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Da n ja Moose

@danjasaur

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☀️ energy researcher, climber, ♾️
(🇺🇸, 🇩🇪) lived in 🇸🇪
@fuzzymosfet 🐶

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Not enough videos of medium sized girlies on V0/V1 since everyone only posts their best sends and I NEVER see my body type represented ... I'm gonna change that. Here's a ?V1? boulder that looked AWESOME in Cody, Wyoming so despite 94 degree (34-35C) heat I had to give it a go. I slipped off the start with sweat right before this but I'll still call it a semi-flash because f rules, I hadn't touched the rest of those holds. This is what over 14 years of climbing looks like, still not perfect, not manufactured footage with the best edit, not the end result of a project, not fine-tuned, not showing you a V7/8 etc, not the best angle. Just climbing. It's ok to just climb, too, and I want every girl out there to know that. You don't have to hide the I'm just climbing days, it's ok to exist in the sport... just climbing.

Show us the fun boulders. Show us the oopsies.

Highway boulders/Cornflakes boulder/Special K V1 (?). If you're ever there, try it!

I push grades and projects a lot and I don't want to just add to the growing online pressure a lot of women (AND non-binary) especially face with this as a sport of "success". I want to see your this was fun routes and boulders. I want to see you taking up your space and having fun in this sport, for you. Not for the algorithm. You don't have to impress anyone, not other women, not men who compete. And it's totally ok to be thicker and climb. I'm almost 150 lbs.

There is space for EVERYONE. Don't hide your footage just because your feed is only women showing their hardest sends, or because of the comments of men on whatever beta website where they tick their sends like a bucket list for ego points. Don't hide it because your project never went. I see you, I know you're there, and I want you to know you belong in this sport, too.

I did my first V1 at Hueco Tanks in 2013. I still don't look perfect. I've done countless training hours, worked hard. I've spent so many grimy hours on hangboards and with weights. I still am not smooth on flashes. I still have to adjust positions. I often look like a "beginner". Men underestimate me CONSTANTLY. Do what you want, whatever challenge level you want that moment. by @danjasaur

I had to break out my climbing shoes for this kids' bison boulder in Sinks Canyon 🙈 but it was worth it! A menonite group was picnicking in the same little spot and they looked a bit shocked that a grown woman with colorful shorts was climbing this kid's rock

Believe me this one was definitely V0 and there were no jugs at the top, it was kinda tall 😅

Fun little area and surprisingly not many people there

My dog's nemesis is big fish after a Bass Pro Shop incident so needless to say he was not happy to see the giant trout in the Popo Agie pool

Stopped by to climb on the way to the Tetons and Yellowstone by @danjasaur

~! I only post falls !~
Because that's most of what I do
Here's some footage of me not sending footlocker V6/V7 (7A+) and To Infinity and Beyond, V8 (7B/+)
These weren't the best goes just the only ones I got on video

First session on it and made a lot of progress on Footlocker from not getting any moves to actually sticking the move I don't in the video... But I can't get my left leg up to the next high high foot jam and start the top out sequence... That'll take work. Tried the top out itself, nice.

First of the season session on To Infinity and Beyond, and I can hold the very crimpy undercling my wrist and FDP weren't strong enough for last season, I feel much stronger. I can actually start transitioning to palm. Feels way better! I think this could go with a bit more energy and time. But it was the end of the day and I was so exhausted.
I did better than this later and started standing up and actually locking off and tapping right above me, but just need to smear the left leg higher to really stand. Really happy I have proof that I'm stronger now since I couldn't even use that before at all.

Will delete this later probably, and probably will never post if I send because there's usually not footage 😅😂

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A note for Swedish climber friends:
As a climber who started in the US only 27crags has it close to right. Swedish 7B is not and never will be solid Chattanooga - US V8s. It's closer to solid V7s and "V7/8". Grimace and Hoops for instance - solid classic V8s - just do not compare to 7B, they compare to 7B+. So when I use the grades I am absolutely using the right ones- I've tried Swedish 7Bs I haven't posted (no videos) and they're definitely in the V7 to V7/8 range here, not V8. I can make direct comparisons of similar style boulders if anyone is curious.

V2/3 = 6A
V3 = 6A+
V3/4 = 6B
V4 = 6B/+
V4/5 = 6C
V5 = 6C/+
V5/6 = 7A
V6 = 7A/+
V6/7 = 7A+
V7 = 7B
V7/8 = 7B
V8 = 7B/+
V8+ = 7B+
V9 = 7C by @danjasaur

Flashback to December: projecting 8a in Cyprus, the first 8a I have ever gotten on and worked. Of course, it didn't go. I rarely got out to climb, the closest gym was an old school hard core basement, and rides were infrequent. I had maybe 4-5 total sessions on this, and they were so spaced out (& 2 goes per sesh) - it was hard to make consistent climbing friends there (no rope gyms!) and fit climbing around a very demanding work schedule when I did find them. And no one really gets my skin issue. I don't even understand it myself, except that it does not matter how easy or hard I climb: it is about number of moves (I get 2 routes per session, any grade, total!), time on the rock, the weather - and if I made appropriate sacrifices to the skin god.

Attitudes and egos are difficult if you have to do any bit of adaptive climbing and are trying respectively harder routes. The harder you want to climb, the more people will have something to say about it. That you haven't done X of a certain grade, don't look like you have the grip strength they think is needed on a move, aren't whatever in that moment they see as a Xa climber - its hard to combat.

I picked the route because the rock looked cool - the video doesn't do "Red Thunderp***y" justice, I saw it and didn't care what grade it was, then checked the book. I know I can do 7A boulders/ try 7B boulders - don't I have the "right" to try? My skin will hate me no matter what, so why not go for what looks cool?

Some people say no. Somehow, 14 years on rock, 10 years of hang boarding, and last year of building my shoulders isn't enough. I don't think we should gatekeep as a community. If no one is getting hurt - why not let them try what they want to - 6a or 8a?

I have left Cyprus, I learned a lot from my 5 sessions on "Red", I am only returning to pack my things (and maybe get one go). 8a remains a life goal, and maybe one that I know now isn't so impossibly far away, I just have to find a route that brings me joy & works for me - and stick to it. Thanks Red for showing me this. Now back to 7c.

Video is just from one go (took the shirt off, hot even in December!), and not the best one, just the only video I have! by @danjasaur

The orange moon laughed at the end of a long journey of setbacks, my future written in its rosy glow, Mie scattering the wavelengths -
and yet all I can scatter is my life again to different corners of the planet, leaving boxes and bikes stacked in storage units and loose ends dangling like bumpers on the side of a tug boat.

Goal posts hanging just out of reach, at the edge of what my fingertips grasp just as the floor gives way beneath, each time. But what is life but an endless march of cycles, each giving way to the next, eroding away the things that don't matter to expose what does? Is it the destination in the end, or the journey that really pulls on the heart strings and calls us to keep turning corners and pages, looking for something we can't name.

The mundane trivialities of life creating an unwritten story that tells so much more than the snapshots we share - so why work jobs or lead lives we must escape from? I strive to create time for reflection and conversation and not worry about the goal posts - after all, mile markers are just meant to give a sense of direction, they're not meant as a destination in and of themselves. by @danjasaur

One thing that's really hard is having my kind of skin issue - I can take half a week off, use all the Rhino solutions products possible (and they do help), only do 2 goes on not that sharp rock and tear a hole in my palm (swipe). It means having to get it PERFECT, no adjustments, fast. It means being in the last 2 moves of a problem and having to drop off because you just don't have skin in your palm - it can be conditions like today where every climber you talk to without this issue thinks it's "great, perfect, I had no problem" but you can sense every tiny little drop of moisture with your hands, no matter the chalk you use.

...on the second go, I tore my hand, in this video, 2 moves from being done. This isn't even a hard part. It was basically over. But in this inane sport we do I have to keep going at this to be able to tick it. Session after session after session. I get so bored with that when it's not a matter of puzzling it out anymore but just having to be some perfectionist for the send gods. And in my case... I have only 2 goes, on anything. I have to be perfect. I even found out using 2 different shoes is the best, solution comp on the left foot made a world of difference in the crux.

You could say it's a matter of practicing the top out. But I had. I couldn't keep enough traction with my hand so I kept trying to readjust my foot but the slopers just felt moist between my skin and the rock. You could say it's endurance but I hung out for quite some time trying to get some kind of traction.

I'm just so tired of repeating things again and again when I have the hard part done. That part of this sport is really tiring. I need the relief of being able to cross it off, the success, and those moments are so rare for me because of how many extra factors have to come together with conditions and pain levels when you've got skin like this and weird nagging nerve pinched nerves in your neck issues :/ (at least my knee is holding up?)

Almost a send but no. Maybe in the summer when it's bone dry 😭 by @danjasaur

❌ Satananus V7/7B (yes, that's the grade conversion on 27 crags and 7A+ = V6)
I really wanted to send a V7 while here, granted this is more V7-/V6 (7A+). This one is named for the really sharp credit card two finger pocket, so you can't project it, just have to go. Unfortunately I made it just fine through the crux but the move that ALL THE 6FT GUYS JUST REACH AND THEN DOWNGRADE caught me off - they can keep their feet here and just touch it. I flew off, guess I was expecting a kilter board jug. I tried to get my left foot back on the wall but the left hand was just so bad from that position. I know shorter girls backflag and bump around to start the exit traverse (not the crux), probably what I'd have to do fresh.

It felt cold and I was shivering. Lost so much energy just didn't have juice left in me, or skin, the hold I go to on the right from the sit is a literal credit card and I tried a few more times but just didn't have it, it hurts so bad, there's a near split in my finger from the "satananus" hold. Last day before I go back empty handed and I failed myself, super disappointed. Everyone else I know posts so many sends and successes on Instagram. I don't have that, I have failure after failure year after year. No matter what work I put in - it's not like I don't train, even though people keep telling me to train on their program. People also tell me I don't try hard, that I don't have what they do mentally or something. I was trying hard here, I was putting all of that aside mentally.

I really wanted to top off this strength training cycle (I go 2h 3x a week for dedicated work alternating weighted 20mm hangs and weighted pull ups) with something to show for it, something that would have people believing in me when I'm working 7c sport routes, something that would have me believing in myself. But I failed. Now I get to go to Sweden as still a failure. Sure I sent 2x V6 here but they weren't real sends, one had a dab and another a close spot ...

I feel like a fraud, who will never make it out of the beginner groups at bouldering clinics, because I don't have V6 send footage to show. I want to get the tips I need to get through this :( by @danjasaur

Things I like about the southeast of the US in February: this kind of scenery, t-shirt weather, sunlight, green leaves, no ice to slip on or having to watch my feet everywhere, sun setting at 6:30 so there's plenty of time in nature... The sound of creeks flowing in the woods as they meander around rocks, little cascades forming pools of water. Swedes can tell me a million reasons why they want to never leave Stockholm, and I never have a picture to show them exactly what they're missing when they only visit NYC in the US, when they assume life in the "winter months" is all just grin and bare it - it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be misery. I think there's a reason so few from the south move somewhere the latitude of Alaska. You just can't ever take away that I know February can have t-shirt days with pleasant hikes, that February is supposed to be a bit of green already. My senses feel dulled and I miss the flowing streams when all I've got to walk on is bubbly ice I keep falling on... I miss this. Every time I step outside in Stockholm in February is like a battle, for my feet, for my face and my hands...

Generally I just miss this kind of nature, too. What I grew up with. It's a piece of me that I just can't find easy equivalencies for in other places. And the movie industry can't either - a lot of stuff is filmed in north Georgia (similar scenery to this part of Tennessee)!

...

I sort of sent another V6...7A/+ (V5+ = 7A) today, a mantle that I had tried another day, but I also once more can't fully tick it. The last one I dabbed on and maybe used one wrong start hold? This one I topped 3 or 4 times, each time with less spotting but I still had a little bit of a close spot on the mantle in like 2 different moves. Rock was damp, even sprinkled during the session so legit needed assurance for my bad knee. But I'd like to manage knowing I used no assistance. Hope to get one V6 on the trip completely unassisted and without a dab/with absolutely correct holds ...one last week left, hoping this one V7/7B (per 27crags conversion, 7B there) goes

It's not the problem in the background, but I do hope to check out that boulder next week maybe! by @danjasaur

Attempting a V8 (7B/+) for the first time in Lower Middle Creek. Never have really tried this grade before, feels great to have the strength now to lock off on shitty sloper crimp holds. Didn't make a lot of progress this session, it took a whole hour to be able to even pull my left foot off the ground, can't quite nail this intermediate thumb lock. My friend managed to send this in a session today and it was cool to see her progress.

I've been working a short V7(7A+/7B) in Stone Fort as well, but progress is slow, two sessions and one move more each session. Managed a V6 (7A/+) last week in upper middle creek but it was with a dab and I might have used a different start hold that was more obvious to me than the instructions, I need to do some more V6-7! Hopefully the rain will hold off while I'm here.

(Note, all grade conversions have a slash because on 27crags V7 is 7B and V8 is 7B+, but many convert this differently with lower font grades - I think the south tends to be sandbagged generally so 27crags is probably closer to the truth but, some individual boulders might be easier, probably ones I'm seeking out...)

I'd love to sport climb but it's been hard to find partners for it. Weather has been sunny and warm, but rain is coming.
I'm so happy to feel stronger after months of physical therapy and a lot of weight training this winter, up to a max 100lb(45kg) one arm lat pulldown now.

Thanks Erin and Mosfet for the spot and Forrest for the directions. Turns out yet again whenever you can't find a boulder it usually is really close to wherever you put your pads down and started looking for it for an hour... Lol

#climbing #bouldering #girlswhoclimb by @danjasaur

I tried this 7A+ boulder when I first moved into my place and it didn't feel too possible, finally I came back to it and I'm making progress. Now with the cold conditions and stick, plus in the middle of a training cycle, it's coming together. Last session with my boyfriend spotting I couldn't do the sit start, but this time I came back with a wire brush to scrub away some of the chalk people have caked on, and it was much better! (Clean your chalk people!)

I haven't been able to focus on bouldering with my injuries. But I will try with this one, it's not too tall.

I am scared of doing the next moves without a spotter, I was alone tonight (except for @fuzzymosfet ). I don't really like the heel hook beta, I prefer this sort of strange sidepull plus pogo beta. Hopefully I'll get another chance soon, not alone.

I have to stack two pads for the start or my elbow ends up locked and hyperextended 😩, I checked another video of a girl just a bit shorter than me who uses a very thick pad - I think I could manage with a few less cm of padding/about that amount but definitely not with just one average pad, absolutely can't reach the start in a biomechanically safe way.

What do boulderer friends think about stacking 2 pads for a sit start? My first one just ends up compressing down into the ground so much! How do you solve this when you can't reach start holds...tall FA?

Every time I post these unfinished videos of me working on a boulder it always encourages someone that I must be weak, they can do it. It hurts a bit. I know I have terrible form... But I do promise you I'm training. Monday night I trained at BLX - hangboard repeaters, got my max 20mm hang and 1 rep pull up back to +18kg, but I'm still struggling with getting it up to +30% of my body weight/another 6ish kg. I used to manage with 20kg, and I was lighter! I also tried the tension board... Wow, it's harder than the kilter board and moon board. Anyhow I was supposed to do a long indoor ARC session today but decided to focus on this instead. But if I over train, I'll get demotivated.

I start new remote physical therapy for my stenosis tomorrow night, wish me luck! by @danjasaur

Finally got to do some sea kayaking with the guy and the fuzzier guy yesterday, have been wanting to all summer! (After my PT appointment for the nerve injury)
Turns out after several years of not paddling... It hurts. I'm so out of shape. But it was fun anyhow.
Quit it with your "Fall is here" posts already ☀️ 🌊
Plenty of sunshine left before the grey misery sets in. by @danjasaur

I've had the weirdest numb finger issue for the last 2 weeks, and had to put my project on hold just as I was getting close again. The doctors are completely unhelpful. I asked my boyfriend to come to Bohusfest, I wanted to get revenge on a 7a sport route from last year. Instead I ended up following on easy #trad for the first time since Yosemite (some 11 years ago), I can't feel my hand well enough to #climb well, any long moves with the left hand are difficult. The views were great and I slept better than in Lofoten. I got to do this cool route above the old fishing cottages in Smögen, but the top was definitely harder than the given grade.

I'm really grateful for this guy who puts up with me despite a lot of difficulties I'm having right now, and led the trad routes for me to follow.

See if you can spot Mosfet chilling in the last photo waiting for us beneath the route in my hoodie ❤️ 🐶 @fuzzymosfet
...

I woke up with the numbness almost 2 weeks ago and still have pain from my scapula down to my wrist, jumping around at different spots, sometimes it feels like my bone is breaking or a random ligament is torn where it hurts with any movement... Then goes away. Walking around can randomly feel like my elbow is broken, or my bicep is torn. Not a consistent spot, sometimes it's at my spine as if it's being hammered. The tips of my thumb and pointer finger have gotten less numb but I still notice it grabbing anything or if I scratch an itch. My lip twitches, like it did the last time I had Lyme disease. But I'm in a country that does not investigate, diagnose, or treat anything - unless you're lucky enough to fit a textbook example and get a younger doctor - as I've experienced before. I'm supposed to live with this, and whatever happens because "sometimes things happen for no reason" and "testing is meaningless, it's all meaningless" - according to a doctor Thursday. This system is overcome with nihilism.

I'm at a loss and just trying to get used to living with the numbness, because this is not worth healthcare in Sweden. I don't know if getting my 7c project will happen, or if I'll ever be able to climb hard again.

#climbing #lymewarrior #climbergirls by @danjasaur