John Gill was a legendary climber and boulderer of the 1950s and 1960s. The Needles of South Dakota were one of his stomping grounds. Athletically, and gymnastically his climbing was way ahead of his time, with most of his problems going years, or even decades without a repeat. In fact, for quite some time most climbers were rather dismissive of him spending so much time on this "frivolous" niche activity.
Unlike our modern classifications systems with their copious gradations of difficulty, Gill broke bouldering down into just three categories. A problem which many top climbers had tried, and failed to climb was graded B-3. Once that problem had been climbed it gets relegated to a B-2 problem. He defined "easier" B-1 problems as starting beyond the hardest trad routes of his day, roughly 5.11.
While on TTW I did manage a couple of "easy" Gill B-1 problems. But, my most vivid memory was the day I was standing below the 30 foot high, free standing pinnacle, known as the Thimble. A famous route which Gill relegated to a B-2 problem when he ascended it in 1961. Almost three decades later, it had still not been repeated, as it sported a metal highway guardrail in the landing zone, which would yield a crippling injury in a fall. I climbed up and down the bottom 15 feet of the Thimble; the climbing was hard and technical, and I was memorizing, or "wiring the moves." But, despite encouragement from my cadre of student climbers, it was always clear to me that it was out of my league, and that, I certainly was not going to "go for it."
Several evenings later, after my TTW group had checked out more Gill problems I did this impressionistic watercolor in my trip journal.
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