Thursday, May 06, 2010

Bouldering with Son Sang Won

Son Sang Won poses for the photographer

A couple of weekends ago, the National Sport Climbing competition came to Jeju for the first time ever. Korea's best climbers came to Jeju to compete for their ranking and the chance to compete in International Climbing World Cup competitions. There was both Sport Climbing competitions (Difficulty, Men's and Women's) and Bouldering.

The guy who won the bouldering comp stayed in Jeju for another week to check out the climbing areas that Jeju has to offer. The Jeju locals have really only established one bouldering area, and it's only been Darren and our friends that have really been exploring the riverbeds for new boulders. We ended up getting a call asking us to show them around so we took them to our favorite three places. It was quite an enlightening experience. Watching someone who can climb V14 find and pick out potential problems is a little different to someone who can climb V3-6. They are really looking at the rocks with different eyes. It also helped to have 6 fat bouldering pads versus one lone pad.

They were a great crew to hang out with. They helped us find some problems at our level too, and gave us the opportunity to try some that we wouldn't normally have a chance to get on without so many pads and spotters. They were a pretty laid back group and it's refreshing to meet some people who like to be outdoors instead of just pulling on plastic.

Exploring: Maybe we should toprope this one...

This was the "easy" one

Maybe V10...

Super Awesome, those holds are pretty small