They were the stomping grounds of the Phillips brothers before they even knew that a rock was meant to climb. They were dicking around in these woods like the young seventies hooligans that they were. Rogers Park was for many people, for many years, nothing but a place to hang out, drink some beer, smoke some hoo-bang and and forget that you live in the middle of somewhere other than maybe you would rather be. But Belton is not really my story, it is about Joey and Dave and Don. Joey was in Temple for years, teaching karate and bouldering the short walls in Belton's Roger's Park. The first time I checked it out, I was in awe of the overhanging boulder problem that Joey had worked out that involved a swinging dyno to a hidden hold. I also took a nice grounder that day onto the stump of a small tree. It was cool, I had not really bouldered except for the several times at bull creek where the only routes I could handle were some polished V0’s that I had committed to rote memory. Bouldering at Belton was cool, but I had the greenbelt and reimers right here, and well, Belton was an hour away, But then all of a sudden a lot of people became interested in Belton and a bunch of bad asses were working all of these routes and word was just spreading.I started going back there and climbing harder than my tendons were prepared for and met some cool folks from Dallas and some others I recognized from the gym in Austin. Belton was enjoying a "cult following" of the hardest of the hard, and I witnessed a guy named Mike use all sorts of fine footwork that just had me baffled. ...and I saw Kim Duren pop some amazing dynos like a steel spring, and I saw trash,.... lots of trash. <-Back   Forward-> assholes | the blessed event | contact toprope | hallucinations | interviews links | lettrés | sojurns | what's hot