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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Funny British article about Mantling:
http://tinyurl.com/33k8ut
Anybody here ever done the Piano in Fontainebleau? Pure two handed press from above your head down to below the waist.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Thanks Rich Goldstone for the kind words. I worked very hard at manteling and, during my gymnastics days, as a University of Colorado gymnast, practiced on the two-inch wide wooden ledge that ran around the inside wall of the gym. I got to where I could mantel that with one hand, starting in a hang from fingertips, pulling up, hopping the palm into mantel position, and pressing up with one arm into an elbow lock. I managed to find a few boulders like that, on Flagstaff and elsewhere. John Sherman writes about one such route in his book "Stone Crusade."
I went on tours of the Yosemite boulders with Pratt, Robbins, Bridwell, Kamps, Higgins, and others, and I managed to repeat all of Pratt's mantels (I was told many of these were second ascents, as no one yet had been able to do them, although Royal had done a few, what with his great elbow and shoulder flexibility). I put up a few of my own that no one knows about anymore, because in large part no one seemed to care in those days about mantels. I recall doing a couple Pratt showed me that he wanted to do or hadn't gotten to yet, and I did one on the Wine Boulder that was the equivalent of a hollowback off the floor, or something similar.
I used to practice mantels by doing pure muscle-ups on a bar. Anyone can do a muscle-up on a bar, but for this kind one must slowly begin to pull up (no jerk or jump to start) and, without generating any upward momentum, continue slowly above the bar, without bringing one elbow up ahead of the other, and without shifting the hands at all. Start in the best false grip you can get, to begin with, with the heels of the hand on top of the bar, then simply pull in very slow motion and press up and over evenly, with both elbows going up at the same time.
Largo, I did the second ascent of Gill's Acrobat Overhang at Castle Rock in the late 1960s, and it's a tough overhanging face climb but only looks from below to be a difficult mantel. Where it seems one must mantel, it's not really too hard to make a few face moves at that point, while half-manteling. So that one really isn't a mantel. But Gill has done many fiercely difficult mantels at locations no one would imagine, and most unknown or unrecorded, lost in some forest or obscure bouldering area, and probably more than a few unrepeated. I watched him one day do a mantel at Split Rocks, west of Estes, and in my best shape I had to work hard for a couple days to repeat it.
Rich Borgman, so light and strong, and a world-class side horse man I once competed against in a gymnastic meet, could mantel with amazing ability. I'm not sure I've seen anything like it since, though he long ago gave up climbing and went on some religious mission to Africa...
The route Goldstone speaks about that I did on Columbia, if I recall, was a first ascent, but again it's unknown to most and probably completely lost to history now, as to exactly where and which line it took. I do recall, however, doing four or five mantel routes over the big overhang left of Robbins Overhang, on Columbia. I think at least one or two of those were later claimed by others as first ascents.
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2008 - 07:34pm PT
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Tony Lynott - yes!
He was as good as Shawn Curtis as far as I could tell. He could do that pure "butterfly" technique like no one I have ever seen. He was built like Shawn as well. Amazing pressing power. I remember he could do reps on the "Butterfly" mantle on the Wine Traverse boulder - still a pretty hard mantle by today's standards.
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PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
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This thread, which must have recently been bumped to the front, reminds me of a funny mantel story. One of the best mantel experts I ever saw was my brother. Paul loved to mantel, and he especially loved painful mantels. For him, the harder and more painful the mantel was the better. He found a wicked little problem at Big Rock which required pressing up on a thumb shaped little fin of extruding diorite. To do this problem one had to endure excruciating pain to the palm while trying to lift one’s feet to a sloping edge of rock. Few of us could do it once let alone repetitively as he would do. It became a fixture of his boulder circuit, especially when we were out with a new climber.
One day we went out to this problem and someone had either purposefully or unintentionally broken off the small fin of rock. Paul was heart broken. It was one of his favorite boulder problems.
Not one to accept fate without a struggle, Paul found the fin of rock and next visit to Big Rock, he tried to reattach the diorite thumb with some “liquid steel.” After several attempts he had to accept that the fin wouldn’t hold to the matrix. Disappointed at first he discovered however that the numerous globs of liquid steel had hardened into a sharper and more painful spike to mantel on. So painful in fact I don’t remember seeing anyone repeat his problem.
This boulder, among many more, was destroyed when they made the present dam.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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"He was as good as Shawn Curtis as far as I could tell. He could do that pure "butterfly" technique like no one I have ever seen. He was built like Shawn as well. Amazing pressing power. I remember he could do reps on the "Butterfly" mantle on the Wine Traverse boulder - still a pretty hard mantle by today's standards."
JB, is this the same butterfly mantle at Castle Rock State Park, or is this a different boulder? Does it have two names then? We know that boulder with the "Butterfly" mantle as "The Beak".
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2008 - 09:01pm PT
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Not the same one...there was a "Butterfly" mantle on the Wine Traverse boulder in Camp 4. I imagine there are more "Butterfly" mantles in other areas as well.
I only went to Castle Rock a few times but I do remember some pretty wicked mantles there... I imagine Tony"s testpieces still thwart many an attempt.
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wildone
climber
Where you want to be
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There's a mantel on the middle of t-crack at Gibralter Rock in SB, it's only .11b but goddamn is it hard. I couldn't even get my waist above it.
Also, on the aaproach to Olmstead Canyon (ie. tide line, lord caffeine) there's a boulder with two really hard mantels by the pond. I don't know their names.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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doh, I wasn't keeping up with the thread there. Just re-read it. disregard.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, Ca
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What is the first problem left of The Ripper, in Josh? It is a mantle, and I've seen some hard climbers fight with it. Never saw anyone win.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 10, 2008 - 11:38am PT
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So where does the Chouinard mantle on Columbia Boulder sit in the difficulty spectrum?
How about the Super RR mantle and Rockcraft tips shown below?
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Rankin
climber
North Carolina
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Jul 10, 2009 - 09:29am PT
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bump
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Cannon
Trad climber
Wildomar, CA
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Jul 10, 2009 - 03:25pm PT
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Author:
James
climber
From: A tent in the redwoods
There's a saying I heard at Jailhouse last weekend. Pretty close to verbatim but not quite-here's the gist. "In the seventies there was the mantle, the eighties the rose move, the nineties had the drop knee, but it's the kneebar that brought us to the new millenium."
forgive the ignorence, i am a fan of the drop knee, the heel hook, and the occational mantle, but what is a rose move?
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Cancer Boy
Trad climber
Freedonia
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Jul 10, 2009 - 04:21pm PT
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me cranking one of these at the gym recently: "Wow a rose move. Cool." younger climber: "I don't think they call them that anymore."
Origin: la rose et le vampire at Buoux, one of the world's harder climbs bitd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOAEQmgpJqw
For full value, inhale with your nose deeply embedded in your armpit. (The move name was coined in France, after all).
I wonder what the move is now called?
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Robb
Social climber
The Greeley Triangle
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Jul 10, 2009 - 06:36pm PT
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Don't know the name of it(if it even has one), but there's a mantle on Indian Rock in Berkeley that I used to watch Dave Altman do work outs on, up down up down up down etc. "Here, you boys try it".I couldn't even hang on that smooth sloping thing. Then again neither could Harrington & he was much better than I at the time.
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Mimi
climber
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Aug 25, 2009 - 09:44pm PT
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Nostalgia bump!
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
Arkansas, I suppose
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Aug 25, 2009 - 09:58pm PT
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Yer mom
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 25, 2009 - 10:06pm PT
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Walleye conquers the notorious mantle on Nutcracker Suite, probably breaker of more ankles than any other mantle in the world.
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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May 29, 2011 - 12:41pm PT
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I remember sometime in the mid 70s when I was pretty strong and could do that mantle at Indian Rock up and down and so on. I was in the Valley and bumped into Dale Bard in the boulders by swan slab. He showed me a mantle that was orders of magnitude harder than the stuff we did at Indian Rock. I could barely hold on to do the pull up. He mantled without inverting, just pressed up without moving his hands.
Fred
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ec
climber
ca
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May 29, 2011 - 02:10pm PT
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Besides being talented, Dale weighs in like a feather...
 ec
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