So three years ago I moved to Lafayette for school and got totally consumed with rock climbing. One of the great things I’ve found with the activity is that there is a family like community that you get adopted into once you become involved. I find this to be especially true with the gym here in Lafayette. I’ve made so many great connections at the Rok Haus. One of the most interesting of which is the guy pictured below.
His name is Ben Spannuth and after living in both California and Colorado, he finally ended up here in Lafayette, Louisiana where he got into rock climbing. As strange as it is that he waited till he moved 6 hrs away from all real rock to start climbing. It’s stranger to learn how good he is at it. Ben has been to both youth National and World Championships multiple times. In 2007 he won the North American Continental Championship for his age division and went on to place 12th in the world. He is now the reigonal coordinator for the Colordo/New Mexico reigon of USA Climbing’s collegiate climbing series. He has bouldered V11 and sent 5.13. The best part of it all is that you would never know any of this just talking to him.
So about the picture. I was talking to him the other day and I asked him about this picture. He told me that the problem was called “trice” and that it was on flagstaff mountain. He said ” there was this guy there taking pictures while i was climbing and he emailed me with this one the next day.” We finished talking about my upcoming trip to Boulder and I realized he hadn’t told me how hard the problem was. Not wanting to bother him again I just decided to look it up online. I went to rock climbing.com to check it out expecting it to come in at like V6/7ish and what do I find, it comes in at V12. I’m blown away by how nonchalantly he told me about it. Maybe its just because I’m used to the highest grade around being V11, but thats sick.
