Night Climbing at the Green Boulders – September 23, 2011

We (David, Reanne, Ken, Wayne, Phil, Cat and myself) met up at Joe’s house in Waialua to consolidate our gear and vehicle situation, and convoyed out to Mokuleia. In addition to typical camping and photography gear, several of the crew strapped on huge crash-pads over their packs as they were necessary to climb safely at the site.

Despite being flagged, the trail was fairly obscure and somewhat overgrown. Hiking the trail at night made staying on the line difficult, but luckily Joe and some of the other climbers had been to the Green Boulders before and knew the way.

As soon as we arrived, it was almost like climbing at the Volcanic Rock Gym (but with alcohol)… Killer music blasting, crash-pads everywhere, and climbers spotting and encouraging each other from start to finish (Nancy on warm-up boulder, above).

Matt, Nancy and Angel arrived earlier that evening and were already warmed up and killing problems. Angel quickly completing a new project, from a lying-down start, on the warm-up boulder.

Matt completing a similar problem, from a different position.

David completing the warm-up problem after a few attempts. NOTE: The warm-up problem is not easy.

Matt topping out on an advanced problem called “Northern Whale,” later in the night.

Joe advancing and hitting the lip on the same problem.

Angel talks David through some of the holds on the “Northern Whale” problem (left). Phil on the “Northern Lights” traverse (right).

Near the end of the night, a few of us had to leave camp since we had the work early in the morning… though the rest of the climbers were still going on strong til the early AM. Seriously, I have no idea how these guys climb so well while inebriated, lol. They were literally crushing problems left and right, and constantly working on new projects… in between swigs of Jack and beer. As a beginner, I’m definitely inspired to climb more often and get better after watching these advanced climbers boulder here. I definitely want to come back to finish the warm-up boulder I started on, and hopefully “try” more of the problems. If not, I don’t mind just trying to take better photos of the other climbers. I brought two sets of batteries for my adjustable intensity headlamp (external light sources for my photos), but they weren’t fully charged and were drained in no time. If I’m fortunate enough to be invited here again, I’m definitely calling the next blogpost, “Redemption…” haha. For now, I’ll stick to the problems at the Volcanic Rock Gym.

To view more posts on climbing CLICK HERE, or look at the “Climbing Photo Gallery”. For more adventures of the Lost Trailblazers, either look at my other blogposts and “Adventures with the Lost Trailblazers” photo gallery. Also make sure to visit David’s post on his website , Unreal Hawaii. To visit the Volcanic Rock Gym website, Click here.