Final Round

Time was running thin for bouldering here in Ct. as temps are rising , and even more importantly due to the fact that I am moving to the bay area tomorrow. Luckily before leaving I was able to get my act together and send a problem I have been trying on and off since last spring, The Buzzer Beater.

The Buzzer Beater from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

Pilgrimage to the Stains

Judges Cave, G.H Durrie, 1856

After a few days of rain I figured climbing outside today was out of the question. I was planning to head to the climbing gym but my friend Mike was psyched to go and do the Brown Stain, at Judges Cave (aka the Brown Stains), New Haven. The Stains are nestled in a field above West Rock in New Haven and usually dry out faster than any other blocs in the area because of their exposure to sun and wind.

I usually make the pilgrimage down to these boulders once or so a year just to switch it up and to grab some quality pizza in New Haven. It is by no mean a destination spot as the Stains are comprised of only 3 boulders. Although, just about every side of these boulders can be climbed on and the rock is really solid. The weathered rock has formed some really cool grips and the landings are pretty flat. Starting in May you can drive right up to the boulders, so all in all it a pretty good little spot.

The Brown Stain is the test piece for the area and one of the many fun problems that I climbed on while I was living and going to school in the area. There are a bunch of other lines , eliminates, variations and link ups on the blocs as well. Some being quite tall to extremely low ball, some quite good and some not so good. This was the perfect place to go and rattle off a bunch of problems when I had limited time and and limited gas money to go elsewhere.

These rocks have a very interesting history and the small cave in which the Brown Stain start is the entrance to was once the hiding place for Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Gen. William Goffe. Here in this little cave the two men hid in order to avoid persecution from King Charles II.. To learn more about this story google: Judges Cave New Haven and you will find all sorts of information about this.

Anyhow here is a little video I shot of a few of the problems on the boulders.

Trip to the Stains from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

Spring Bouldering

4 blocs from around the way from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

POWER STRUGGLE 4

Tomorrow we will be hosting the Power Struggle 4, at Prime Climb in Wallingford. This we hope to make an annual event. Although it involves a ton of work , energy, and effort, it is a ton of fun, and we hope to have many more in the future.

I helped organize the event, heckle retailers for free stuff, designed the poster, and am also setting a lot of the problems. It has been a lot of work and I look forward to tomorrows event.

Here is a link if you are interested in viewing a video from last years Power Struggle 3:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=239415116594&oid=239435923426

Hope to see you all there!!!!

DPM Interview

Planes, trains, motorcycle's , buses, and boats, are what I have been up to. That is of course because I needed all of these to travel from Laos to Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand, and then down to the island Koh Samet, located further south. During this time I managed to do a lot of things including a visit to the Chiang Mai Zoo, climbing at Crazy Horse, racing around on a motor bike, seeing old friends, and sitting on the beach . I will plan to get some of the photo's up when I arrive back in the States.

In the meantime I wanted to make a quick post about a recent interview/feature that I have in the recent issue of Deadpoint Magazine. Deadpoint is primarily a climbing publication and the founder Matt Stark has some great ideas on how to expand his publication  and  how to appeal to a larger audience with a wider range of interests. Or that at least how I see it, and D.P.M has been including illustration, and  Art features in the magazine. This I think is pretty awesome, as I of course, as stated in the interview think there is a lot more room for this sort of thing in the climbing  industry. 

At any rate  I am really proud to be a part of Deadpoint Magazine and they put together an 8 or so page interview with me about my art, and my climbing. I was allowed to ramble on about all sorts of things, and I think they did a great over all job with it. Psyched!!! Thanks guys!!!!

 I have included some of the pages here on my blog but urge you to check out the actual online edition, as it includes a lot of great photos and other fun material pertaining to climbing and the like. So here is the link:

 http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&pnum=0&refresh=zZ190t5S41By&EID=594323ae-e408-49b9-b9b2-b696b9451427&skip=&p=0

 

Ct. Blocs

Feel like I have not posted anything about climbing in a while.

Guess its because I have not been climbing as much, or at least outdoors anyways. Seems like it is a warm day here if it reaches 35 degrees.Uuuugh!

Either way here is a little video I slapped together featuring a few different climbers on a bunch of boulder problems found in Connecticut.

Sunday Session

Here is a short video of a sunday bouldering session here in CT. 

CT . GEMS

In my opinion CT. has some of the best bouldering , but unfortunately the worst access in New England. The valleys , and hills of CT. are cluttered with rock of many different types which makes the climbing very diverse and interesting.  Recently our biggest area Bradley Mtn. has become very skecthy in terms of access. In order to keep the traffic down at Bradley  we have been venturing out and  visiting some of the more obscure areas in the state. This video was filmed and edited by Phillip Schaal .

N.W. Day from Phillip Schaal on Vimeo.

Prime Climb Mural

For the last six days I have been working on painting a 7 000 square foot space at Prime Climb located in Wallingford, Connecticut. It was an enormous project with a strict time line and has left me exhausted. The object of the project was to create a sandstone type texture and color palette to cover the existing walls in which people climb upon. I approached the task without any real game plan and at first was really unsure to what the final out come would be. In the end I think the overall out come was decent and I learned a lot of great tricks for this type of work along the way.

This was a special project for me as I have been climbing for the past 11 years on the same walls in which I was hired to paint.

The highlight of this particular painting was creating the gigantic desert arch and the stylized sky that is set behind it. At first the plan was to render a realistic sky by quickly misting some white and grey layers on top of the blue. In the end the sky turned out rather stylized, and what to me looks like a mix of Japanese Woodcuts, Thai Religious Art, Cotton Candy, Graffiti, with a Regionalist twist .Maybe it was the lack of oxygen to my brain resulting from the enormous time I spent wearing a respirator.

Another cool aspect of completing this project is that it is truly a form of interactive art, and people will be climbing on the imagery that I created.

I plan to post some video of this in the near future!!!!