“Rob,” James said to me, confounded, “I could campus this problem if it weren’t for my feet hitting that damn rock!”

“Sorry James,” I replied, “it’s a national park — you can’t exactly take a pry bar and sledge hammer and start bustin’ rock just ‘cause you can’t send a boulder problem.” So James went away and trained. A few months of core exercises later, he showed up and walked the Junior’s Corner Roof problem, calling it Testify. Maybe V12, he thought. (It was later confirmed.) Then he began work on an even smaller set of holds next door.

One day in February 2001, I met James at Junior’s Corner Roof and we ran into a climber from New York, working out the moves on Testify. Andy Salo was his name, and over the years he’d became something of a regular. When he saw James working the new project nearby, he asked for some Beta. That’s when James grabbed the start holds of Testify, walked the problem, and pronounced himself warmed up, ready for the new project. James saw that Andy was pretty strong himself and so echoed his own mantra, saying, “You can do it.” James did that a lot while climbing with friends — he knew the strengths of his climbing bros and he knew if they could do something. When James said, “You can do that,” it made people believe in themselves. Plus, he lead by example, showing what was humanly possible on rock. “Climbing with James proved that someone could clearly climb at the highest level and have no need for any hype, ever,” says Salo. Another local boulderer, Luis Rodriguez, offers, “Why doesn't [James] get the mad props he deserves? Perhaps because he doesn't ask for it. He simply goes out and climbs hard for the love of it.” It seems just being around James and his energy makes others better climbers.

Now this new Litz project was a sight to behold: absolute nothings for fingers and feet. A lock-off on one nothing crimp to a static crossover to a sloping divot and a stab for the final holds of OPP, an established V7 to the right. James worked his project a few times that day, returning the next week to send and giving it “maybe a V13”, he didn’t know. If true, at that time (the mid-to-late 1990s) it would have been one of the hardest problems in the country. Andy (who eventually sent Testify) says the problem, dubbed Chinese Arithmetic, is at least that.

The Lilly Boulders once again stood tall. And again James took his leave, though fate had it that he would return once more, under strange circumstances, and again up the ante.