  I think I needed to hear that.

DM:  And how are sales going?

JE:  Good.  It’s really nice that I can sell it on my website.  That’s been a huge advantage.  I think they’re excited about it and I’m excited about it.  I’ve run www.b3bouldering.com for four or five years now and I haven’t really made any money off of it whatsoever.  Not that this pays for very much, but it helps a little bit.

MB:  We had Mark Rolofson on ClimbTalk a couple shows ago and he’s a guidebook author and he self-publishes.  What do you think about that, Jamie?

JE:  For me in this instance, not knowing anything, that task seems extremely daunting.  Having Fred and Heidi there to guide me…it’s hard to express how much that was worth because [at] so many turns I had no idea what to do and they were like, “Do this.  Do this.  Do this.”

DM:  And they really add quality to a book, a publishing house like Sharp End.  Not to say that Mark doesn’t publish high value things, but the quality of the product he presents can’t match somebody like Sharp End Publishing.  But, that’s what he…you know, he’s kind of DIY.

JE:  It’s nice to have an extra set of eyes.  And they’ve done it before; they’ve done it a lot.  They did the Eldorado [Canyon] guidebook, which I think is a great guidebook.  They did the Indian Creek guidebook, which is a great guidebook.  So, I saw those things and I thought, “They’re looking over this and they’re going to add this kind of touch to my guidebook.  I need that help.”  Because, I’m really good with the information but I don’t have much background in graphic design.  They really helped out with that a lot.

DM:  In the guidebook we have all of the Rocky Mountain National Park – not all – a good portion of the RMNP bouldering, Evans [areas] A, B, C, D.  There are two areas that are left out.  There’s Endovalley, which of course got a lot of first ascents going down this year when you were well on your way to publishing the book.  And then Lincoln Lake, which got a lot last year.  We know the reasons why you didn’t include those in the guidebook, but are you thinking about doing an addendum, like a digital addendum?

JE:  Yeah, I’m actually working on the Endovalley section right now.  Also, I’d really like to do a Lincoln Lake thing, too.  I want to talk to the ranger.  If they’re not psyched then I’m not interested.  But, maybe they’ll see the success of this guidebook – not financially but just how it directs people to the right place – and say, “Hey, we can do the same thing with a fragile environment like Lincoln Lake.”

DM:  People are going to go there, regardless.  So, the question is, do you not write a guidebook to hold to some sort of ethical standard…not ethical – maintain the integrity of the ecology?  Or, since people are going anyway, do you put it in the hands of somebody who is going to be responsible with it and do it the right way?

JE:  Right.  I can answer that question for how I feel, but it really comes down to the ranger.  He was like, “You can do whatever you want to,” but I’m not interested in stepping on his toes.  I’m not interested in being like, “Well, we’re climbers.  We can do anything we want.”  No.

DM:  It’s apparent we can’t.

JE:  This is not Eldorado in the sixties, Mike!

MB:  Or seventies…  You mentioned that you were going to do an addendum to Endovalley.  Now, isn’t that somewhat controversial to the locals up there in Estes Park?

DM:  Ohhhh…I was gonna ask that question.

MB:  I know!  I was looking at your notes…

JE:  [With a big fat grin on his face]  What controversy…what are you talking about?

DM:  Some of the locals gave you a hard time for giving Endovalley the spotlight this spring.  How does that kind of “local vibe” affect you, or come off to you?

JE:  There’s a number of things.  I tried, as much as I could, to talk to as many locals as I could in Estes Park and say, “Hey, I want to write this guide book to the bouldering in RMNP.  How do you feel about that?”  And like I said, I got resistance from one person.  Everyone else, if they felt resistance, didn’t vocalize it to me.  I tried to give everyone the opportunity to do that.

The locals that were upset about Endovalley apparently had not been there in four years and apparently had done almost nothing.  I’m not trying to say that Dave [Graham] was the first person to go there; I don’t think I ever said that.  I think I had been there before – I have photos on my camera from two years ago when I walked through the boulder field.  It was just this resurgence.  And to see thirty people in this area, which had been neglected for so long, and people really enjoying the problems and thinking these problems are really classic…  Who knows, maybe [John] Gill walked through there.  I would like to know the history, but…

DM:  It’s certainly accessible enough.  People have seen it.

JE:  Oh, yeah.  What I was trying to speak to, and maybe this wasn’t coming across clearly enough, was that there was a renaissance, or there was a revival in the interest in the area.  It’s far exceeded what had ever been done before.  I told those locals, I said, “I’m not trying to wipe out your history.  I’m not trying to take away from anything that you’ve done.  I’d love to hear about it.  I want to know all of the information, so tell me.”  And that was received with…

DM:  Unconstructive criticism on your website.  I think some of them took umbrage – well, with a number of things – but with the verbiage “rediscovery.”  I think that might have come off like, “We rediscovered it and we’re going to put it on the map now.”  They intuited that you were saying, “What you’ve done in the past is of no consequence.”

JE:  Right.  And I’ve written numerous times that I want to know the history and I would be happy to hear the history.  Someone mentioned that they ran into Tommy Caldwell and he’s like, “I’ve bouldered there before.  I’ve bouldered there for years.”  I would never be like, “It doesn’t count because I’m here!”  [laughter]  No.  I want to know.  I want to document what’s been done.  I try to give them an opportunity and say, “If you’ve climbed problems, let’s hear ‘em!  What did you climb?”

DM:  Did you get any feedback?

JE:  None.  They said, “Get out of here.  You’re heinous.  Whatever.”

DM:  I find it hard to believe something like The Portal [really nice, obvious moderate] hadn’t been climbed before.

JE:  Right.  Yeah, maybe Tommy had done that or maybe other people.  I emailed a couple people and they said, “Oh yeah, we bouldered there but we really didn’t do much.”  Some of the old Estes locals who were bouldering in the Park.

This kind of leads into this thing…I talked to the first person who had ever bouldered at Emerald Lake [in RMNP].  His name is Jim Hurst.  He would guide clients up Hallet’s Peak and he had been to Hueco.  He was like, “Hueco is so amazing.  I love it.”  He would take people up Hallet’s Peak and he would say, “Okay, I’ll take you up, but you have to spot me on these boulders, because these boulders are awesome.”  He actually did the first ascent of The Kind – or I wrote in the guidebook In Your Face, which is what he called it because there’s a big block that would threaten to come off.  But, just this idea of he had been there and I’d talked to him on the phone and he was super-forthright with everything.  He was like, “I will answer all of your questions.  I will let you know exactly what I did.”

Here’s the first person – he’s more local than anyone because he’s the first person to boulder – and he is super happy to share all the information.  And then, somehow, these other people were not happy.

The other issue is that we’re bouldering in a national park.   This isn’t private property.  This isn’t someone’s secret.  It’s literally 25 yards off of a road.  Three million people a year visit the Park.  It’s hard to justify saying that you’re not allowed to tell people about this.  It’s one of the most visited natural areas in America.

DM:  That’s a point that you can’t logic away.  I was thinking that when I was reading the 60 or 70 responses to your initial posting.  It’s like, “Hey man, this isn’t somebody’s backyard.  This is a national park that I pay $40 for every single year to do exactly what I want, in a respectful way to the environment.”

JE:  Not only do your taxpayer dollars go there, but you pay an admission fee to get in.  You’ve paid a lot of money to have the right to run around that place.  The idea of withholding information…  If it was a really sensitive alpine area, I could see a better argument for it.  But when it’s right off a road?  The rangers went up there the first few days.  The ranger that I came into contact with, Jess Assmussen [sp?], has been super-awesome the entire time.  I ran into him again there and we talked for a long time and he was like, “I think it’s totally acceptable that you guys are bouldering here and I have no problem with it.  We look at your website and we think it’s fine.”  I was like, “Awesome.  Everyone’s happy.”

DM:  It’s the most accessible bouldering.  If you put it in your guidebook…I mean…it’s 25 steps off a road.

JE:  Right.  It’s so easy to get to.  And…it’s not the next Chaos Canyon and it’s not the next Hueco Tanks.  But, it’s a great little collection of boulders and the season is a little different than Chaos Canyon and Mt. Evans.  So, it’s another great addition to Colorado bouldering.

DM:  Exaclty.  Say, you go to Evans on Saturday and you’re like, “Oh!  My legs!  They’re friggin’ killing me, but I’m not going to Flagstaff [Mountain in Boulder] and I’m not going to Horsetooth [Reservoir in Fort Collins] and I don’t want to stay in the Front Range…”  You can get a day of alpine bouldering…and it’s a ten minute hike up.

JE:  Right, that’s awesome.  Kilian and Anna really liked the approach.

DM:  Did you see the new Urban Climber Magazine?

JE:  I haven’t seen it.  Is this the “Best 100 Boulder Problems”?

DM:  Yeah, I have it in my backpack, which isn’t in the studio.

JE:  I was involved in this discussion.  I don’t know if I’m named or not; I think there were some anonymity issues, or something.  I helped pick out some of the boulder problems.  It was myself, Jason Kehl, Jackie Hueftle, Kevin Kukovich [sp?], and we called a number of our friends to get this or that.  It’s funny, I think people expected me to be a lot more opinionated, but I was just like, “Well, this is extremely arbitrary, I don’t know how…”

DM:  So, the new Urban Climber Magazine, for everybody listening, has one of those argumentative articles that is the perfect thing to talk about at a bar, or whatever, or whatever climbers do.  It has the 100 best boulder problems in America, actually numbered from 1 to 100.  And there’re a number of RMNP and Evans problems in there.

JE:  Yes, there are.  I advocated probably more for Colorado problems.  I think people kind of advocated for their home areas a little bit.  So, I tried to eliminate as much bias as I could…

[I walked out of the studio to grab the mag and brought it back in for Jamie]  Oh, here we go…

MB:  Okay, what is that?

JE:  I’m looking at the newest Urban Climber with the 100 best boulder problems in America.  Number one is The Shield.  It’s a gorgeous boulder problem, although I argued that it was contrived and some other things.  But, it’s a really nice boulder problem.

DM:  V10.  Number four is V13, man.  Whatever happened to…come on.  Give me some easy ones…

MB:  Where is The Shield?

JE:  The Shield is in Tennessee, in Little Rock City.  The southern sandstone there is some of the best rock I’ve ever climbed on.  It’s outstanding.  It’s aesthetic.  It has an amazing texture.  It’s nearly a perfect medium to climb on, so to pick that problem is not ridiculous.  But, I think you could find objective things that are wrong with it.

DM:  I was going to transition from the Urban Climber Magazine to your experience in the mountains of Colorado.  Give me the best boulder problems in the Park and at Evans that people shouldn’t miss, those tiers from entry level to moderate to advanced to elite.

JE:  One of the problems that I mentioned earlier, The Kind or In Your Face…

DM:  I think that’s number 10.

JE:  Yeah, it’s awesome.  It’s V5, which is a pretty accessible grade for people who are avid boulderers.  That is an amazing problem.  And on the next boulder over is Whispers of Wisdom, which is V10, I think one of the best V10s in America.  Those are outstanding problems.  I don’t know if Tommy’s Arete made the list or not, but that’s in Chaos Canyon.  It’s V7, it’s kind of in-between.  That’s a fabulous problem, too.

DM:  That’s my favorite problem in Colorado.

MB:  It is, Dave?  Why, exactly?

DM:  I don’t think it’s V7, first of all [Jamie laughs].  Whatever grade it is, there’s no discernable crux.  I don’t feel like it can shut you down, so it’s enjoyable all the way through.  There’s nothing that’s physically going to put you in pain.  There’re no iron crosses that are going to hurt your shoulders, there’re no tiny little crimps that are going to blow up your tendons.  But, it’s what…18, 20 moves steadily rising.

JE:  The rock is outstanding.

DM:  Yeah, the holds are outstanding, the movement is stellar.  You go from cross-through-crimps to long moves and then into these huge blocky moves at 17 feet off the deck, maybe, with a huge boulder against your back that makes it exciting if you fall…but you never do if you trust yourself up there.  And it’s a good top-out on big holds.  You go totally [horizontal] at the top of the climb with a heel hook.  It’s just exciting!  And this green lichened rock, this swirling granite…Ah!  Beautiful!

JE:  It epitomizes a lot of the really awesome characteristics that make Rocky Mountain National Park what it is.

You know, we could also talk about Alaska.  I went to Alaska this summer.

MB:  Tell us about that.

JE:  Well, I’m on the lookout for new bouldering, always, and I want to find new bouldering in exotic places.  I like to look where people haven’t looked or I don’t think they’ve looked. That’s not 100 percent true because there is a little community up in Alaska, a couple really dedicated climbers that are awesome.  They’ve done a lot to put up as much as they can.

So, I had the opportunity to go up there this summer and we went to check it out.  It was really an exploratory trip.  It’s interesting because I’ve been climbing for a long time, or I feel like I’ve been climbing for a long time…maybe not as long as you [looking at Mike with a shit-eating grin].

DM:  That’s a safe guess.

JE:  How long have you been climbing?

MB:  A long time.  Go on with your story. [laughter]

JE:  What I was going to say is that I’m to the point now where I want to go develop an area.  I want to find an area.  I don’t want to find a problem here or there; I want to find a whole area that hasn’t been climbed, or there’s still a lot to develop.  This trip was really an exploratory trip.  It wasn’t like we’re going to send all the V13s and V12s…we’re going to see what’s up there, see if it’s worth going back to.

We spent a lot of time hiking.  It’s a really complex landscape.  You’re way up in the mountains, way above the tree line.  We spent a lot of time just figuring out, is this worthy?  Is this someplace that we want to come back to?  Could this be a new summer destination for people to go bouldering?  It seemed like the answer was “yes.”  I’m planning on going back next year.  It’s awesome.

 DM:  For people that have been to Lincoln Lake, with a talus field, is it similar to that?

JE:  It’s more spread out than that.  In a lot of ways it’s the next level of alpine bouldering because you have no trails, really.  You have grizzly bears, which present a serious threat.  I mean, we saw people on the trail with guns all the time.  That was a normal, legitimate thing to have, like you’d bring a rain jacket to Evans.  You have a gun.

DM:  That’s the last thing you need to put in a boulderer’s hand…

JE:  Right.  So, there are grizzly bears you have to deal with.  The landscape is similar to Mt. Evans, but the mountains are much steeper in Alaska.  There’s just more to explore.  It’s just more complex.  I think that whole element was what I was looking for.  I wanted more adventure.

It’s kind of this new thing that’s been going on.  You saw Jason Kehl went to India.  We went to Alaska.  There’s a crew in Idaho that is now hiking six or seven miles to this bouldering – you take a boat and then you hike to a bouldering area.  People seem to really want to branch out.  It seems to be the new way people are exploring the whole sport of bouldering, which I think is really fascinating.

DM:  I was just thinking about that the other day, about how backcountry bouldering is exploding right now.  I think it’s a natural progression for the sport because bouldering is much younger, [as] a sport of it’s own.  I think this is natural.  People have developed these areas like Horsetooth – just talking about Colorado – and Carter Lake and all the Flatirons areas…

JE:  People have bouldered Eldorado Canyon for 20, 30 years, if not more [looking at Mike making a face]…oh…more!  70, 80, 100 years?

DM:  That circumference is growing, right; it’s just like a radar.  So, people need to go farther.  I think it’s natural.  And it’s great for the sport.

JE:  It’s great for the sport.  [looking at Mike]  I think part of the reason you’re seeing this is because maybe people from your generation were route climbing.  They were like, “We’re looking at Redgarden Wall [in Eldo] and then we’ll go bouldering after we finish and we have a couple of hours.”  Now, it’s all they do is go bouldering.  All I do is go bouldering.  I can climb a lot of boulders that are roadside…now it’s like, what else is out there?  When you start going out there you find that the things that are out there are way more impressive than what you’ve seen…you know, Horsetooth is great but it’s really small.  It’s nothing when you compare it to a mile-long talus field of amazing boulders.  It’s really motivating, for me, to see so much new rock.

MB:  That’s Jamie Emerson talking about Alaska and Idaho…but you haven’t talked about Wyoming.

JE:  Mmmm.  So, like I said, I’m really interested in finding new areas.   In the guidebook, Dave [Graham] touches on the early development of Chaos Canyon and what that meant to him.  I think that was a really special time because there were only a handful of people that even knew, and it wasn’t this environment of saturation of media; videos, pictures…  If you talk to the right people and you ask the right questions, then you can find out about these areas.  It’s awesome to try and recreate that in other environments, in today’s day and age.

So, I can go to Wyoming, which I did over Labor Day weekend, because I got this tip from this guy who said there’s a lot of boulders in this place.  We should go check it out.  We went and it’s incredible.  You have these days where it’s three or four people in a gigantic talus field and you don’t even know where to begin.  You just start putting chalk on rock and climbing.  You’re there with a couple friends.  There’s no one else there, there’s no names, there’s no grades, there’s just climbing and enjoying being in the outdoors.  It’s a really awesome experience.

That’s the kind of experience that I’m looking for.  I found it in Alaska and I found it again in Wyoming.

MB:  Where is this place in Wyoming?

JE:  It’s just outside of Lander, which is awesome, because Lander is an amazing climbing town.  It has a long history of being a great sport climbing town.  And, the National Outdoor Leadership School is headquartered there.  For them to have bouldering, it’s like, “Wow, you guys actually have a lot of boulders here.”

I think one of the things that’s really interesting is that when bouldering areas can actually help economies.  Like in Orangeville, Utah, Joe’s Valley.  It’s a super-depressed little town and then the climbers come and they actually bring money to the town.  I think that’s one of the really interesting things about how developing bouldering problems can actually affect the economy, which is a pretty radical idea.

DM:  Absolutely.  Not that Bishop [California] needs a lot of money, because there’s certainly a ton of money in Bishop, but climbers are a boon to that economy.

JE:  Right.  There is a substantial impact from climbers visiting that place.  Or, a town like Rifle.  A lot of these places are pretty out-of-the-way places and [climbers] really do bring money into the economy.  Even in Estes Park, which has a lot of tourists, there’s still…my book, or people stopping at the Country Market to get food, all of those things.  It’s more than just a couple of climbers.  30 climbers a day are doing that.

DM:  You’ve been to Joe’s Valley a million times.  Back in the day when you’d go to Joe’s Valley and you’d go to the Food Ranch and upstairs is the little outfitting place.  Back in the day it was all hunting and not even Coleman stoves, these off-brands.  And now you go up there and I think they have one style of Mad Rock shoes, they sell chalk, chalk buckets.  It’s unbelievable.

JE:  They wouldn’t carry those things if they weren’t selling them.  I think that’s a huge impact that climbing has on places.  Lander seems to be doing well on it’s own, but this [bouldering] is bringing me up there.  I’m going to go back up there in a couple weeks.  I’m sure if really hard problems start to come in, get put up, more and more people will want to go.  It may even become a destination.  It may become like Chaos Canyon or something.

MB:  If people want to learn more about this new Wyoming bouldering where can they find the information online?

JE:  There’s only one place right now, as far as I know:  www.b3bouldering.com.  It’s called the Devil’s Kitchen.  There are two areas, actually.  There’s the Devil’s Kitchen and then there’s another area on the same road called the Falcon’s Lair.  The Falcon’s Lair is an alpine area.  It’s more like Mt. Evans.  The Devil’s Kitchen is a lower area.  They have two seasons now for bouldering, which is awesome.

There’s a couple guys, I want to mention their names, Davin Bagdonis.  He has been instrumental in Wyoming bouldering development.  He has done a great job.  Jessie Brown is another one who lives in Lander.  He’s really spearheaded the move to go to Devil’s Kitchen.  He was the one who named it.  When I went there two weeks ago I think there were four to seven problems established, which is nothing.  There will probably be 1,000 problems when it’s all said and done.  It’s huge.  It’s gigantic.  It’s literally a Chaos Canyon volume of rock with Poudre Canyon quality granite.

DM:  Talk about the approach.  You don’t ever like to say the word “epic” with bouldering, but the approach sounds epic.

JE:  It is literally twice the elevation loss as Lincoln Lake.  Lincoln Lake is 800 feet or 900 feet and this is [a] 1700 or 1800 foot drop into the canyon.  Which is fine going in; it’s 45 minutes going in.  On the way out it is brutal, with a crash pad on.  I think the first day we ran around so much.  We ran down, ran around for eight hours, and then hiked back out with all of our gear.  And then you have a half an hour on a 4-wheel drive road, which at the end of the day was not fun.  And then another hour on a dirt road.  It was a long day.

We all woke up the next day and we were like, “Are we going to do this again?  This is ridiculous.”  But, we went back and we were like, “This is amazing…  We’re going to keep doing this.”

DM:  That’s like a three hour approach, door to door.  An hour and a half of driving and 45 minutes in.  And on the way out, probably an hour and a half?

JE:  Yup.  Maybe an hour out, but it’s steep.  There’s no trail yet, too, so you’re bushwhacking.  We hiked out at night the first time and my legs got really cut up.  But, there’s so much rock.  I  always feel like all these little boulders are just ways to express…how can I put this…all these options are ways you can move your body.  It’s what every boulder represents, human movement.  There’re a million representations of human movement that are frozen in stone.  You can walk into these boulder fields and you’re like, “This is an almost infinite palate for human movement.”  In an amazing setting.  That’s really motivating to me because there’s so much to create.

DM:  I don’t know why I have this allergy to people [calling] climbing “art”.  It’s not art.  I understand the analogies…  But, “a palate of human movement,” that’s nice.  “Frozen in stone,” you said, as well.  It’s not artwork, it’s more like capturing a gymnastic movement that’s going to be repeated ad infinitum.

MB:  You make a good point.  We were talking earlier about some people who have been potentially chipping holds.  You want to go there?

JE:  [laughter]  You can talk about whatever you want.  It’s fine.  It’s a free-for-all.  I like freedom.

DM:  Earlier this spring there was some mention of a route at Lincoln Lake that someone, who is actually named, was employing a paint scraper and a screwdriver to – I hate this term – “aggressively clean”, i.e. chip or alter a problem that had been established and climbed by ten people.  What happened there?

JE:  Well, it’s a complex issue…

MB:  Why would anyone do that?

JE:  That’s part of the complexity of the issue.  If you walked into Fontainebleau or Joe’s Valley or Horsetooth Reservoir, the rock is really solid and really clean and it would be appalling if someone had a screwdriver there.  Even [a] first ascent.  It’s unnecessary, completely.  You’re just going to damage the rock.  The reality is that Lincoln Lake is pretty chossy and there’s a lot of cleaning that’s gone on.  It’s cleaning with wire brushes, it’s the kind of thing that’s just going to accelerate the process.  You’re going to step on a foothold a thousand times and it’s going to break a thousand times.  Instead of having that happen you just take a wire brush, tshk-tshk-tshk, and clean it off and accelerate that process.

What happens is that those tools, like a screwdriver or a wire brush, they come out and the boulders are being cleaned and then someone climbs it.  Now, all of a sudden, it’s a boulder problem.  Is it appropriate, then, to put a screwdriver to an established boulder problem?  Even if it’s like, “That hold is going to break off”?  And someone tries to break it off and can’t, but, “It’s just going to break if 10 more people climb on it”?

I think these are questions that haven’t really been addressed.  In sport climbing they’ve been addressed, people just break them off with crowbars, hammers, whatever.  That’s a really common sport climbing practice, I think, around the world.  But, in bouldering it’s less common and it’s less established as to what is proper etiquette.

Here’s a great example.  We were in Alaska, trying a project.  They had a really established project and it had a loose hold on it.  It’s the kind of hold you could break off with a screwdriver.  It was just wiggling and it’s going to break.  Do you take a screwdriver to it and pop it off?  No, we didn’t.  Brian got on a rope and yarded on it for half an hour before breaking it off and raking his knuckles.  Now, he took the high road, for sure.  He was like, “I’m going to just break it off with my hands.”

The question is, “What’s acceptable?”  Is it okay to use a plastic screwdriver?  Is that acceptable?

DM:  I think the only acceptable way to break off a hold…  If something’s obviously chossy and you can pull it off with your hands, of course break it off.

JE:  I think another issue is the safety.  I’ve actually cut my head before breaking holds off during first ascents.  I don’t like that.  I don’t want to do that.  If I thought I could just pop something off with a screwdriver easily, then I would be way more inclined to want to do that.  Then the argument could be made that it’s a safety issue.

DM:  That was my next point.  If you’re talking about a 30 foot boulder problem and there’s a chossy hold at 27 feet…  I mean, that’s happened to me.  I broke my leg on a popped hold.  That’s kind of a different story.  But, if we’re talking a hold at seven feet that’s through the crux, there’s a real quandary that you break into.  Can somebody break that hold in a fashion that is going to create a hold that is comfortable for your hand?  Or, when it breaks naturally…that’s two different ways of hold management, so to speak.

JE:  Right.  I think that one of the interesting things is that you could say that someone who’s experienced, who’s climbed for a long time…let’s say Mike [Brooks].  You’ve been climbing 50 years, whatever.  [loud laughter]  You’ve been climbing for a long time.  You could say he’s got a lot of experience, he’s done a lot of first ascents, he knows what to do, etc.  So, he’s earned the right, somehow, to use a tool, like a screwdriver, to break a hold off.  But, that leads to a slippery slope, because then you’re like, “I’ve climbed with Mike a lot.  Why can’t I use a screwdriver?”

If you want to make a rule for it, the best rule is to say nothing, to say no screwdriver, whatsoever.  You could even say no wire brushes, no metal.  You could use a substance that’s less hard than the rock.  That would be a really nice rule, I think.

DM:  What do you think, Mike?

MB:  I do agree.  A scraping device, like a brush, should be softer than the rock.  But, it’s nebulous.  Who’s going to say how hard the rock is?  How are you going to get an accurate estimation of how hard the brush is?  It just creates a lot of problems.  I like the concept, in theory.

DM:  Don’t use a wire brush on sandstone.  I think a wire brush can be used to take lichen off…

JE:  Right.  It’d be nice to have a rule, to say, “This is the rule.”  But, you have such wildly varying rock types and such wildly varying ethics, too.  Let’s say someone develops routes in Rifle or in Spain where it’s totally acceptable to just break off things with a hammer or things that would be appalling for a boulderer.  They’re like, “Yeah, it’s fine.  We just need to prepare the route for people.  Because 1,000 people are going to climb it.  We need to make it friendly for everyone.”  Then again, you get into, “Are we here to make things friendly or are we here to try to step up to the challenge of the rock?”  There’s a lot…

DM:  The rabbit hole just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

JE:  Oh, yes.  I would love to come up with answers and I try all the time, but it’s really difficult.

[Some talk of the World Cup that came to Boulder’s Movement Climbing and Fitness Center in early October, the gym for which Jamie works as a route setter.]

JE:  I think it’s great for America to be exposed to the European climbing scene.  The Europeans are so far ahead of America, in terms of these competitions and in terms of paying people professionally to be climbers and supporting people to be climbers.  I think it’s great to not only be exposed to those kinds of things, but also to be exposed to European climbing techniques.  The emphasis in Europe is much more on technique, “How can I be a good climber, not just how can I hang on as hard as I can?”  If you go to The Spot, that’s what you’re seeing.

MB:  So, Dave, he didn’t just slam The Spot?  [laughter]

JE:  No!  I love The Spot!  What I’m slamming is American climbing technique.  It’s generally horrendous.  [laughter]  But, what’s not horrendous is our power.  We have amazing power and the Europeans are always impressed, “Oh, their fingers are so strong and they’re very powerful…but always so sloppy.”  There’s just not a whole lot of thought.  When I see people climbing in the gym, they’re not thinking, “Where can I put my foot?  How can I turn my hips?  How can I engage the left toe and the right toe and the left arm and how does it relate to my hand position?”  All those things.

DM:  One of the boons for European climbers is like you noted, they’re paid to train.  I mean, there is a competitive sponsorship scene there.  They’re paid to train, their paid to heighten their technique, whereas American climbers [are] not on that level – they’re not paid on that level.

JE:  I agree, but it would be nice to see people interested in becoming better climbers for the sake of becoming better climbers.  To really develop their technique, to really develop themselves as climbers, not to just focus on a certain kind of problem but to try as many different styles as they can.

[Doing some PSAs, get to talking about the Lincoln Lake clean-up.]

JE:  I think that’s tomorrow.  I don’t know a whole lot about it.  I think, Chris Shulte and Jackie [Hueftle] are kind of running that.  It’s my understanding that they have gotten in touch with the US Forest Service and they’re doing it in conjunction.

DM:  I believe they are.  The Forest Service is picking up all the trash.

JE:  Those kinds of things go a long way towards maintaining a good relationship between the climbers and the rangers.  It’ll help not only keep the area open but it will help things, like if there are issues we know who to talk to.  Maybe it’ll help me write another guidebook.  Even if I don’t write the guidebook, maybe someone else will write it.  I think that’s a great effort on their part.

DM:  This is the first time, in my memory, that a non-trail building, actual clean-up of rubbish has gone on in the alpine area.  So, you think about Lincoln Lake – the users there are climbers.  Climbers are causing enough rubbish to need a clean-up at Lincoln Lake?

JE:  Interesting.  I think there is a little bit of that.  I don’t think it’s very dirty there.  There is a lot of weird trash that comes off the road.  There are actually road signs there, thrown over the edge.  There were a few cones, there were a few road signs, there’s old mining stuff.  Just weird remains from human activity.  It’s nice for people to say, “This isn’t our trash, but we’ll clean it up anyway because we want the place to look nice.”

I think, generally, climbers will do a reasonable job of taking care of an area.  It seems like there has become an awareness that this isn’t just three people going to the mountains.  This is an area and we’re going to climb here for a long time and we need to take care of it.

DM:  Now they just need to install an escalator.

JE:  Maybe a gondola with a little coffee house down there.

DM:  I got this question when I was at Evans last weekend and I don’t know how to answer it.  If you want to go to Mt. Evans, it’s not a bad hike in.  The fire road sucks, but the rest of it is beautiful.  But, as you’re hiking and you get on the fire road, zip, red Chevy pickup.  Zip, Ford Explorer drives by.  You walk past the lake there and you see gigantic Winnebago’s with people camping.  Somebody asked me this the other day, “Why can’t climbers park here and drive up there?”  My answer is, all the time, “Well…they just can’t.”  Why not?

JE:  Because the ranger said so.  [laughter]   They are legally allowed if you live in the county.  If you’re a resident there, you are legally allowed to access a key to drive up that road.  I asked the ranger about this because it is a huge issue.  He said, “It’s caused so many problems…because then you have people trying to copy the key.  And then you have people trying to sneak in…they didn’t get the key but their friend did and they’re going to leave the gate open.”  He said, “I just want to end all of that.  If you’re a climber…I know how strong you guys are.  Just do the hike.”

The hike is not that bad.  It’s just part of the experience.  I’ve done the hike a hundred times – it’s fine.  It’s a small price to pay to maintain access and a good relationship with the ranger.

DM:  So, you have a nickname, “The Sherriff.”  That moniker can be bestowed upon you in an endearing way or an unflattering way.  How do you feel about being nicknamed “The Sherriff”?

JE:  I think it’s amusing because it was bestowed upon me in a very endearing way.  It was actually Jimmy Webb from the South who came up with the name because I was giving him such a hard time about starting a boulder problem in the wrong place.  He’s like, “That Sherriff’s gonna come git ya.  You better watch out.”  I think…he appreciates my commitment to want to see people do things with the highest ethics.  If not that, then at least to put thought behind what they’re doing and say, “You can’t just do whatever you want to and say it’s okay because you’re having fun.”  If you want to make claims about doing things…

People want to say, “I climbed V13.”  Well, did you actually climb V13?  What does it mean to climb V13?  Say, Jade [in RMNP].  What does it mean to climb Jade?  Well, did you start in the right place?  If you want to take credit for what you’ve done then you should really know what you’ve done.

DM:  If you want to make a claim in the public forum…

JE:  Right.  I’ve always said if people want to go off and do whatever they want to, by themselves, I fully advocate that.  They should have the freedom to do that.  But, it’s imperative that if they want to make a living and they want to get paid and they want to get credit and they want to be famous for climbing Jade, then we need to define what Jade is.  And they need to say, “I fit the parameters of what we say Jade is.”

DM:  Animal, in Clear Creek Canyon, is a perfect example.

JE:  Yes.  The thing is…  I know people always say I’m a jerk or I’m trying to cut their experience.  I just…if you say you did Animal, do Animal.  What is Animal?  And here’s the history.  And here’s the information.  I think if you say you did Animal and you didn’t do it, that’s just inaccurate.  I strive for accuracy.  It really comes from a desire for things to be accurate, correct.

DM:  In the public forum…

JE:  In the public forum.

DM:  Everybody can climb Animal if they aren’t going to put it on the Web and start it at the V7 and tell all your friends that you did the V10.  More power to ya.  That’s what I do.

JE:   If you’re there by yourself and you want to enjoy the rock and do whatever you want, by all means, please go do it.  I’m not trying to stop that – ever.

DM:  Let’s give your website a little promo.   Your website has definitely evolved over the years.  When did it start?

JE:  I think 2007.

DM:  What is it evolving to?  You mentioned you don’t make much money off of it.  Do you want it to be your job, to be your career?

JE:  No, not at all.  I do b3bouldering because I love climbing and I love thinking about it and I love talking about it.  I like the idea that I have a forum to share all of the information and all of the thoughts that I have.  And not just exclude, but include everyone, share as much of the information and all of the thoughts I have.  That’s why a lot of the times I write posts that are kind of open-ended and say, “Hey, what do you guys think?”  I could say, “This is exactly what I think.  Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.”  But that’s boring.  I want to include…I think it’s awesome when people write in.  Sometimes their comments drive me absolutely up the wall.  That being said, I want to give them the chance to speak their minds.  A lot of times I approve comments that I just hate.  I’ll let their words stand for what they are.

No, I don’t ever want it to be a job.  I do it because I love it.  I do it because I’m interested.  I do it because I need an outlet to think about climbing and to express my climbing.  In terms of the evolution of the website, it got really boring to me really quickly just saying, “I went here.  I did this.  I did that.”  When I follow other people’s blogs that say that, it’s just like, “Ehhhhh…”  Right, you climbed V10, you climbed V12.  I understand that is on some level part of what we do.  We just go climbing and we climb problems, and when you just break it down into words, that’s what it turns into.  “I went here.  I did this.  It took me this many tries.  The sun rose, the sun set, the river flowed.”

[This part was tough to dictate…obviously Jamie is passionate about how he represents himself and climbing, which caused a lot of unfinished thoughts and speedy shifts of ideas.]

But I talk about the information and what the climbs mean to me.  I think my love for climbing is expressed in every…  I think what it does is represent the complexity with which I see the sport of climbing.  It’s like a gigantic tree and the more I write, the more branches…  It says, “This is how I see climbing.  This is my view of climbing.  What do you guys think?”  People seem to respond really well to it.

It’s interesting.  Sometimes the posts are controversial.  Going into it, I know it’s going to be a firestorm, “Oh boy, this is a hot button.”  Other times, it’s just information.  The Wyoming post was mostly just information.  It’s interesting for me to see…the Wyoming post gets a handful of comments.  The other ones get a hundred comments.  So, do I want to keep the focus on information?  Is it better to keep the focus on information?  I’m not interested in being a tabloid.  But, I do like to discuss…I think they’re hot button topics because people’s egos are tied to…  You know, if I question, “Did someone start there or do this,” they take it really personally.  Even though I think it’s important that we discuss these issues and I know a lot of times it’s my friends.  In fact, I called Dave Graham out for starting in an inappropriate place and he was not happy with me, at all.  We had to have a little talk about it.  He was like, “It’s really ridiculous that you’re calling me out.”  I’m like, “Hey, I’m an equal opportunity Sherriff.  I’ll write tickets for everyone.”  No one’s above being questioned, including myself.  Ironically, I feel like I get questioned more than anyone.

DM:  Thanks, Jamie.  Thanks for coming in.  We really appreciate it.

JE:  Thanks for having me.