BURSTA trio of boulderers are saying “No” to shallow-water soloing with the help of a DIY crash pad barge.
Jeremy Fullerton, Jack Lester and Hunter Damiani have been able to FA problems in Boulder Canyon that would normally be inaccessible thanks to this modest but mighty ship.
It’s a 10’ x 10’ VEVOR inflatable floating dock anchored with trad gear atop a running creek, which has a depth of up to four feet. On top of it is a collection of crash pads. The raft has been shown a lot of love after Damiani posted videos of it online, hitting virality within two days.
“It’s the softest falling I’ve ever done,” Damiani told Gripped. “That area you’re on a creek, there’s not like a lot of surface tension in the water because the water’s running.”
The combination of low surface tension, an inflatable surface, and crash pads have made for a “very cush” landing, he said.
Damiani, a prolific route developer, said the group had been taking falls of up to 10 feet during their session, though he’s aware of bigger drops being taken on it. And they’ve all been soft, he added.
Damiani said Fullerton and Lester had cleaned the lines and invited him along for a session.
The end result was two FAs.
Lester opened up Proof of Concept, estimated to be V7/8, while Damiani put up Albatross, which he suggests to be V6/7.
By Damiani’s account, the origins of the barge lay with Fullerton, who came up with the idea with a group of his friends while climbing in Pennsylvania. He then brought the concept to Boulder Canyon, which has an area with a running creek that made several promising lines inaccessible.
“You couldn’t do it without this,” said Damiani, who’s been climbing in the area for over 20 years. “That part of the creek doesn’t freeze enough because the water’s running really fast right there, it does not freeze enough to make these climbs accessible unless we have a super rare winter.”
He said that he’ll be including these problems, among many others, in an upcoming guide he’s writing about Front Range bouldering.
“We’ve always looked at those and been like, ‘It would be really cool if you could do those,’” said Damiani.
Thanks to the barge, they did.
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