Sunday, August 8, 2010

"Threading The Needle" - The Diamond

This is a stop-animation drawing I did of "The Diamond."  "The Diamond" is a prodigious 1500 foot face on Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO.  This precipitous, rock wall is a magical place both for sightseers and especially for climbers.  The wall features a generous selection of high quality crack climbs of moderate to expert ratings, both free-climbing and aide climbing.  What makes this face so unique is it's quality of climbs at such a high altitude - up to 14,000ft.  This drawing video was influenced by a recent climb I did with my friend Tim Davis.  We climbed"Pervertical Sanctuary" 5.lla, one of the highest quality climbs I've ever done.  I'm currently collaborating with Tim on a video of the entire trip which will include parts of this animation.  The imagery at the end of the video is clouds and rain devouring "The Diamond" which was indicative of the day we climbed and thus the inspiration for the title, "Threading the Needle," finding some good weather in between persistent afternoon thunderstorms.  After a wonderful day of climbing alone on the Diamond - something which rarely happens - we finished our final two rappels in hail and rain and dodged lightening on our hike out.   Oh yah, the song is a cover of Elvis' "Love Me Tender" played by myself and Colin Frazer.

Threading The Needle from Craig Muderlak on Vimeo.

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