I spent the Christmas/ New Year at Hueco Tanks in Texas and was blown away by not only the area (Better than Font and Rocklands in my opinon) but also the number of hard boulderers.

I didn't realise quite how many there were...! In my 1 week stay, I met well over 30 boulderers cranking 8a and harder. Also loads of girls climbing 7b and up. Apparently Bishop has a similar number during season. I asked a few ppl to estimate the total number of US climbers cranking 8a and up and the consensus was at least 1500 !!!! (Although not everyone was clear headed at that point ) Pretty dam.n phenomenal if you ask me!!

It seems to be easier in the US to lead a lifestyle condusive to cranking (i.e. little or no work)

Or maybe we are just weak and lazy?

It's the lifestyle for sure! I've been climbing in the US now for 6 weeks and I've met up with people who for example shovel snow for a living just so they can climb full time.
No way you could survive in SA doing that? And just to set the record straight; Americans are not mutants that crank like motherf#@kers. Hueco is the best bouldering in the US and during that time all the collages are closed and thus everyyone who's anyone is there! It's a large country with lots of climber for godsake, whatever happened to logic?

There's no questioning your logic though. Obviously you can't make a living shovelling snow in South Africa - would have thought that was obvious?

Yup, there are a lot more strong climbers in the States than in SA, basically in my mind due to:
1) Great gyms
2) Large number of climbers (majority of climbers do not crank 8A)
3) Disposable income or relative ease of earning cash to go climbing

I think that the gym I climb at in the US has more members than all the climbers in South Africa!

South African rock is pretty pristine though, most American crags have so many climbers that the outdoors feels like a rock gym. (Sean Cremen)

I agree with your points Sean.

Must be that Hueco has a high concentration of the strong climbers - because I couldn't have met more than 6 guys who cranked below 7b in my whole stay

Seems to me the main thing is that people can do crap jobs such as gardening/ roadwork/ labourer for half the year and have easily enough cash to climb for the rest of the year

Its kind of strange meeting these \"bums\" cos we don't have any in SA that I can think of... maybe JusH?

I love it when people repeat ours posts as if they thought of it... thanks Steve your a legend!