Climbing "the Strike" in the Black Hills Needles with Legendary John "Verm" Sherman

Photograph by Dawn Kish

John "Verm" Sherman is a legend among us. He pioneered bouldering and invented the V-scale for grading bouldering problems. He also championed the development of bouldering at Hueco Tanks, Texas. Quite a legacy. Here Sherman tells us about climbing "the Strike," ascending all Ten Pins in a single day in the Needles of South Dakota's Black Hills, with local guide Cheyenne Chaffee last summer. Photographer Dawn Kish climbed and rappelled several spires, as well, to document the feat (her tips are coming up next, stay tuned). Sherman is the author of several climbing books, including Stone Crusade, Sherman Exposed, and Better Bouldering 2nd edition (due out in October). See the image in our Extreme Photo fo the Week gallery.

Adventure: For starters, is this type of geological formation unusual?

John "Verm" Sherman: There are hundreds of such spires in the Black Hills Needles, hence the area's name. Molten granite and pegmatite intruded into metamorphic schist in such a way to form fins and spires. The softer schist has eroded away, leaving the spires. In my experience—I've climbed in over 600 areas in the U.S.—this is unique. I have been to other areas with lots of spires, but almost always they are made of sandstone, not granite.

Adventure: Why is this pin called Super Pin? Do they all have good names?

John "Verm" Sherman: Of the 10 Ten Pins, Super Pin and Hairy Pin are the most challenging and dangerous because Pete Cleveland did the first ascents of both and he was determined that these spires would be elite level climbs with very little fixed protection.

Legend has it that he led Super Pin with only one piece of gear and upon reaching the top rigged his rope to descend and pulled it before anyone else could climb it, leaving himself as the only person bold enough to stand atop the spire. Later, climbing legend "Hot Henry" Barber established the line I'm pictured on, which is still very scantily protected, but not the unabashed death route Cleveland's path is. Nevetheless, climbers still debate whether a fall on Barber's line would end your career or not.

On this day my partner was a local guide, Cheyenne Chaffee. We set our belay up high in a notch between Tent Peg and Super Pin with the plan being if I fell, Cheyenne would jump out of the notch down a 40-ft face vertical face below. Timed right, this would pull enough rope through the belay system that neither he nor I would hit the ground. We don't always climb that way.

Adventure Friend, Photographer Bobby Model Dies

Photographer Bobby Model in Kenya for ADVENTURE. See photos from that assignment here.

We are terribly saddened to deliver the news that our dear Bobby Model passed away yesterday. We do not have any details yet from the family.

Bobby first came to NG when he was part of the team that climbed Trango Tower in autumn 1995, a feat which was featured in the April 1996 National Geographic, and Bobby appeared on the cover of that issue. Images that Bobby shot on that expedition were published in the magazine. While Bobby continued to climb at an extremely high level, upon the urging of his climbing partner, Todd Skinner, he pursued a career in photography, and went on to cover relief work in Sudan, the Balti peoples in Pakistan, and other topics in Africa while he was based in Nairobi. He shot articles for NG Adventure, and worked with David Harvey on his coverage of Nairobi for the National Geographic Africa issue.

When Bobby was injured outside of Cape Town in June two years ago, he was miraculously able to survive what would have been for most a fatal head injury. 

The Cove: Filmmaker's Team Infiltrates Japan's Dolphin Slaughter

Text by Ryan Bradley

Some stories are simple, straightforward, even easy. Louie Psihoyos isn't interested in them. A photographer for National Geographic when he was just 23, Psihoyos sought out assignments that were broad, vague, and visually challenging—subjects included dreams, garbage, and smell. He spent nine months in trash heaps. One time, he nearly fell to his death getting a photograph on top of the Chrysler Building.

So it should come as no surprise that for his first film, The Cove (released this month), the 52-year-old infiltrated a super-secret and heavily patrolled inlet in northern Japan with a crack team of extreme athletes and a bevy of military-grade cameras to capture a brutal and never before seen dolphin slaughter. What he did was by all accounts illegal and dangerous and borderline stupid. But so is killing a dolphin. 

“My mandate for this movie was: just make a difference,” Psihoyos (rhymes with "sequoias") says. “I took that to an extreme level. To do that, I realized, we had to become part of the story.”

Continue reading this post>>