BAFFLE DAYS - Australian Climbing

Cait Horan has climbed just about everywhere! From Yosemite Valley, the Bugaboos, Red River Gorge, Joshua Tree, Bishop, Zion, the list goes on and on. Plus the list of places she has climbed in Australia is longer than the places she hasn't. The crazy thing is, she's done all this with a full time job and a brutal battle with cancer. Cait has been a major mentor for many climbers in the ACT commun...

If you'd like to learn the basics of mountaineering or climb some incredible peaks around the world, check out Climbing the Seven Summits https://climbingthesevensummits.com/select-expedition/ Wild Magazine https://wild.com.au/ @baffledays  

Amanda Watts and Tom O'Halloran are back. So what's been happening in the Baffle House. The climbing froth has been going up and down. What has that looked like? The injuries have been coming and going and coming again. How have we navigated that? Trail running has been in and out the door a few times. There's a surprising amount of lessons we've drawn from running. How will it help our climbing?...

Buster has been climbing since childhood. He competed for his country as a junior competitor where he made European Championship finals, World Cup semi finals and numerous domestic comp victories. Buster's main focus now is rock climbing. He's the second brit to climb 9a+/36 with his ascent of First Ley in Margalef. Buster has also climbed countless routes in the 8c+-9a 34-35 range including the h...

Krystal's journey is an inspiring one. She knew what she wanted and went after it. Capturing moments in crazy locations of crazy people doing crazy things, all around the world. We covered some good ground in this conversation and I really appreciated Krystal's honesty to just dive in. You can follow Krystal on instagram here   Krystal's website Baffle Days books, coffee trays and other bits here

Steve is the founder of Climb Strong. He’s a climber for more than 30 years, and established over 300 new routes across the globe, from big wall free climbs to 25-foot sport routes on his home crags near Lander, Wyoming. An exercise science graduate of the University of Wyoming, Steve has been studying and experimenting with climbing training methods since his teens. After spending a few years as...

Maddy Cope has climbed Freerider 28/7c+ in Yosemite, La Scimma Nuda, (9 pitch) 29/8a in Switzerland and countless other hard multipitch/trad routes. She's also cranked out a couple 33/8c's, Mind Control and Bat Route, and smashed out 32/8b+ on gear! She's a true allrounder. We talk about her process on Freerider and desire to keep seeking adventure and exploration. We also dig into headspace and f...

Ollie Torr is one of the founders of Lattice Climbing, a Sheffield based training and research company. Perhaps best known for their research and accumulation of testing data to help predict performance. In doing so, they have helped answer the big question in climbing. How strong do I need to be? In this episode however, we don't get buried in the weeds of numbers and energy systems, rather, we d...

In December 2020 Oceana qualified to represent Australia at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games. She did this proudly when climbing made its debut in Tokyo during August 2021. Oceana is a Bouldering World Cup Finalist, won basically every domestic competition she's ever entered, plus on the real rock front, shes bouldered V11!  Pretty impressive for someone who's  just 19 years old! In this episode we di...

It’s hard to know where to start in telling this story. It’s been a wild journey. After qualifying for the Olympics in December 2020, we thought things were going to get a bit simpler. We have a date when the Olympics are going to run and a training plan to execute, easy. The reality was a fair bit different. We naively underestimated the path to getting prepared for the biggest sporting event in...

Dave Jones is one of the rare ones. Growing up in Victoria, he quickly ended up spending many of his early climbing years making his way out to Arapiles and The Grampians. It wasn’t long before Dave started finding his own lines to climb, searching out unclimbed features which caught his imagination. Some of his notable First Ascents include Punks Addiction 32/8b+, Somoza 32/8b+, Academia 31/8b, F...

You walk into a climbing gym, look around at all the nice fiberglass shapes, the funky volumes and order yourself a coffee. A coupe hours later you walk out having had a blast of a time with your friends and a few layers of skin down. In a few days time you'll be back and do the same thing again. You are a climber and the sport has taken over your life, even if its just for a few hours each week....

I'm almost certain many of you  have done one or all of these things. A generation ago, employing some of these tactics may have resulted in being chased out of the crag. Perhaps there are still a few strong holds which keep the torch burning in a quest for pure ascents. The question is, do these tactics sit within the lines of fair play or have we pushed the boat out too far? Are those who shun t...

On 19-20 December 2020 at Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym Villawood, the Oceania Climbing Championships were held, giving one last chance for a ticket to the Tokyo Olympic Games for one athlete per gender from the region. Tom O'Halloran qualified for the male category and talks to us  about his journey. Tom talks about his early climbing journey, (unknowingly) meeting Adam Ondra for the first time, com...

Each one of us tells a story of a time we stuffed up a send. Hopefully through talking about a few of these things, you'll learn from our mistakes and navigate your way around them. If you have experienced them before, feel comforted that you're not alone. It happens to us all. Here's the video Tom references for his big dummy spit  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H3OkmWqNCY Baffle Days https://w...

Duncan Brown has been a climber for decades now. He has travelled all over the world in this time, including a stint in China as part of the big  wave of development 10 years ago. He was apart of the team being flown across the country being paid to bolt the countless limestone caves, granite faces and sandstone walls. What a dream! Duncan is also the man behind Athlete by Choice, his climbing and...

It’s easy to believe the popular overseas destinations are the bee’s knees. They’re in the movies, on the posters and clogging up your instagram feed. But what about back home, in the land girt by sea? Turns out it’s pretty darn good! We talk the progression of our sport in the last decade and predictions of things to come. A few years ago we’d have never thought that 33 was going to be a trade ro...

Mum climbing life with Amanda Watts, Andrea Hah, Helen Day and Carlie LeBreton. This group of crusher climbing mums have over 80 years of combined climbing experience, bouldering, sport and trad climbing and competing at the highest levels. For each of them, finding a balance between climbing and mum life was important for their mental health and quality of life. Climbing is what makes life feel n...

Madeleine Crane started Climbing Psychology out of a passion. She is a professional psychologist, specialised in sport psychology and has experienced the pinnacle of competition climbing, having competed for Austria at World Cups. She wants to help you find the tools to give yourself every opportunity to express yourself fully on the wall.   In our chat we get into the dynamics of men and women in...

We speak to Yossi Sundakov-Krumins, owner and manager of Skywood Climbing. Yossi is the master mind and creator of one of the best woody’s I’ve ever seen so he’s the perfect person to give you a few tips and ideas to make the most out of your setup. https://www.skywoodclimbing.com/home-2

If you don’t know who Steve Bechtel is already, he’s one of the big names in global climbing training. He studied Exercise Science at University and in 2002 opened Elemental Performance and Fitness in Lander, Wyoming. We love Steve’s no nonsense approach to climbing training. He looks from above with an insightful eye and makes the complicated, simple. Sitting down and chatting with him is always...

In this episode Amanda Watts and Tom O’Halloran sit down with Lee Cossey, one of the best climbers Australia has ever seen and one of the best coaching minds in the business. We talk about how you can get the most out of your training while climbing gyms are shut and our access to the outdoors is limited. Finger boarding, strength, mindset and technique improvement are all covered here, with pract...

John Sheridan has been lifting weights for more than half his life. He’s a proper strong guy. He’s competed in National powerlifting tournaments, played high level Rugby and is now smitten on climbing. Amanda and Tom talk with John about the importance of strength training outside of the performance realm. The stronger you are, the harder you are to kill! We also get into the importance of finding...

Stuart Wyithe was the first Australian to climb the iconic Punks in the Gym, 32/8b+ at Mt Arapiles. It was the hardest route in the world when Wolfgang Gullich climbed it in 1985 and in 1993 was still in the very top of the difficulty pyramid. Stuart got a whole lot of hard climbing done in his time. He also climbed the first ascent of Pretty in Punk, 32 which is another hard line crossing the sam...

You’d be hard pressed to find a rock magazine from 2000-2010 that didn’t have a photo or mention Vince Day. He's even on the cover of the 2010 Blue Mountains guidebook. The guy was very much in the middle of the scene for that time. He repeated some of Australia’s hardest routes and boulders, as well as putting up a few of his own. His name was synonymous with hard moves and if he couldn't pull th...