What makes a “perfect” boulder?
Is it the tangibles like moves, the texture, the location, the difficulty? Is it the intangibles like the history, the weather, who you were with at the time? Is perfection even knowable? Frequent Flyers seeks to sample enough boulders to try and answer the question.
 |
| “He who must travel happily must travel light.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
The advantage of the traveling boulderer – a bag of clothes and a pad is all you need to pack. This film is an ‘earlier’ offering from Mike Call, features Boone Speed and Obe Carrion jet-setting across the globe during Fall 2000 and sampling the best there is with guidance from the locals and other visitors. Don’t think that those are the only two faces you’ll recognize, as Lisa Rands, Jerry Moffatt, Jason Kehl, Ivan Greene, Steven Jeffery, and others make cameos
In search of the perfect boulder, our explorers bounce through Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Tennessee, before making the long haul to Stanage and Fontainebleau, and the longer hauls to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. While there are “only” 40 boulders listed below, there are plenty more that go unnamed in the hour-long runtime. What I appreciate about those many shots is that they are a mix of our heroes and the locals that have been kind enough to show them around, making the list of climbers shown over 40 people long.
Somehow, amidst all the climbing, there’s time for some non-climbing shots. Interviews as the crew chases better weather and jet-lag across continents, words from locals (especially great thoughts from the New Zealand crew), and framing shots that show the scene and the culture of the areas visited. There’s even time for pad sledding, including a sweet jump. At the very end, the film circles back to the original question, lending a sense of closure.
Like every other Mike Call review I’ve done, it’s hard to give this a fair review. The nostalgia factor is just too high, and seeing Obe completely walk my multi-season project is icing on the cake. I will say the music isn’t going to be for everyone, but I appreciated that it mirrored the tone on screen: hard driving when things were punchy, calm when it was a more contemplative day, and bass thumps edited in time with the moves. I promise I’ll be fair when judging some of Mike’s other efforts – some of the earliest and latest films weren’t all gems.
Verdict: Its a Classic
The Who:
Obe Carrion
Boone Speed
Jason Sales
Clay Romaine
Jim Horton
Chad Safferstone
Lisa Rands
Anthony Love
Dean Melton
Michelle Smith
Kirk Brode
Josh Goodlett
Jerry Moffatt
Jason Kehl
Ivan Greene
Narelle Jarry
Josh Lowell
Brett Lowell
Steven Jeffery
Steve Gardner
Ang Connely
Matt Tait
Quentin MacDonald
Andrew Bognard
Saxon Johns
Garth Miller
John Palmer
Max Farr
Bevan Hadler
H Hadler
Philip Sage
Daniel Jenkins
Sebastian Lowenstein
Justin Clark
Sharon Clark
Derek Thatcher
Takao Kiori
Yuki Maeshima
Akira Suzuki
Futoshi Maruki
Michio Takimoto
Yasushi Sasaki
Masnori Hoshina
Tomoki Usami
Keiko Aratani
The What:
Chandler Mountain, OK
Boone, NC
Throttle
Hot Rod
The Prow
Two Pop
Flaygl – FA
Strange Agent
Against the Grain
Stonefort, TN
The Pinch
Super Mario
Celestial Mechanics
Stanage, UK
Not To Be Taken Away
Crescent Arete
Deliverance Slab
Green Traverse
Joker
Fontainebleau, FR
Carnage
l’infidele
Alta
l’aerodynamite
Joker
Karma
l’abbe Resina
el Poussif
Carazina
Australia
Sissy Crag
Saxon’s Problem #1
Saxon’s Problem #2
Blue Mountains
Unnamed V10/11s
Flock Hill, NZ
Castle Hill
Energy Follows Thought
Fingers of Fury
Outcast
Quantum Mechanics
Gift
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Snake Eyes – FA, SA, TA
Its Love
Japan
Gyoja
Ogawayama
Mizugaki
Tak’s Traverse – FA
Pocket Dyno
Lone Boulder
Mitsumine
Left Beloncho
