Hueco Tanks Beta suitable for Power Training

[Cody]

My girlfriend and I will be passing by Hueco Tanks twice during our Power training phase. We've never been there and are not "boulderers," per se. But we thought that we might as well take advantage and do some climbing while in the area. We made reservations for North Mountain. 
Our trip to Hueco will happen directly after our final 25 minute campus workout, i.e. we campus on Tuesday and have made reservations for Thursday, so there will be plenty of rest. We will be passing by there again the following Thursday. We have decided to make both days LB Outdoor days, and will switch up our gym time over the weekend.
My question is, do any of you have any ideas about how to put together a great LB outdoor session? Last season we did LB Outdoors once or twice, but both times were kind of short and less productive than we experience in the gym. Honestly, we don't really do much "limit" bouldering anyways, per the book--we are both training novices. So, how can we make a good day out of our visit to Hueco? Does anyone have any good beta about areas at Hueco Tanks that are great, easy to find, etc? We're not very strong yet so we will probably spend most of our time on v0 to v3, and maybe a v4 or two. 
Also, we will be in the Austin area during that weekend and will be looking for a good gym to both ARC and do some WBL and LB sessions at. Any input about gyms in Austin would also be well appreciated. 
Thanks a million!

[Cody]

I suppose I should have posted this in the Power tab. Sorry about that!

[jessebruni]

If you are limit bouldering the idea is just doing moves that are very hard but not impossible for you. Hueco is a sea of rock. There is rock everywhere. Anything you get on will be good, and if you are in the V0-V3 range you will find plenty of challenging problems. Your real issue is that limit bouldering at Hueco, having never been there before, is nearly impossible mentally speaking. You will find lots of moves that are physically hard to do, but when you bear in mind that you don't have gym pads to fall on (you should be falling a lot with limit bouldering) and the sharp rock most people are less likely to push themselves to the level required for real limit bouldering.
My suggestion would be to just go enjoy your first trip to Hueco. Get on the classics. Find a guidebook if you can, if not, ask others who are there. This time of year there will be plenty of people around who can point you to great problems.

As for Gyms in Austin I can give you the beta as I live there. There are currently two "real" climbing gyms, both called Austin Rock Gym. The North Austin Rock Gym is located off North Lamar Blvd. near 183 and is all bouldering. The floor is well padded so there are no individual pads to move around which is nice. It's very easy to do WBL's there. ARCing there is not recommended. Most walls are too steep to ARC effectively and the near vertical walls will have too many people on them to really ARC.
The South Austin Rock Gym is located on Friedrich Lane and is near the I-35/290 intersection, a few blocks away. It's located in a business park complex so it's not exactly the easiest building to find. SARG has bouldering, top roping, and lead climbing available. The bouldering is located almost exclusively in a 60 degree overhanging roof and the surrounding totally vertical walls. WBL is possible but I find that the south gym tends to have very few problems in the V0-V2 range. ARCing is a bit easier in the South Gym for a few reasons, the first is that it's possible to traverse nearly the entire gym in a circle. Most of your traversing will take place at the bottom of the top roping and lead walls so you tend not to get in people's way as they are usually either above you climbing or not roped in yet. You can also ARC by simply climbing up and down one of the toproping routes. Bear in mind that this is Austin. We have about 10 months of summer here and all the rock is limestone. Friction is an urban legend. We climb here by utilizing pockets, which don't require much friction, and compressing the hell out of slopers. The boulders in the gyms reflect this. Expect hard 2-3 move problems, expect lots of pockets and expect roped bouldering, not sport climbing. The roped bouldering aspect makes ARCing on the sport routes very hard as even on low 5.10's the terrain is often too bouldery (dynamic moves to small holds seperated by good rests) to effectively ARC.

Your last option is Main Event. Main Event has bowling, laser tag, billiards, mini-golf and rock climbing. It's an odd mix, but they actually are the only place in the city that have auto-belays and they are reasonably priced if you only want to do the climbing. The bouldering there is completely useless, but you can get a decent ARC workout on the moderate sport routes via autobelay and you don't need a partner. Clip in, climb up, lower down, repeat.

Hope this helps! Good Luck!

[MarkAnderson]

I'm not a Hueco expert by any means, so take with a grain of salt. I would look into "The Gymnasium" and the The Warmup Boulder. Both have a good concentration of problems in your grade range. The Gym is much more "fun", with generally big jugs and big moves. The WU Boulder is more technical IIRC. Other memorable problems are "Nobody Here Gets Out Alive" V2 and "Sign of the Cross" V3.

Skin will always be an issue at Hueco, so pace yourselves and try to climb in the shade.

[Ming]

Thanks, guys!

We've actually been finding that we're hard bouldering and limit bouldering at V4-V5 (and sometimes V6) this season, unlike the V0-V3 that Cody mentioned, which was our expectation based on last season. We've yet to see how that translates outside, but any suggestions for boulders in those grades at Hueco - preferably nearby V0-V3's?

In the Power phase, we've been working off Mark's suggestions as he wrote about in this post: rockclimberstrainingmanual.com/2013/12/11/bouldering-for-power/
We're concentrating on problems that are more vertical and realistic to climbing outdoors. We climb mostly in Joshua Tree, Red Rock, and Zion, so what's realistic for us is probably different than on limestone, which we're very excited to climb on!

Jesse - we'll check out the gyms in Austin for sure! Do you have any suggestions for bouldering outside while we're in Austin?

[jessebruni]

Outdoor bouldering in Austin is pretty much everywhere, unfortunately it's also pretty much all on private land in secret areas. I would NOT recommend outdoor bouldering in Austin at the established public areas. Limestone bouldering is...unique. You basically need a lot of experience climbing on limestone in general and even then almost everything in Austin is hard (V6-V12). I will list the local areas anyway in case you decide to go, but if you do don't say I didn't warn you.

McKinney Falls State Park (South Austin): This is a 10 foot tall, 200-300 foot long cliff band. The problems are almost all 2-3 moves, and the polish is the worst you'll find anywhere in Austin (expect extremely glassy holds). There are probably less than 20 problems < V6 at McKinney, and it has a reputation of being sandbagged by a V grade or 2. If you don't climb V7 or harder seriously don't bother.

Austin Greenbelt (Downtown Austin): The greenbelt is mostly sport climbing but the Kingdom of Ging cave at the Gus Fruh wall has a cave with several variations on it starting at V4 and going up to V12. There is a single freestanding boulder in the dried up riverbed that has a few V4's, V5's, and V7's on it.

Bull Creek (West Austin): The bouldering here is slabby, 12-15 feet tall, grades range from V0-V9. There is a larger concentration of lower grades here, but also low quality.

Rogers Park (Lake Belton, 1 hour north of Austin): If you are dead set on bouldering in the Austin area this is the place to do it. A small cliff band extends around the lake shore for half a mile or so. Most of this is unclimbable, but there are decent swaths of stone that provide good (for limestone) bouldering. Grades range from V0 - V Hard with plenty at each level. Likely around 100 problems in total. All of this bouldering is covered in the "Texas Limestone" guidebook which you can find at local REI's or Whole Earths.

Now that I've laid out where the bouldering is, I would suggest that you avoid it and sport climb instead. The sport climbing in Austin is much more accessible, provides a better grade range, is less polished, and generally more fun. Reimers Ranch is your best bet, it's about 30 minutes west of Austin. The Greenbelt is okay as well, but be warned that it's far more polished and is generally slabbier. The local guidebook has all the beta you'd need for sport in Austin. www.austinclimbingbook.com

For bouldering at Hueco on North Mountain the best problems in the grade range you listed are usually considered to be:

Melon Patch (Highball) V0
Nobody Here Gets Out Alive V2
Ghetto Simulator V2
Sign of the Cross V3
100 Proof Roof V3
Girls of Juarez V4
Bloody Flapper V4
Lobster Claw V5
See Spot Run V6
The Mexican Chicken V6
King Cobra V6
Baby Martini V6

Along with a slew of other problems which are all quite good (although I find north mountain is rather lacking in quality V4's and V5's, there are plenty of V0 - V3 and V6+ to work on).

[Ming]

JESSE THAT'S AWESOME! THANKS, DUDE!

And since you mentioned it - if not North Mountain for V4 and V5s, where? You know, for next time...

[jessebruni]

Well North Mountain is the only mountain you can get on without a guide. All the rest you have to hire a guide, usually $25 per person per day. They'll take you to whatever you want and can point out good V4's and V5's. I haven't spent any time on west mountain and have only been to east mountain and east spur once each so I don't know them very well, but like I said it wouldn't matter as your guide would be able to take you to appropriate stuff.