UKC

California climbers Beth Rodden and Randy Puro are featured in a New York Times online article today, called No Need for a Mountain.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/news.php?id=3955

Typical idiot mainstream media coverage.

Bouldering was invented in the 90s in the US by goat faced "extreme" sports dudes was it? Gaaaah!

http://www128.pair.com/r3d4k7/Bouldering_History1.0.html

In reply to UKC Gear: Lol "matresses"

They make it sound like a fall = landing on your bed.

In reply to Animal:

Most american climbers I know, even some of the youngest, are very well versed about the history of bouldering.

The explosion in bouldering popularity in the Nineties was a global event driven by top climbers, bouldering pads (or mats if you are in the USA), magazine aricles, videos and the internet.

I thought the NYT article quite good for a non-climbing publication, certainly not the worst example.

In reply to Animal:

It seemed a very balanced article to me and well-written given a non-climbing audience.

It didn't say bouldering was invented in the 90s, it said that that was when it was widely acknowledged as an independent facet of climbing.

The author recognised "Bouldering has, to some degree, always been part of the sport ..." but I'm sure you can remember that before the early 90s very, very few climbers bouldered to the exclusion of any other form of the activity. And those that did were thought more than a bit weird (comments by some of the more chronologically mature posters here demonstrate that this view has not entirely died out).

Saying bouldering was born as an independent activity in 1993 with the first commercial pads is pretty much correct. And yes I have looked down on a distant beer towel back in the day.

In reply to UKC Gear:

I'm more interested in what happened to Tommy Caldwell!

In reply to UKC Gear: I sent the following letter to the times, keeping it within 150 words to increase the chances of publication. It seems clear at this point that it will not be published, however.

To the Editor:

The article on bouldering in Wednesday's Sports section, "In Rock Climbing Alternative, Mountains Aren't Needed," signals the mainstream arrival of what used to be an arcane subdiscipline of mountaineering. But in putting the start of bouldering as a sport at the absurdly late date of 1993, when the first specialized pads were commercially produced, the author ignores an international history dating back to at least the 1880's.

In the U.S., no reference to bouldering is complete without mention of the legendary John Gill, a mathematician from Colorado whose futuristic exploits, starting in the 1950's and all without pads, turned bouldering from a rest-day training diversion into a separate sporting activity with levels of difficulty beyond the imaginations, much less the abilities, of Gill's rock-climbing contemporaries. Now in retirement, Gill maintains an extensive website devoted to bouldering and its history at www.johngill.net.