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Watch Ron Kauk Talk Yosemite Boulders and Midnight Lightning

In this short film, legendary Yosemite climber Ron Kauk talks about bouldering in Yosemite. The famous V8 was first climbed by Kauk in 1978 and is found on the Columbia Boulder in Camp 4.

Lynn Hill was the first woman to send the line in 1998. In the same year, Sam Moses wrote in Sports Illustrated, “The climber must suspend himself by the fingertips of his left hand, swing around a ledge of rock and propel himself far enough up, about four feet, to grab a precarious fingertip hold with his right hand.

“To do that he has to create momentum from stillness.” The identifiable chalk lightning was added by John Bachar in the late 1970s.

The problem has been rated from V7 to V9 and has a mandatory crux mantle. You start on low crimps and throw your right hand to an undercling. Then you line up the dyno, unless you’re tall enough to do the move static.

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