A Good Season

A season log, not a story, and I think that is the right call. Mellow gives Jimmy Webb eighteen minutes in the Rocklands, South Africa, in 2019, and the tally is four 8C boulders and multiple first ascents. For most climbers that is a career. Here it is one trip to one sandstone valley.

This is for people who want to watch one of the most productive American boulderers of his generation at full output on the rock best suited to him. Rocklands rewards crimping, patience and returning to the same block, and Webb is built for all three. Skip it if you want narration or context. Mellow keeps talk to a minimum and never explains what any problem is or why it matters.

What works is the restraint. The sends are shown in full and the film trusts you to know that 8C means something. What it gets wrong is the same restraint taken too far. Four 8Cs in one season is a story, and the film never tells it. I wanted a line from Webb about which one mattered.

Climbing The World's BEST Boulders, the Louder Than Eleven film with Jorg Verhoeven and Katha Saurwein, covers the same valley at a wider range of grades and is a better introduction to Rocklands. A Good Season is for after you know the area and want to see its top end.