The Beard, the Beauty and the Boulder (The Best Boulder Problem in the World.) By Adam Carlson. You may have heard a whisper of it in 9a before they tore the place down. Perhaps you saw a few folk talking close between wax bombs at Paynes a few summers back. I’m told the whisper has been heard in The Pines as head torches dance high up on The Bard on warm nights. Before The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe was the biggest problem at Flock Hill, before sit starts, before polished holds there was a time when only the most beautiful lines were climbed. That was when they found the best boulder problem in the world. It was a story of beauty, fluid motion, the perfect moulding of subtly and tenacity. Heals hooking, fingers oscillating between crimps and slopers perfectly balanced with friction and angle. It was a long train ride and sitting next to this odorous man was about as inviting as a road trip with an ABBA fan, but fortune has a habit of dealing me these cards. I sat with my book open as the countryside flew by. I was reading ‘The Bat and the Wicked’, the old man looked over. “Good story.” It wasn’t a question, he was telling me. “Yeah, brilliant” “It’s a nice climb but there are better ones that aren’t in the guide, people always spend to much time looking at guides, it’s like climbing with fear, very limiting.” “Oh really, you’ve climbed there?” I don’t tend to find people that have climbed in Scotland on a train to the Blueys. “Aye, a few times, I lived in my van there for a while” The odour may be worth putting up with, an interesting fellow behind this beard. So we got talking and the conversation moved along, he spoke of alpine routes that I always wished to do, he spoke of style and tradition. Fascinated I prompted him in to talking more, he divulged stories of hard days, no “epics”, no “’mares”, just quietly understated achievements. My fingers sweated as he described his favourite routes, favourite moves. It was intensely vivid. Too soon we were approaching my station, and told him soon I would have to leave him and his stories. He looked at me with eyes narrowed. “Do you want to know where to find the most beautiful moves?” It’s not often that you get that kind of offer, I’ll take all I can get. In simple terms he described the farm house, the well known, well travelled area that I was to turn my back on and walk away from till I found a old dirt road, follow this for a short time and there I would find a boulder beside a stream. Upon the southern side of this lonesome boulder I would find everything that was known to be good in the movement of climbing. It was a brief description. I had heard of the limestone basins of New Zealand, I had heard of Castle Hill and that, I was hoping, would be enough. The train stopped and I left the beard of wisdom, New Zealand was a long way from the Blue Mountains. Years went by and I climbed on different rocks, different continents. I climbed boulders, cliffs and mountains. I pulled on holds that were perfect in every way, I twisted my body through moves that cemented themselves in my memory. Finally I
found myself in New Zealand. Land of Weetbix rock, moraine, and rain you can’t outrun. I was dragged out to Castle Hill basin for a day of climbing when I was in a less than perfect state to climb. I had found a drinking buddy and we had been hard at discovering which bars in Christchurch are not worth visiting the night before. It was 8am, I had a tall fellow pounding on my door telling me it was time to go to the hill. It wasn’t ‘till 11am or so that I found my body again and managed conscious thought. I woke up and rolled off my boulder mat and confronted the day. It appeared that there was to be no serious climbing done on this day. I chased some ideas around in my head and found the memory of the beard of wisdom. I left my friends hard at work on some problem about 10 grades above my ability for the day and headed back to the road. I crossed it and followed the hazy map scratched in my head. The dirt road appeared and took me to the stream, I followed as I had been instructed. Soon enough I occasioned upon a boulder, perhaps five metres tall and ever so slightly overhung on the southern side. The face was devoid of chalk, no ticks or stains. It was beautiful. I sat and contemplated the face, trying to beta mime the moves but they wouldn’t unfold, they were firmly locked in a sequence mystery. It was an hour or so before I pulled my shoes on, it was a tentative move. In fact it appeared to be difficult to approach the rock, one chance to on-sight the most beautiful boulder problem in the world. The fear of failure was too strong, I wasn’t a Jedi knight yet. I walked about, flirting with the holds, touching them but not pulling down, ‘touch but don’t taste’. They felt wonderful, my imagination ran wild, visualising myself floating skyward, ‘taste but don’t bite’. There is a time in climbing when we must leave a climb, a route, mountain or problem behind and keep it for another day, let it’s mystique grow, put it in your pocket. This was one of those times, I took my shoes off, took one more look and walked away, today wasn’t a day for greatness. Once again time passed, the weeks between visits grew into months and route climbing took over, Wanaka, Remarkables etc. Ravages of Time, Zootalors, Superconductor, I felt I was utilising my time well. Classics, everyone pushed me in the direction of their favourite climb, meanwhile the boulder was left untouched, untainted. Every time someone spoke of their favourite route or move the beard of wisdom nudged me, I could smell him in their breath. Everyone in search of perfection, and I had walked away from it. The summer was drawing to an end, the cold clear days of autumn were greeting me in the mornings, the summer had produced strength and confidence. It was time. Once again I was at the hill amongst friends, I wandered off to loose myself. My back to the farm house, down to the dirt road, the stream. Soon the boulder appeared, nervous energy heightened my senses as I sat down to lace my shoes. Pulling on I knew I had found it. The moves flowed and I moved up, crimps to slopers and an undercling. The right foot pushing hard, left hand reaching out I found myself on the mat. Disappointment wasn’t an option, it had felt so good. Again and again I pull on and move up, the sequence unveiling itself, perfectly choreographed, time and again I am on the mat. Time wore on and my fingers get sore, slowly I make my way up through new moves,
nothing too difficult. Frustration left across the valley with my friends chasing their grades and first ascents, I have found nirvana, perhaps oblivion. The climbing was almost beyond description, it was like Byron was writing the movement with Gill’s strength and Kauk’s cool. It was poetry in motion and somehow this was being expressed through my body. I was floating, and each time I was rejected from a move there was nothing upsetting, it was just so. The sun is closing in upon the hills beside me, time is wearing on and I am getting close, never has a problem keep my attention so completely. Then it comes together as these things do, a subtle drop of the hips, shoulders back and I find the final hold. Pulling over the top I see the sun hide behind the hill, no-one had witnessed it, not even the sun. Beauty in the art of climbing was mine, and now it was over. The most beautiful movement had passed and now I was left wanting for nothing. It was terrible. The dramatic anti-climax, suddenly I was confronted by the fact that there was nothing more worth doing, profound anxiety over came me as I climbed off the back side. The beard of wisdom had told me, and if it was true, nothing could ever better this, I was lost. I folded my faithful spotter, stuffed my shoes into my pack ad walked back to the road. Arriving back at the car my friends wax poetic about their day, their successes and failures, I am silent, unwanting to tell them of my pain. It was a long drive back to Christchurch. It’s all wrong though, it was never the best problem, it was never the most beautiful. Impossible, superb, classic but never the best. How could it be so, in our sport with everything so subjective, so prone to flux surely it is impossible for something to be so absolute as perfect. With so much trouble in the task of grading difficulty, surely it is a tougher problem deciding on perfection of movement. Like a junky trying to find the next best high we search on, trying to find perfection again. Success should never be attained in this search, then it is over. So there it is, the best boulder problem in the world, or there it isn’t. Continue to search, just hope you never find it or believe you have. .