After 2.5 years of injuries, COVID layoffs, more injuries, I came back. The clip contains v4/v5; v5/v6; and my first ever v6/v7 bouldering problem (the last in the series).

Because of the hurricane (yes!) parked near Venice, there were a lot of rainy days. What better way to kill time than to go do some top rope and harness on a cliff that had many slick and wet spots. The woman in the deep water solo video (pink and black towel in this thumbnail) is actually the one with her hand on the rope as my belayer. And you wonder why I'm climbing slowly. lol. Another guy was chatting her up the whole time. Thank goodness she was very professional and kept her attention on the job at hand.

ANother basic climb. THis was after 3 or 4 months of no bouldering due to injuries. I did this one just for another souvenir. One more city down, 2,583 to go. lol.

Hard to tell from the angle of the video but the beginning with the black "star trek badge" volumes was at an angle that made it difficult to move while maintaining the foothold. This was a very satisfying send.

Still not back to top form. I was in the city for a concert and the "Nuit Blanche" and decided to grab another souvenir. Some extension required on several moves along with compression just before.

I did not want to fall. lol. That water was cold. I have no idea what the chick is saying. But, with all her piercings, all I could think of was "cleaning the route" (taking down the hardware after lead climbing). :-D

Interesting in that one has to walk around a big cube with a touch move to transition from the lower wall to an upper one in order to cross over to the cube and finish.

The footwork at the start is quite tricky. Also challenging to move past the "points" on the pyramid to get into position for the vertical move into the finish

Slab with fast moving feet. Again - just a souvenir video of a basic climb.

An easy climb. Just grabbed on vid to have a record of climbing in London, UK. Earlier I nailed my first V5 but this one is the souvenir.lol.

It always looks easy on video. But, there is always a cost to knowledge gained.

Set to music: Every Bird That Flies by Larkin & Poe. Most of these climbs were filmed on the same day. This is the best that I've climbed, and it's surprising given that it's so soon after the end of the latest lockdown.

Big volumes. The finish is very very slippery at the edges. Not a complicated climb- heads up, watch the footwork and keep the compression on with tension in the arms.

Ranked as V5/V6. The problem is nothing but "jugs" (easier holds). I suspect that it is realy a V3/V4.

All of the red blocks were at unusual angles that made expected grips slippery. This took a few tries and quite a bit of visualizing the climb to get it. AFter seeing the video, it looks so easy in hindsight. I guess, never let them see you sweat.

The knee bar that took a bit of fidgeting to get in place at the first red block on the upper wall was the key. Hands were in a counter-intuitive position for that.

A 2 crux problem - 1st how to get from the side by side small handholds over to the far wall, and then how to get from under the roof up the side to finish. I used a toe hook for the first and then into an "iron cross" to get the foot over on the far wall. I used a right knee drop to make for an easier transition from the roof of the cave to upper wall to finish.

3 v3 / v4 bouldering problems in a row. This was after a 2 hour session of climbing and I thought that I would see if my grip could recover fast enough to do a bit of stamina climbing. I almost lost it on the last climb, but all is well that ends well.

Very simple straight up dyno with a hop to the finish. I've been slowly building up to doing dynos again. So far so good.

There is a slight overhand to the wall that makes the holds a little slippery. The fact that no one seems to brush anymore just adds to the smooth grips. This is an interesting climb becuase it mixes medium pockets with slopers and requires shifting the center of gravity from left to right as you go up.

After COV-19 lock downs, finally able to get back to bouldering. Unfortunately, about 2/3 the way through this problem, I pulled something where the right Deltoid meets the Triceps and Biceps. Now I'll have to take a couple of weeks off just to make sure the damage isn't too bad. All that prep and then....

This type of problem seems to be typical of a setter known as "yoga Phil". There is a section involving quite technical moves, followed by a section requiring flexibility and maneuvering around volumes, and finishing with power moves up the wall. It took a while to figure out the moves over the volumes, but the end was just strength and center of gravity positioning. Let's not mention the starting position which has its own limiting characteristics.

Flashed this. It’s either rated too high or it caters exactly to all my strengths.🙄😁😎

Those are new climbing pants - Kailas, from Japan via Verti-Call which is a climbing equipment outlet / web-site in Gatineau not too far from where I live.

The funny thing is that as soon as I put them on, I had the strangest compulsion to find 13 other people wearing similar pants and have us all climb into a little car, together. Weird.

When you see those chunky blocks, of course the inner-25 year old whispers "hands only!". I feel like I'm back to about 80 - 85% of how I was before the injury lay off over the winter. Looking at the video, I see a little too much body swing suggesting that I should be pulling with bent arms more. Also, I see that I am matching both hands on each hold instead of "swinging" between them. Maybe at 95% of peak, lol.

This was unrated when I filmed it but later turned out to be an orange (V5 - V6). I used a mini-dyno at the start, but this could just as easily be started with a backward overhead reach with the left hand. I was particularly pleased with my overall body movement and foot placement while solving this boudering problem.

This problem had a number of unusual geometric slopers and pinches. My skin took a beating. You can see the angle of the overhand against the brown vertical wall behind the problem.