Home     Photos     Hiking     Writings     Contact     Copyright
Daniel Woods

Dark Horse Bouldering Competition, February 2011

The Dark Horse series is hard to shoot: dark, crowded, and chaotic, with several climbers competing at once. This year I found a couple of good shooting locations so I did less running around, but I hardly saw some of the competitors and totally missed a couple of the routes. But I got to do the routes myself, later. (Yeah right. I managed half a move on one of the women's routes, after several tries.) Compared to last year's competition, I'm getting better at winnowing my photos down to a reasonable number, but I've still got enough to fill two albums. So here's one album just for the men.
Click a thumbnail to see a full-size photo.
Or, View as Slide Show
dark horse bouldering Men's Problem #1 starts with a balancy traverse to the left.
dark horse bouldering Rob D'Anatasio on the vertical section of problem #1.
dark horse bouldering Next, the problem traverses back to the right.
dark horse bouldering Magnus Midtboe contemplates the starting traverse of problem #1.
dark horse bouldering Magnus Midtboe makes a nearly-successful attempt to get around the bulge without using any handholds.
dark horse bouldering Magnus Midtboe starting over. He was the only competitor I saw using this toehold - it definitely helped him.
dark horse bouldering Magnus Midtboe taking a rest halfway through problem #1.
dark horse bouldering The announcer was dressed as a cow. I'd have understood if he'd been dressed as a horse, but a cow??
dark horse bouldering Vasya Vorotnikov about to finish problem #1.
dark horse bouldering Brian Kim attempting problem #5.
dark horse bouldering A difficult hand-match at this point.
dark horse bouldering A rather desperate heel-hook.
dark horse bouldering Now what? (It just occurred to me: if points are assigned for highest hold reached, this is a smart move if you don't think you can reach with your hands.)
dark horse bouldering Rob D'Anatasio on problem #5.
dark horse bouldering A climber (Carlo Traversi??) adopting a "figure 4" position.
dark horse bouldering Daniel Woods brachiating up problem #5.
dark horse bouldering Foot-holds? Who needs foot-holds?
dark horse bouldering Here's that hand-match again.
dark horse bouldering Only a few (gigantic) moves remaining.
dark horse bouldering Daniel Woods, two moves from glory.
dark horse bouldering Daniel Woods, only climber to finish problem #5.