Opposite and Opposed

A Crew for Mt. Misery Ice

2012-01-22T21:30:00.000-04:00

Mt. Misery was a busy place yesterday. A dozen ice climbers were present sharing what little ice was there. Waiting in line for ice is virtually unheard of but a dozen climbers is probably 50% of the entire NB ice climbing community.

At the lower tier the main line Strait Up was in o.k. shape and was led several times. All the flows right of it were fat and pretty fun. All the fun pillars normally formed up on the left end were completely missing or very very thin. Too bad. In another month I'd like to bring Ice School here but it's going to have to improve considerably between now and then. The weather was cold and cloudy and the ice brittle. Conditions lent to ice shattering off in large solid plates. I spent a few tense moments staring at my tool thinking "don't move" as the ice cracked out from it a foot in every direction. Having a last screw in below my feet made it exciting.

I did manage to get a few interesting pictures... Dom leading 'Main Street' in lean conditions.

The nicest lines of the day were in the upper tier where I'd never actually climbed before. A few nice pillars were led and took very good screws. Each swing of the tool landed with a damp 'thownk', burring itself to the hilt.

A series of Shawn on the left-hand ramp for his first ice lead. Nice work!

Marty grabbing the nice, central pillar:

Greg led a hairy-looking line which started in a steep cave and involved breaking out of an awkward looking ice-chimney. (Sorry... no good photos). This fella has been leading hard stuff all year. Nice work Greg! All done on a un-harnessed belay to boot!

It gave me a chance to test out my new boot liners. Several years ago my dog ate what must have been all the tasty parts of my mountain boot liners. Ever since I've been looking for an affordable replacement. Finally last week I had some luck and scored a pair on Ebay from a French military surplus dealer. They were a perfect match and only set me back 25 euros, including the international shipping. Score! They worked perfect. The only downer of the day was that my ice pants managed to get shredded mantling over a dead log. I need a good seamstress now and a huge patch of Gore-Tex. Any ideas anyone?

Updated Look

2012-01-18T11:56:00.005-04:00

I updated the look and layout of the site (obviously). I think it's less cluttered this way. What do you think?

Still Thin at the Quarry

2012-01-16T09:49:00.003-04:00

Had a fun day out at the Quarry yesterday with a good crew from the club. Spent the day playing on top-rope for the most part although Drain Pipe was in. Despite the prediction of -18 (-25 with windchill) we weren't feeling cold. In the sun this place cooks. Magda's watch thermometer was reading +5 degrees when sitting on her black backpack in the afternoon sun. Water was flowing all day and the ice had a hard, but kinda sticky consistency which made thin-ice climbing work well. In another 2 weeks I hope the entire area grows in.

I did manage to learn something... a well-constructed V-thread will probably hold a rappel! Jon built one which I bounce-tested pretty violently and it stood up like a champ with only a bit of surface cracking. I gotta get one of those V-hooks.

Jon C... waving his arms no doubt in the middle of some funny BS story.

Doktor Magma... getting into the thin business.

... great success!

Parlee Brook Ice in Good Form

2012-01-08T21:54:00.000-04:00

I don't think Parlee Brook could have worked out any better. I managed to tag into a good crew headed in there today and was glad I did. We started off by driving as close as anyone will ever get with cars. The walk to the top was less than 5 minutes rather than the typical 45.

Almost all lines are fully in. Sunbake, Kings Horses, Yellow, and Blue Pillars were lead. Temperatures were perfect and the ice was varied. Brittle in spots and completely hero in others.

A few shots of Marty Theriault leading Blue Pillar:

Also a shot of Shawn Burdette following me up King's Horses:

Also ran into this fella and spoke with him for a while. Turns out he's authored a book on NB's waterfalls and was just collecting some wintertime Parlee photos for his site:

Cheers. Chris.

Bushwacking into 2012

2011-12-31T22:03:00.001-04:00

It's been over a month since I've posted. The holidays were pretty busy and I haven't had many opportunities to climb for a while. With cold weather coming I'm excited for ice climbing. There's been a lot of moisture in the last 4 weeks and the soils ought to be saturated. With cold weather here seepage should be good for a while.

Today I did manage to convince Jon and Angela to scope out ice development local to Fredericton (I failed on dragging them all the way to Parlee Brook in the freezing rain). We checked out Jocelyn Brook falls and a creek just beside it.

I liked the colour contrast... although admittedly the water looked like pee

Nothing yet... just an incredible volume of water rushing over it. After seeing this we didn't even bother heading to Hayes falls... which would surely be more suitable for kayaking right now.

We killed the rest of the day hiking into some small crag Jon discovered near Crabbe Mt. years ago. Although it was a choss heap the day wasn't totally lost... we did find a sweet smashed up car which someone had trundled off the top of said choss heap. You ask who would do something like that? I answer who wouldn't?

Just a few nicks to buff-out. In Cuba, it'd be on the road in a day with cheap Russian parts!

Happy New Year readers... I hope to find lots to write about in 2012. Cheers.

Utopia

2011-11-14T10:47:00.001-04:00

Over the weekend Adam and I spent a day checking out a cliff west of Lake Utopia and the Bonnie River. I'd had this spot, and another just north of it marked on my Potential Rock maps for some time but I hadn't seen it on the ground yet.

Access is no issue as it is public lands and a passable road leads to a quarry pile within spitting distance of the climbing. The approach is a 3 minute walk on level ground. Nice!

With two walls summing to about the size of Sunnyside, this place has some real potential. The rock is granite of similar character to the Upper Tier and varies from friction slab to radically overhung. 'Utopia', as it's been coined, will probably sport some of the most athletic lines in the province... eventually.

Development will be a challenge on the really overhanging stuff but a significant amount of work has already been done. Anchors are starting to be installed and several lines have been scrubbed and have seen top ropes. A slab line has been bolted and led already.

For our part, we spent the better part of the day establishing a climber's trail. Please try to use it. It has been flagged/blazed and some marker stones cleared. Henni also helped in a big way to fell some trees which were obstructing the cliffs. With a better clearing it should dry more. We also bushwacked to the top, and Adam established an anchor over what will be an outstanding crack line. Fingers to hands it is about 15 degrees overhung. I bushwacked to a good spruce at the pinnacle of the overhanging prow shown below and cleared it for an anchor. A fixed line skirting the top might be a wise idea. I did not rap it however as it didn't look like my 60m rope made it to ground. A 70m would work for sure.

This tries... but doesn't do justice to just how overhung this prow is.

I think there's a good crew of developers working here and projects are being staked out. Given the huge effort required to establish some of these lines it might be a good idea to map out who's working on what?

Bike Info Down

2011-11-12T23:33:00.001-04:00

A few friends have noticed that some of the mountain bike maps I've posted are now missing. This explains the absence, and discusses the issue.

Last week, I received a message which at the time, left me a bit floored. It was from a person who I've never met before, but presumably is well in tune with Fredericton's biking community. The name has been omitted since it's not important.

So, about those trail maps on your blog. I see that you did that even after you learned that the builders in some areas have asked that maps not be posted. Apparently that’s ok, because according to you, access issues are “BS.” I’m not sure why you think that you’d have heard about any issues and have a better understanding of the local situation than the builders, given that you’re so new to the scene that you only learned about the trails a few months ago. Anyway, that’s not really the point. Here’s where I think we disagree: I say that even if it’s true that there’s little risk in publishing maps, the builders have earned the right to make that decision. They’ve put countless hours of work into trails that we all enjoy, and respecting their wishes on that point is really the very least that the rest of can do in return. Now, you’re obviously trying to contribute something helpful here, so I’m going to proceed on the theory that you’re not an asshole. Also, your maps don’t register high on web searches and you’ve included some comments about trail etiquette. So builders who historically have objected to posting maps might be ok with that. I’d be happy to try to persuade them that you’ve created a useful resource that will help people find trails and that also addresses their usual concerns about posted maps. But of course I’ll only do that if you’re willing to take down some tracks if that’s ultimately what the builders in those areas want. Are you willing to do that?

I got upset about it... probably more so than I should have. It picked at an old scab I've had from before. A similar discussion but a different group.

I went back and fourth with this person a few times to explain where I was coming from and to try and get at the real issue. It seems as if the trail-builders in Fredericton are operating on the presumption that readily available information leads to lots of users. Lots of users leads to a few assholes. A few assholes lead to access issues. Therefore, keeping the trail system off the web is good for access.

I understand that point of view but I find it unfortunate. As I mentioned in the past, when Jill and I decided to get back into biking this summer I was told that 'we don't share trail maps with people we don't know' at one of the local bike shops. This presents a real problem for new bikers if they are not interested in joining the regular ride groups. If you want to go it alone or with a group of similar skilled individuals, you are out of luck.

I've got no desire to conflict with any local developers. I certainly benefit from their work. However, I think this stance is unfortunate, and that it gives the perception that MTB in Fredericton is not overly welcoming to new riders (Savage's Muck Hucker's notwithstanding). Maybe simply consider that with a popular sport like MTB, trails will not be kept secret for long... and if rider volume is expected to be a problem, perhaps the effort spent keeping secrets would be better directed at encouraging responsible use.

The worst kept secret in Fredericton

Ultimately, I chose to take down any bike maps I had posted on private lands. So MPV, Bunker Hill, and Claudie are gone. Trails on public lands are public domain as far as I'm concerned so they will stay. For any friends who would have used those my apologies... but I obviously didn't believe they would be a barrier to bike access... or I'd have not posted them.

For the record... before this, nobody had taken issue to my map project.

I don't know... maybe I'm way off base with reality here. This is the same issue as putting the next NB climbing guidebook online and I got blasted for that idea. What do you think?

Last Ride 2011

2011-11-06T23:03:00.001-04:00

Went for a last ride of the year at Woolastook with the Savages ride group. Really had a lot of fun this year rediscovering how fun it is to ride a bike. Great stuff Muck Huckers and thanks to Savages!

More Views of Yosemite

2011-10-20T22:21:00.000-03:00

Landscapes

Half Dome... and the valley

Middle Cathedral Spire

El Cap... in a gathering storm

Half Dome shot from Glacier Point head-on

Big Trees

'The Grizzly Giant'

Mariposa Grove

Henni and 'The Twins'

Adam showing the size of the Sugar Pine cones being dropped on us like missiles

Yosemite Free Climbs

Reed's Pinnacle Direct. A sustained & exposed 5.9+ hand-crack we did. Unknown climber.

Marcelle at the crazy funky knob hill area. Massive chicken-head climbing.

Henni stemming the 5.10c first pitch of Salathe

The Crew

Burley rockin' a scarf of biners!

Adam 'Holleywood Rancheros' Morgan... rockin the Kanye shades!

H-Bomb... rockin the sweet handlebars at the fire!

Marcelle... rockin her perma-smile!

Me... rockin my new nerd glasses!

Yosemite Report (Part 3 - the Bail)

2011-10-16T18:08:00.001-03:00

We woke up early on the morning of the third day. Although I thought we were off to an alpine start it seemed as if we were not. Before we had the first pitch of the morning led a party was fast on us. A kiwi by the name of Mayan reached our ledge and we offered to share a belay. Adam tried to spark a bit of conversation with her as she brought up her second but she seemed distracted to me. Fair enough... and I didn't think much of it. Later on she cruised the pitch above us at light speed in an attempt to quickly pass us. Adam asked me whether I recognized her.

'No... should I?'

'Yes', he said, 'if you watch anywhere near as much climbing movies on the net as I do'.

A few days later she'd go on to completely free the Salate wall which clocks in at 5.13b - 35 pitches. Impressive!

This was the day we needed to step it up. The previous day we managed to only haul 4 pitches. At that rate, it would take us 8 days to top-out and we only had 5 days of supplies. In order to get back on track, the math suggested that we'd needed to lead and haul 8-10 pitches. Otherwise, I think we all knew we'd face a tough decision at dinner. The first pitch went quickly.

This put us at the base of a massive leaning chimney called 'the half dollar'. The topo suggested some trickiness and this would be Erick's lead. He set off solo while the rest of us started the haul off a massive 7-piece gear anchor. It wasn't long before more parties were on us. A 2-person Czech came up quickly and asked to pass. Erick had been moving slowly and we'd asked them to wait until he reached an anchor since it seemed the pitch was more difficult that we'd expected. They waited for nearly an hour at a hanging belay when we saw another party approaching us. Still not secure, Burly had only another 25' of rope. We let their leader continue on, thinking that Erick must be getting close, and weary of the prospect of a 7 person clusterfuck at our belay.

Tom Evans at the ElCapReport shot this image of the traffic jam. Cool!

All told, that half dollar pitch must have taken us hours. Before I left that anchor the lower party had caught up to us. This time it was Black Diamond athlete Nico Favresse. Seemed like a really nice fella. Adam asked him what 100' whippers made him think of.

Nico Favresse and The Nightmayer. from nick bullock on Vimeo.

His response was pretty classic:
'ssssshhhhiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttttt'

Although the half dollar pitch would be the most difficult climbing of the day the rest of the hauling was horrendous... and we could never catch up with the leaders.

Erick lowers out to wrangle

The three person space hauling setup!

That night we made it to a huge system of ledges known as the Mammoth Terraces. Beaten, tired, and at a logical point, we made the call to stay there the night. It would be another 4-pitch day... and as it turns out... it would be our high point.

Chris & I piling calories & fluid into ourselves as fast as we possibly could.

Looking across the valley at Lower Cathedral Spire at Sunset

Setting up the ledges and hanging food to try and beat the wall-rats.

That night we spent some time coming to terms with the decision to bail. Given our rate of progress, it was really the only reasonable decision. With certainty, if we continued on we'd run out of water and the Mammoth Terraces was a simple place to bail from with fixed lines reaching all the way to the ground. There was a combination of reasons that contributed to what went wrong:

We probably chose the wrong line. While the easy grade and stunning line of Triple Direct were appealing, the hauling on the lower slab was ghastly. Coupled with this was the mistake of battling the crowds all gunning for the first 10 pitches of the route (which is known as the Free Blast). We'd come to be told by several parties that 'nobody hauls the Free Blast' . Sage advice.
We plain and simply had too much stuff. Largely this could have been due to the 4-person party approach. We had too much food, too much water, too many ledges, and ultimately too much weight. If a single person counter-weighting the bags can't move them effectively something is wrong. I doubt any of us would try the 4 person party on such a large wall again. Fun... but not effective.
Our haul line was too short. We couldn't combine 2 pitches into a single haul. I think this might have helped. Also we rigged the bags side-by-side. One-under-another would probably have been able to reduce the snags and spin better.
The weather was unseasonably hot. I think we drank our daily gallon early each day. This certainly didn't speed us up or help to stretch out our water rations. (We actually found out that last night that several of the water bladders were leaking... yikes).

All in all, we were too slow. I think we all had the right physical conditioning and the climbing wasn't the issue. It was the logistics. That night the boys mused about several options. Erick had suggested that he'd go down alone and give us his water. Chris wondered whether he'd have better luck if he solo'ed the rest of the route. Neither option sat well with me. I thought we start together, and we finish together. In the end I'm glad that's how it went... although I'm not sure if everyone agrees with me.

The next morning we rapped the fixed lines to the ground. What had taken more than 3 days to get up took us an hour to get down. We returned to the car, licking our wounds and cracked open a few warm beers that we'd risked stashing despite of the warning of bears. Exhausted... the only thing left to do was to explain the story to an entire busload of tourists that mobbed us when they saw the pile of gear we were sitting on. It was actually pretty funny.

Henni gives a crash course to a busload of seniors. Woaw.

That marked the end of our El Cap attempt. All in all, I had a lot of fun. The rest of the trip to Yosemite would give us some great free climbing but nothing would top that adventure. It's tough to think about all the training and investment I made for that climb not to succeed. The rock taught me a few lessons over those few days, and I am o.k. with that. I think if it were a 100% guaranteed success, it wouldn't have been what we were looking for.

Cheers and thanks for reading.

Yosemite Report (Part 2 - Rescue)

2011-10-15T00:19:00.000-03:00

I purposely left out a big part of the story in part 1. It seemed big enough to get it's own post.

Sometime in the mid-afternoon on that second day we saw a helicopter approaching. It climbed above us and hovered around making several passes near the Great Roof high up on the Nose. We couldn't see any nearby climbers so we figured that it was perhaps doing training maneuvers? At the same time that didn't really add up; the day was windy, and there were plenty of climbers on the wall so why risk knocking loose rocks on us for the sake of training? A few minutes passed and the helicopter eventually moved off, landing in the meadow below. I continued doing whatever it was that I was doing (probably hauling).

About 15 minutes later a voice came booming up from below. Someone was on a bullhorn in the valley. They started asking for a party on the Nose a pile of questions, indicating that they should use hand signals for yes / no responses. (I guess there must have been someone up there). They asked some basic stuff before questioning them about leader falls, and the extent of injuries suffered. From the conversation I gathered that a leader fell and somehow injured a hand.

A bit of time passed and I remember that it was starting to get late in the day. The sun was low and the wind started up by the time I saw the helicopter re-starting it's engine. This time it carried a YOSAR ranger dangling below it swinging in the breeze. It made it's way back to the spot it had been earlier. This time however it was much closer to the face. From our vantage point, the spinning blades seemed as if they were grazing the wall. It was impressive. It hovered there fighting the wind for about 10 minutes it seemed. I remember thinking that if the pilot blew it... it would mean fiery metal death raining down on us (Nice).

The YOSAR chopper lifts off from the valley with a climbing ranger in tow.

The helicopter moves into position.

And the rescue pick-off is underway. Look closely and there's a big helicopter hugging that big cliff!

Fortunately, this pilot had skills. I'd come to find out several days later that the dangling ranger had to throw a bean-bag in at the stranded climbers connected to a rope used to haul him into their anchor. He apparently had 7 of these bean-bag lines and the climbers fumbled the first 6. I'd also learn that the leader somehow managed to sever his thumb clean off in a fall. It somehow got tangled in a sling... although I have a hard time picturing the circumstances.

The most impressive and improbable thing about the whole event is yet to come. We quickly found out on the wall that any object not connected firmly to your party is lost. We managed to drop a cam, a wag-bag, and a helmet-cam (most of which were supposedly attached). Absolutely defying this universal rule was that instead of disappearing into space, the severed thumb somehow dropped and landed on a small ledge near the party's belayer. It was collected up and the rescue was completed in quick enough time such that the climber apparently had it reattached! Almost unbelievable but such is what we heard. Only in Yosemite could a big-wall climber have a reasonable expectation of a rescue 2000' off the ground and such a successful outcome. Anywhere else and the consequences would surely have been very serious.

Anyway... an impressive show thanks to the YOSAR team.

...the story about our climb to be continued tomorrow.

Yosemite Report (Part 1 - El Cap)

2011-10-13T22:05:00.000-03:00

We didn't send :(

El Cap (the big tower on the left)

Urgg... that was difficult to write. I thought I'd put that up front since this could be a long post. It probably wasn't news to anyone anyway. It was still a memorable climb nevertheless.

Organizing the gear and packing the haul bags

We packed up the haulbags and made our way to El Cap to scope out a potential line. The decision was made quickly. There was a slow-moving soloist on Zodiac, and the topos for Lurking Fear & the Nose were missing. As such... Triple Direct was the target. It was almost absent of climbers at the time, had a trivial 10 minute flat approach, and offered 31 pitches of climbing at moderate aid grades. It follows the first 10 pitches of the Salate' wall, the middle pitches of the Muir wall, and the final pitches of the Nose. It seemed doable and totally classic.

Carrying in heavy loads.

We humped in the loads Sunday afternoon and shortly thereafter Adam was freeing the stout 5.10c first pitch. The aim was simply to have our food and bags hauled to the top of pitch 1 by nightfall, and to sleep back on the ground. It all went well that evening, and we were tucked into our sleeping bags on time ready for an alpine start in the morning.

Sleeping at El Cap is a bit surreal... You really don't sleep; there's simply too many things competing for your attention. All night long your mind wanders and your eyes are drawn to the twinkling lights off in the distance. The lights aren't stars though; rather they are the headlamps of parties far above you moving around sporadically as they set up their ledges, cook their dinners, and in some cases... continue climbing through the night. All the while you are listening to the deep grunts El Cap climbers yell at each other.

'OOoooohh ooh oohhh' (imagine the sound that you'd get from crossing a bear with a gorilla)

Morning comes at about 4:30 a.m. We get out of our bivi bags, and shake dozens of sliverfish off our clothes (the place was infested|). After a quick breakfast, we're blasted off. I lead pitch 2 fairly quickly leapfrogging big cams up a long fist / offwidth corner. Sometime during that morning we looked down at our campsite to see a good-sized bear roaming through it. Yoikes. The leading went o.k. for the rest of the day but the hauling was another story. The bags, full with 6 days food / water / supplies for the four of us weighed over 300lbs. At that weight, the friction on the slabby pitches meant that 3 people were needed full-time to haul. 2 men counterweighting the pulley and a dedicated 'wrangler' to dislodge them from every crack, mini-roof, and depression that would catch. In the heat the hauling punished us and we weren't able to keep up with the leader. That day we managed to only make it to the top of pitch 5. We set up the ledges, ate a quick meal, drank what we could, and crashed.

Erick jugging

The heavy bags...

It seemed like I had just managed to doze off when voices in the dark got closer and woke us up. A minute later a head poked over the ledge. We were being passed in the middle of the night! After asking our permission, the leader clipped a biner and a ropeman to our ledge anchor and took off at light-speed up a difficult looking corner crack. I watched him run it out at least 30' over us while I realize that another voice is getting closer below. The party is simul-climbing at pitch that clocks in somewhere around 5.12 and if either the second or the leader blows it... the leader will crater right through the ledge Erick and I are sleeping on. I decide to put my helmet on (not that it would help). After a few more long moments the second appears, say's hi, and climbs past us. The remainder of the night goes by as I watch headlamps high above me, as it would be impossible to sleep after that.

That's enough for this post... more later

Leaving for El Cap

2011-09-22T13:12:00.000-03:00

In less than 48 hours I'll be leaving for a 2 week trip to California with the aim of climbing El Cap with my buddies Erick, Chris, and Adam.

'Psyched' doesn't really do it any justice.

It will be interesting. In about a year of training I've already accomplished quite a bit. I've pushed my climbing grades, I've dropped almost 20 lbs, and I've become better at separating irrational fear from things that are actually real risks. It's still going to pretty epic though.

Not sure what route we'll pick.

That will have to wait until we get there and scope out the crowds. The short list includes the Nose, Triple Direct, Lurking Fear, or the Zodiac. Any of those will be a significant challenge, and outside of anything we've done before. If all goes well we'll still be friends when we're back on terra-firma.

I've decided to bring the big camera on the route and I've borrowed a helmet-video cam. Should be fun. I've also been in contact with Tom E. at ElCapReport and hopefully he'll shoot some really cool photos of us. So, you might find us on his site mid-way through next week.

Should be fun and I'll post up some pics in two week when I return.

Deer in the Headlights

2011-09-15T21:17:00.000-03:00

... this pic just about sums it up -

...like a deer in the headlights

I think I'm going to have to outfit myself with one of these helmet-mounted lasers like everyone else. This pic was taken in completely darkened woods other than the 500 lumen powered blaster mounted on top of Liz. (and it's considered pretty weak by biking standards). I think Jill M. here was blinded... but only temporarily.

It was a pretty great ride. Woolastook is pretty great for fast trails with good flow. Lots of good Muck Huckin'! We had Jules drop down a pretty good chute and then execute a perfect front flip (over the bars) in slow-motion at the bottom. I wish I had the camera out for the expression on her face. Also notable was the disfiguring of a real wheel. Ahead of me all I heard leading up to this was 'whoooowww epic crash dude!' Not sure who said it.

Photo poached from Lisa... but it had to be re-posted! Tire Gore! Yes...tube in the cogs!

Anyway... another good ride!

Orpheus

2011-09-11T21:21:00.000-03:00

Saturday was a good adventure.

For some time this summer, we've been climbing the aid routes in Welsford both for fun, and to train for our upcoming trip. With most of the established routes crossed off our list, we've been looking around at other possibilities. For some time now, we've been looking at Cerebus.

Cerebus is a line found next to Odin at the back of the Ampitheatre. Cerebus is also the 3-headed dog of Greek mythology who guards the underworld. Although it's had a number of interested parties, to my knowledge it's never been climbed. With good reason. It's line begin's in the most radically overhung cave in Welsford for 50 feet before breaking out into 50 more feet of overhung cracks. The rock quality in the initial cave is mixed, with some solid granite breaking though areas of what resembles crumbly kitty-litter.

The discussion around this route is part of the lore. Although it's never been sent it apparently has a name? Even more interesting is that it's had a grade of 5.12d proposed for it as a free climb? Odd given that it seems as if nobody has lead it and it's nature would prove impossible to top-rope. Saturday, Erick decided to put an end to the speculation...

In exceptional style, Erick lead the route ground-up, complete to the top, maximizing his use of clean aid. He placed only 3 bolts on the 30 meter pitch, all hand-drilled, some while hanging from hooks on overhung terrain.

Hand-drilling... full-sized bolts = about 20 minutes each to place.

The route had no evidence of previous attempts as far as I could tell. For the entire ordeal (6 hours to lead, 2 hours to clean), a rain of lichen and rockfall filled the ampitheatre. Even after breaking through the roof after about 4 hours hanging in his harness on lead... I didn't hear a single gripe out of the fellow... he asked only that I send up some smokes to him on the tag line. Classic!

When I finished cleaning the pitch for him my only question was: What's the new name going to be? His response: Orpheus... (who according to the ancient Greeks was the man who tamed Cerebus). Nice!

A shot of me rapping back down as the sun had set.

*as a footnote... if someone were to return and add a few more bolts to the lower section, this could potentially be a popular and modern mixed/drytooling route. The rock quality is poor in many of the cracks but there's ample solid face for bolts. There's plenty of features for hooking and this could be an absolutely stellar and athletic challenge. As is... I highly doubt that it will see more than a single ascent per decade.

Muck Huckin'

2011-09-02T09:27:00.000-03:00

A great group showed up for the Wed. night ride this week. Liz, Jill, and I decided we were going to explore the MVP trails the week before and put it out that others were welcome to join. A pretty big group showed up. There was some puzzled faces when the supposed group coordinator admitted that he had no idea where he was going. All worked out o.k. though as everyone had a sense of adventure (that...and Josh showed up to lead the way).

Got a fair bit accomplished that night:

Managed to get an answer as to why it's MVP (as opposed to the obvious MVB)
Managed to huck myself clear over my handlebars. Ended up winded and very bruised.
Managed to ride the tetter-totter on the 3rd go at it (thanks for the spot kids)
Managed to flat my tire in fading twilight.

The flat was actually really funny. I pulled out a patch kit and started looking for the puncture. Seeing that, a chorus of riders simultaneously offered up tubes for me. Great.... 'cept for:

First tube coming my way from Liz was the wrong size and wrong valve (but to her credit... it would have correctly fit her own bike)
Second tube offered up was a a skinny road bike tube (complete fail... we had a chat about how not all tire tubes are the same)
Third tube offered up was correct size but incorrect valve (for both my bike... and her own). With the sun almost gone I took it, filled it half full, and it got me back to the road. Thanks Jill M.!

Overall super fun.

A few pics of the Muck Huckers:

A few more (taken at ISO 800, F-1.8, and pushed up 2 full stops... desperate... but you get the idea)

Wet Wednesdays

2011-08-25T09:20:00.002-03:00

Went out for another Wed. ride with Jill and Liz on the Marysville loop. Will add a few changes to my map based on what I found last night. Had a good time and went fast.

Also take a look at the pics of the ladies tearing it through this stream!

Two words: Gnar!

Lately I've been thinking that the ride group needs a new name. The 'Gravel Grinders' was perfect but it doesn't seem to fit anymore. The other names given to us by the rest of the XC spandex-clad crew don't really sit well with me:

"The beginner group"
"The slow group"
"The boring ride group"...

All a bit condescending. So what's our new team name gonna be?

XC Riding in the Fredericton Area

2011-08-22T14:30:00.001-03:00

At the beginning of the summer I started up mountain biking again after about 7-8 years off. It's been really fun. I've been glad to get out weekly with the 'Gravel Grinders' leaving weekly from Savage's. It's been a good way to check out all the new trail development since it's been off my radar.

The one problem I've had is with finding any maps. I asked around a few folks at local shops and they fed me a line of BS about access issues.

Maps don't ruin access... inconsiderate bikers do. So, to fill in the void, I've started to map out areas that I've enjoyed...

Camp Coffee

2011-08-16T15:06:00.000-03:00

Finally broke out my new camp coffee machine. Works really great with freshly ground Johnny Java Roaster beans! Thanks Browns!

This picture makes my mouth water! Yumm.

A Friend in Town

2011-08-16T14:48:00.000-03:00

... is a great excuse to go climbing. With Anders back from Norway for a two week stint in Fredericton we took off to Welsford as soon as he was over his jet-lag.

Apparently all the grades in Welsford are sandbagged... so I can't wait to head to Lofoten! Apparently I hear that a new guidebook is to be published soon!

Climbed a good day at Minkey and Upper Tier. At the tree anchor on Smokin' Crack I found a really amusing set up: 3 bomber lockers through 4 old sketchy slings. I bootied the newly added 3rd locker. Not needed. I will bring some new tat next time I'm there however... as all the existing stuff is pretty baked.

At the Upper Tier I got on the Waltz for the first time. This had some really great climbing on it. I found the crux pretty tricky and hung several times figuring it out. Placing the gear through the layback was awkward but not all that bad. I've got to suggest that the bolts could be better placed. The crux comes as your feet are above the first bolt and before the second is clipped. It was a heady situation. I ended up backing down to the bolt for several tries before I got the sequence. I think if I had of bombed on the first bolt it would have been difficult for Anders to keep me off the ground with a combination of a hard catch and him being pulled up. This first bolt hanger was also spinning but otherwise in good shape. Whenever it is up for rebolting I think they should either be relocated higher (and stick clipped) or a 3rd added.

Also... I found on the trail at the Upper Tier a Garmin heart rate monitor. I'm told it pairs up to a fancy watch and makes a system. If you've lost it... contact me.

A Letter Submitted To Gripped

2011-08-04T14:19:00.004-03:00

Just submitted the following letter to Gripped Magazine. In the event that it's not published...

Dear Gripped,

During the 1980's a wave of development and discovery hit the Welsford areas which saw many routes established on outstanding rock features in a traditional style. Bolts were often used as a last resort to unlock key passages between natural features. The hardware of the day was of mixed composition, and maritime climate has taken its toll. Many of these original bolts are now brittle with rust, and some have been reported to break under minimal effort. Reputation of sketchy bolts spreads quickly and otherwise approachable routes go unclimbed. In this part of the world, when classics go unclimbed the flora moves quickly to reclaim the land.

Over the past 3 months a surge of energy has come forward to refresh the hardware on many of NB's classic lines. Lead by a small group of three local climbers, many classics have been rebolted and anchors upgraded with modern hardware. The quality in their work is top-notch and a visiting climber would be challenged to find the remnants of the original bolts. Best yet, they've spurred some momentum in the local community to the cause. Their lead has inspired others to contribute time, sweat, and hardware to the effort. At the time of writing, more than 40 routes have refreshed.

First ascent parties often reap the glory with a classic line. Often unnoticed are the scrubbers and rebolters that keep these classics in shape. So.. in the event that future guidebook editions fail to mention this: thanks to Luc Gallant, Marty Thériault, and Dom Caron!
--
Chris Norfolk
Fredericton, N.B.

Big Aid Weekend 4

2011-07-18T12:51:00.001-03:00

Friday Night:

Loaded Adam's car with ledges, haulbags, racks, ropes, food, & all the stuff we'd expect to need for 3 wall days. Erick met us there. In keeping with annual tradition, the bachelor was assigned with the care and well-being for Rosalita... the big wall doll for the weekend. Erick aided the arch and established a camp below Gumby's Roof for the night. The rest of us jugged to Rock Opera's anchors and set up ledges there.

With the help of the FA (providing the hardware), and Dom (providing the drill), I rebolted the old anchor for Rock Opera as well as the sole lead bolt on the slab. The rusty lead bolt was chopped but the old anchor remains. We found it useful for hanging ledges and hauling... and since we plan on doing this again soon, we decided to leave it in place. If anyone is truly offended... be my guest to go chop the old anchor.

Spent the evening trading insults with the Moncton Crew camped at Exfoliated. Aiding is awesome... Moncton sucks!

Saturday:

Woke up at nearly first light after little sleep, had breakfast, and I led through Gumby roof. A nice aid practice, it went rather easily through the roof but I managed to get stuck and only worked it out by unweightting my daisies with the kneebar free-beta. Wicked! I think I'm going to try to free this route in the future!

After hauling through Gumby we made it to the ground and started up Menage A Trois with the goal of camping on top of the detached pillar. Chris & Adam freed the first 2 pitches and set up two independent hauls. I jugged the 60m while wrangling haul bag #1. Arriving at the pitch 2 anchors, I relieved Adam of hauling, and he belayed Chris up pitch 3 after his solo-aiding hit a roadblock. The haul is getting dialed. We went quick.

The excitement came as the haul was finished and Henni was still only half way up the last pitch. Rain, thunder, and lightening rolled over us. Erick & I started thinking that camping on top of the pillar with a bunch of metal lightening rods wasn't such a great idea and thought about bailing. About 15 minutes into the storm Henni still hadn't finished his pitch and the weather started to ease up. Sticking through it paid off and we set up of the night hanging off one of the coolest spots in Welsford!

Sunday

Another early morning and it starts off with a mini-epic no-doubt. We lower the haul bags two pitches down to the Waterwalk pitch 1 ledge and then do a double rope rap off the tree behind the pillar. Despite making every effort to pick my spot... I manage to get the knot connecting the ropes stuck and they won't pull. Henni decides to be the hero and jugs up the full 60m to free the knot! Nice work bro!

Erick, Chris and I then decide to explore Eagle Rock based on rumors of aid lines there. After considerable bushwhacking we find it. This place has considerable potential. There are some nice unclimbed cracks and some overhung faces that are featured. The existing lines seem to go up the obvious treed slabs and weaknesses but there are more difficult lines there. There is also height. 2 pitches for sure.

I go to aid the Great Roof and Erick solo-aids Diurnal Pegs. Erick get's nowhere fast when the rusted, quarter inch bolt placed in 1977 by the FA party shears off just as he's getting off the ground. It's now gone. Exploding bolts. Nice. I should have taken a picture of it before he ripped it. The Great Roof goes better for me and it's a fun aid-boulder problem followed by 60 feet of slabby blueberries to a tree anchor. With another easy looking pitch above us that rounds an arete to a nice view of the valley the three of us top out Eagle Rock and soak in a great view of Cochrane lane. We find at the summit a prospectors claim stake and drill hole, and stumble onto a funny geo-cache which we sign the log-book for. Silly geo-cachers!

A great weekend.

The Gravel Grinders

2011-07-14T08:51:00.001-03:00

Shifting gears from the status quo (climbing) for a post.

For a few weeks now I've been heading out for Wed. night rides that are put together through Savage's bike shop. These are awesome! They coordinate several friendly ride groups and hit up a different location every week. I used to XC ride a lot before I picked up climbing and this has been a cool way for me to start again and see a lot of new trail development that's happened around Fredericton in the past 6-7 years.

My wife got me started on this group after she and a few friends bought their bikes there. Savage's have been nothing but awesome to her for service and I'd check them out if you're in the market. I got a new ride at another unnamed shop in town but it was more that I preferred their gear than their staff. These guys are good and hell.... they work in an old fire-station... sweet right!

Also, several of the Gravel Grinders put together a team to go to a huge bike fundraising tour to benefit the M.S. society. The Neon Riders are heading off to make their charity ride soon but are still taking donations. These kids are rocking out and have already raised 8 grand!

A few shots from our rip to Wolastock last night:

Cochrane Lane Trailmap

2011-07-05T16:39:00.004-03:00

Given that a number of climbers have been going out of their way to make Cochrane Lane a nicer place, I thought of a way I might be able to contribute. Today at lunch I developed an updated trail map with the intent that the painted version at the sign-in box might be replaced. This version is somewhat inspired by the style of a classic Colin Bell sketch map of the area but is made to scale, with modern names assigned to areas. I could plot and laminate a large version to post... but before going to that expense, I thought I'd post this draft for comment first. Hope it's of some value.

And... the data behind it:

Big Aid Weekend 3

2011-06-21T23:17:00.000-03:00

Sunday was another day for aid training. I had a few things I wanted to accomplish. First was to get my system for solo-aid dialed and the second was to get some more mileage jugging and cleaning on a traverse.

The solo-aid bit went pretty well. At one point it was actually pretty cool to see the four of us solo-aiding across the entire span of Joe's garage simultaneously. Erick on Astroboy, myself on Trundling, Chris on the Arch, and Adam at Sticky Fingers. I managed to figure out the flow much more quickly than last time and had two pitches start to finish, cleaned, and rapped in about 2.5 hours. Not bad. Easy stuff when every piece is bomber and the falls are clean. For anything else I gotta say that I'd still much prefer a human being at the other end of the lead line.

After finishing with that Henni had half-finished his project for the day: a traverse across the entire length of the Arch... finishing on the anchor for Bone Machine. He'd fixed a cleaning line for me and I got started. I made quick progress thorough the slimy, wet, arch until I arrived at the tat below Gumby roof. At this point, the line traverses approx. 30' horizontally and it appeared as if Chris was either forced to hook considerably, or decided to back clean in order to link pitches. There was as I could see, only 2 pieces for the entire traverse, separated by 10' horizontal stretches between them. Without having cleaned the right gear to re-aid the traverse, my first option was to try to hook through it. Before unclipping my last good directional and committing to the traverse I tried a few hook placements... each one blowing... with the potential to send me whizzing off on a pretty big pendulum. Eff that! Instead I thought I'd use the Gumby tat as a lower-out with the spare cleaning line I had. I rigged it up and after some horrible awkwardness, I managed to get myself on the correct side and weighted the system. Problem was that once that happened, I was dangling in space with no way to get back to the wall to clean Chris's cam back in the crack. Totally stuck, wet, and fried at this point (this had taken me about 90 minutes of struggling) I lowered out and ended up at the Rock Opera anchors. From there, I bailed. More on that later.

Earlier on in the arch I made the decision to remove an old, horribly rotten pin that was presumably in place since the FA (perhaps 35 years ago). Last summer I'd actually weighted this thing and gotten away with it... a feat which now I can't explain. I decided to give it two light taps up and down with the hammer in an effort to prevent breaking the biner-hole with direct funking. It moved almost completely out. I simply connected a draw to it and gave it a light yank by hand and she flung out no problem. The metal on the eye was rusted thinner than the edge of a dime and the main body of the pin is badly fatigued. It was removed as it was of limited value in place and it obscured natural gear placements readily available. The same could be said of all bolts on this beautiful arch.

Overall I was disappointed with myself for not making it successfully through the problem at hand. Hennigar jugged back up to my high point and re-aided the section back cleaning his gear as he went. The problem was do-able, but I didn't see the solution, and I wasn't willing to accept the risk of the pendulum... even though it looked clean. Clean or not a 15 foot pendulum fall doesn't sound nice. I'd just wish now that I'd been able to invent some other way out of that situation... having bailed doesn't sit well with me today.

A Year at Cochrane Lane

2011-06-18T17:50:00.000-03:00

Sometime this spring I replaced the log book at Cochrane lane. The musty & molded book from last year has sat in my car's trunk for several months but today I was curious enough to rifle through it. It was an interesting read. The book has hundreds of entries, chronicled at least a dozen new routes, and contained some pretty interesting passages. Here's a few of the entries that caught my eye:

Sweet illustration Dom. Now I understand.

Sounds like somebody found an unwanted poo!

Wow. No thanks.

Seriously? He continued to sign with this logo for months afterwards.

That was the day I did this:

Swiped gear sucks.... but really... you waited 2 months to go back to get it?

Funny.

And I thought I was the image of internet douchbaggery... wow!

Open Source Cedar Point Topo

2011-06-18T10:58:00.001-03:00

Argh...

Home sick today with a man-cold! Rather than be totally useless I cranked off another topo with BetaFlash. This one is for Cedar Pt. Again... it's a model... so it is mostly wrong, but hopefully useful. Input/edits welcome. Download the file here:

Open Source Sunnyside Topo

2011-06-17T09:19:00.001-03:00

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a neat bit of open-source software called BetaFlash. It's a simple drawing program with standardized elements for climbing topos. Nice idea! I decided to give it a spin.

At the time Fred put out his last guidebook Sunnyside was relatively new and developments were happening fast. There are a fair number of nice lines not captured in the topos. So using my shaky mental image of the crag along with the new routes thread, I sketched up this:

Not perfect by any means... but it's just a model right?

I figure the intent of a topo is to allow you to navigate to the start of the route... the description should tell you what you need to know about the climbing and gear. So the bolt counts are wrong, the rap stations aren't all there, and the orbiting crags (Farside and Darkside) aren't included. But it's a start.

If anyone is interested in improving this work that would be great! You can download the file I was working with HERE and make whatever changes are for the better. I'd also expect this would be a nice tool to use for newer areas like Cedar Pt. and Kingston.

Cheers.

Dover

2011-06-06T12:49:00.001-03:00

Went to Dover over the weekend with a strong crew from the club. Years of avoiding this place came to an end. Bouldering is somewhat cool I guess. Managed to send a few problems and took a few pictures. Highlights for me were topping out The Bear, running laps on Orgasmatron, and eventually sending The Wave after about a dozen ugly-looking tries.

It was pretty impressive to see the power that the ocean commands over the blocks at this place. We saw spots where house-sized boulders were picked up and either carried uphill or completely away by the surf. It was pretty unreal. I was pretty disappointed to see Orangutan smashed away but we found a newly created double-arete near the John Doe area which made up for it somewhat. I thought I may have bagged the FA of it but I guess not. It was new enough to still have holds crumbling and breaking off on us... and you wouldn't expect that for a super-aesthetic V1 boulder in a well-traveled area. Get on it... it looks like this:

Just don't fall.

O.k so I have got my better pictures posted here... but these are my selections:

The basecamp... before we torched the creosote wood!

Brent... Agent Orange - V0 highball

Melissa... Orange Arete - V2 sloper problem

Cara on The A-Frame, a nice V1 crack

Tom, both feet cut loose from the The Bear, V4

Tom. Orgasmatron. V0. This should go on for 300'.

Pete wrestling with Orange Crush V6. Loving the Jihadi look!

Franca reaching for the better pinch on The Bear, V4

Tree-Go

2011-05-29T00:44:00.000-03:00

Assembled a stellar crew today to head to the Tree-Go rope course today with me on Jill's birthday! Thanks everybody. Super fun. We rocked it for sure!

Spring Rock School Weekend

2011-05-09T11:12:00.000-03:00

Over the weekend the club put on a spring rock school. A big thanks to Chris H. for doing most of the organizing work for it and to Adam, PES, Mallory, Marcelle, Erick, and Ryan for their help. I think most everyone leaned at least a trick or two... some probably more.

Sunday saw a good lot of stuff get done at Sunnyside:

Belay station at Superstar equipped with quick clips
Tat on Stairway to Heaven tree replaced and cleaned
Tree on the rap line for Stairway to Heaven chopped
Branches threatening to impale a falling climber off Quantum Theory pruned

However most importantly... Dihelio was red-pointed by the H-Bomb! Nice work.

The full series of photos posted here:

Big Aid Weekend 2

2011-05-02T16:38:00.000-03:00

We went training again yesterday. The objective was to see if it was even realistic to take our planned weight up a wall. We figure that water, food, and gear for 4 people on 4/5 days will be heavy. Really heavy. Like 300lbs heavy. As such, we wanted to see if we could even haul that kind of weight. We picked the Sparky Start area as a potential worst case situation since it's a slab with lots of ledges and corners.

Got to L-Shape early on in the morning and filled two haul bags with random stones/rocks. The estimate was that it was over 330lbs (considering I could only get about 5 bicep curls cranked off ;) We hauled that pig about 200' up to the ledge at the base of Rhythim Stick over the next 3 hours or so. Long story short: it sucked... but was possible. Hauling rocks only to pitch them off seemed really funny. Only we'd waste a nice climbing day doing that.

Burley & Henni hauling the pig.

Afterward, the crew split up and solo-aided around. Instead, I found a couple of willing new partners and cranked off a few classic pitches in the beautiful sun. Props to PES for cruising Astroboy Direct on only his 3rd or 4th gear lead. Nice work.

PES cruises up Astroboy Direct on one of his first few gear leads.

Chris solo-aiding on Waterwalk

A few more photos here:

Spring Day at the Crag

2011-04-26T22:57:00.002-03:00

A few shots while out cragging around with Marcelle yesterday. Great to see lots of people out and great to climb a few new lines.

Marcelle finishing up October Sky

Samantha cruises up Comrades in Destiny

Tracey (a.k.a. Rope-Gun) leading Astroboy Direct.

Cuba

2011-04-24T14:07:00.000-03:00

Jill and I went to Cuba for a week. We spent half our time roasting on the beach and the other half cruising the countryside doing touristy things. We learned quite a bit about the country: history, the revolution, the communist party, the economy, the people, and a lot of recent reforms. It was totally fascinating.

The weather was hot sun every day. Consistently 30+. The breeze was always strong so it made the heat totally bearable. The dry season is just coming to an end so we saw lots of planted bananas, pineapples, papayas, sugarcane, and mango orchards.

We spent a day in Havana with a guide who was a major history scholar. We saw Spanish forts build in 1504 just after Christopher Columbus discovered the island. The architecture is pretty unreal and the entire old city is being restored using money they got from the UN after being declared a world heritage site. We got there as the Cubans were celebrating their military victory 50 years after they defeated the US at the Bay of Pigs. I watched a huge military parade on state-run television. We went to Revolution Square and saw a pile of interesting monuments to Castro's overthrow of the U.S. mafia controlled Cuban government of the day. The country is littered with images of Che Guevara but no monuments to Castro himself. Our guide told us that he passed a law banning monuments to himself while he's still alive. Apparently he saw Stalin do it in the Soviet Union and thought it was a douchey move! Nice.

The vintage cars are super cool. They account for at least half of the wheels on the road. Cuban mechanics are a well-respected lot and with good cause. The cars have all been gutted of their original gas engines and converted to run on Soviet and Chinese diesel parts. Smart.

What was also really interesting was the utter lack of advertising... anywhere. No commercials on T.V. No billboards on the highways. No signs anywhere telling you what to buy. Also no competition since prices for generally everything are fixed. You just go to the closest store and buy what you want. That said... just hope all you want is tourist trinkets, beer, rum, or cigars. Good luck finding anything else.

Big Aid Weekend 1

2011-04-12T23:29:00.000-03:00

I learned quite a bit last weekend.

Erick, Chris, Adam and I spent the weekend training for the wall in Welsford. We've planned about 5-6 of these sessions before the fall. The plan was to spend two days on aid routes and sleep in the ledges Saturday night.

I packed up the full rack complete with hammer and pins, ledge, food, water, bags, & spare clothes... and damn, it was heavy. I weighed the whole rig at an extra 85lbs (a relatively light load compared to the extra water and food we'll need for the big wall). I was actually surprised that humping it up to Cheekbone corner wasn't as bad as I'd thought. Go slow but steady, early in the morning, wear little in the way of clothes and you'll be fine.

Saturday I aided Wise Crack to the Strata Factor anchor and then Chris aided pitch 2 of Strata Factor. We set up the ledges at the high on top of the crag directly over the nose of Weeping Whisker. I picked up my ledge last year in the consignment basement at IME on N. Conway. It's a 10 year old FISH model that's looks like it's only been out of the closet once or twice. The only downside is the fly. It's a basic nylon sheet with no doors/windows/waterproof and it didn't have a pole to keep it off you when it's wet. So to remedy this I painted 2 full bottles of seam seal all over the thing and installed a jury-rigged pole. I don't know if the seam seal worked since we avoided the rain over the weekend. In fact, once unpacked, the fly actually had glued itself together despite being left hung for 2 days for the stuff to dry. When I pulled it apart it appeared as if parts of the nylon coating were damaged. However, my makeshift pole rig worked perfect. The Radical Edge hooked me up with a sweet lightweight aluminum pole from their spare parts graveyard that was the perfect size. I simply tied some webbing to the corners of my ledge and threaded the pole into a few slits I cut into the tube. Worked perfect.

The evening's entertainment consisted of Dom sending a proud looking off-width across the gully at Upper Down Home wall. We also watched the Peregrines rocketing around below us picking off forest critters. They did not seem to take notice of us.

The view from my campsite in the morning couldn't be better.

Breakfast consisted of cereal and a pile of chocolate covered coffee beans (which are yum). We tore down camp and moved over to the ampitheatre. The day before Erick had solo aided Loki's Revenge (nice work!) and left the pitch fixed. We jugged the pitch and I set off to lead the upper pitch of Ascent to Asguard. A very nice but challenging climb.

I regret that I don't have a camera I'm willing to carry while leading something where I might fall. As such, I missed out on a golden photo of the boys working on hauling at a hanging belay. The light was so perfect that a $5 disposable would have taken a killer shot. I'll have to get something to fit those times. Also, rapped back down using 2 ropes from the anchors over Odin. This is now the most radical rappel route in Welsford and it's accessible easily by walking from the top. You are in space for most of about 45m and it presents the opportunity to take what would be just about the most impressive photography in N.B. The next time anyone is heading into the ampitheatre to hop on Rockstar, Flight of the Valkyries, Odin, etc., I want to be hanging around with my camera. Let me know.

Training

2011-03-21T23:00:00.000-03:00

I have not posted anything in a while.

I guess the time past has mostly been training. I've committed myself for an attempt at El Cap in September so as of January I've been training as best I can. It's been going pretty well. Thus far I've been focusing on general fitness and basic wall skills.

Over the past few months I've been able to trim about 15 lbs by using Lance Armstrong's site to track the fuel that goes in the engine, along with weekly cardio at lunch times and 8 weeks of Cara's pilates classes. I'd like to loose at least 10 more to be in fighting shape for this summer. I'm not rushing it... but I notice the difference for sure, especially climbing at Gage where I normally fail due to pump.

Yeah Gage... Hennigar and I have monopolized that place every Thursday turning it into our big wall training complex. We look a bit absurd showing up to the gym with pulleys, ladders, and jugs. We've been practicing a session where we aid a pitch, set up an anchor, pull and coil 4 ropes, set up a haul, haul (each other), and get down. In the 6 sessions or so we've done we've both cut our times in half. It's all about less thinking about what to do and more doing it. Also organizing belays... super important.

Henni during a wall training session at Gage

Other than that, last weekend was my first rock climbing of the year. Terry and I put in a good day in Welsford soaking in the sun all over L-shape. Dry climbing on warm rock on a day where the forecast high was +1. Lots of huge ice and rock falling all over with the warm sun. Also 2 peregrines sighted above Astroboy. We climbed a few free routes and then Terry actually volunteered to belay me as I aided Snakepeel. A strait-forward aid was made much more enjoyable by trying out a few moves on the cam hook and another on the skyhook. Sweet!

Terry having a go at jugging a fixed line

Ice Gear

2011-02-15T17:20:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I got out to the Quarry with Tracy and Shawn. Awesome day but my gear was left in a a bit of disarray.

It started to fall apart right away once I realized that I forgot my waterproof pants in Fredericton the night before. Rookie mistake. I thought about the prospect of freezing my nuts all day climbing in just tights but that didn't seem like an awesome plan. I put out a plea for spare pants and Tracy came to the rescue... showing up with 6 pairs of softshells from Rob (just the ones he decided not to take to N.H. last weekend). Seriously... Rob has more invested in fine trousers than I have in my entire ice rack.

On the way to the crag I guess my helmet fetched up on something and the chin strap pulled apart from the foam shell. It turns out that the critical linkage is a plastic pin about 1mm in diameter. Now I love this helmet but it's been rendered useless by this. I mailed Wild Country Sunday night since they claim to carry a 3 year guarantee but I haven't heard from them yet.

Sometime during the day my super sweet jacket pocket came unglued from the chest. Amazingly I didn't loose my keys, phone, or anything else as far as I can tell. This jacket is a few years old now and it's been beat to hell so it really doesn't owe me anything. That said, I still wrote Patagonia to see what they could do. They responded in a day and offered to inspect and repair/replace the sucker under warranty (awesome!) but the catch is that I'd have to send it to the states and be without for the next 8-10 weeks. In the big scheme of things that just wasn't worth it so I re-glued it last night. Hope it holds. Turns out that most new Patagonia jackets are fugly anyway so I'm better off with the old one.

It wasn't all bad though: two gear wins to mention...

Frosty grips. Anyone who leads ice should be wearing these. They'll beat the crap out of your $100 guide gloves any day. These rubber/acrylic $6 jobs are bad ass! Specifically hunt around for the winterized tick versions. Last week I painted a thick coat of silicone seam sealer all over the back side of them to make them close to waterproof. Worked awesome. Nothing offers more dexterity for clipping/unclipping screws and they are good in short stints down to about -8. While belaying/seconding keep them in your armpit pockets to have them warm for the lead. High-vis yellow is way cooler than the blue copies available.

Foam tape. I've been suffering a bit with my new tools being slippery/cold on the upper position. Since I ordered a new rope last week I decided to shop around MEC for a solution. What I found was foam/gel tape used to wrap handlebars on road bikes for the winter. This stuff is nice and it's cheap. For $10 I got enough to do 4 tools. I used it last weekend and it worked awesome. Insulates and provides a lot of grip. I put down an extra wrap at the top of the shaft which works well for choking up on the tool when your topping out in snow/frozen moss. Not sure how durable this stuff will be though so I can't give it the thumbs up yet but it looks promising.

The climbing itself last weekend was good to. Thin in spots. But good.

Scouting Mt Misery

2011-01-30T22:22:00.004-04:00

I managed to find partners Saturday willing to go to Mt. Misery... a feat in itself these days with a recent plague of skate-skiing hitting the Fredericton community hard. I very much wanted to see how the ice is growing with a few weeks left to go until Ice School.

Stacey, Greg, and their girls were game and I also found more willing partners in Angela and Magda. The weather was good and the river frozen well.

The ice is coming along but it isn't as far as this time last year. Too much dry precipitation and not a typical Saint John rain, cold, rain, cold, etc winter. We found a few lines worth climbing and actual a very nice fat flow in the shade which I lead. This was probably as steep as anything I've lead before. Between the number of screws I plugged in a short climb and Stacey's imaginative commentary below I was well entertained. Something about me wondering 'where the hell I was going to finish'. Anyway...

Oh, and I've been catching a lot of flack lately about my rope... so I finally ordered a new line tonight.

A few photos made in crummy light but with lovely models:

Stacey... kick, kick, thwack, thwack

Angela... kick, kick, thwack, thwack

Problems Around Fredericton

2011-01-27T14:10:00.006-04:00

The last few times I've been at the gym I've been hearing some younger climbers talk about finding problems local to Fredericton. I've been there. Before owning a rack and a car we used to go around town after class buildering and chasing the few boulders that are local. It's good fun.

The map above locates all of the areas I know of around Fredericton with problems easily accessible to local climbers. All you need is a bike (and an optional crash pad). There's probably way more problems out there so go find them.

Now... when you're out buildering, use some common sense. Public buildings are generally o.k. if you keep a low profile. Private property is different. If somebody asks you to leave... just go. None of these problems are worth putting up a fight for.

For those of you with Google Earth, you can download the KMZ file for these areas: Here

Parlee Brook

2011-01-10T22:00:00.002-04:00

Accomplished the first goal of the 2011 climbing year on Saturday by actually finding Parlee Brook. It was a fun day out with Stef and Jon. The conditions were a bit less than ideal I'm told. I bashed a few pics and bottomed out one of the few screws I got in on my lead. Deep snow over top of just about everything. In some places there was ice under the snow... but in other cases... just moss (and not even frozen moss). We did All the Kings Horses, Three Amigos (which I'll lead next time with better ice) and we top-roped Blue Pillar. Nice area.

Climbing Goals for 2011

2011-01-01T13:35:00.004-04:00

Climbing goals for 2011:

Physically find Parlee Brook. Assuming I can do that... I'd like to lead all of the WI3's and maybe a few WI4's.
Return to Odin and make it to the anchors in 90 minutes.
Lead 5.10 on gear.
Climb at least 150 pitches.
Aid the Prow in Cathedral.
Climb El Cap.
Fall more. I rarely take falls.
Climb faster. I rarely climb fast.
Take good photos of others.
Give a little back by installing at least 3 anchor stations and fixing some trails.

And here's a tick list of NB routes... small, but all I can think of for now:

Three Amigos WI3
Patrick's Choice WI3+
Yellow Pillar WI4
Iced Cheese WI3+
The Drain Pipe WI3
Golden Pillar WI3
Odin A2
The Great Roof A2
Sticky Fingers 5.10b
Pink Panther 5.10
Waterfall Layback 5.9
5.8 for Style 5.9
The Waltz 5.10
Jai Voile ta Blonde 5.10

The Pitches of 2010

2010-12-31T23:04:00.008-04:00

This past year brought a wide variety of experiences. I started out feeling more strong than ever and pushing myself as best I could. It was a great time. Even my good friends were telling me that they noticed big differences in my climbing approach. I'd like to find that again in 2011.

I ended up having a slower year in climbing than I'd have though... but that was mostly due to injury (and gettin' hitched!!). All the same, it was a great year. Here's what sticks out:

Main Street, WI3: Mt. Misery: Anders convinced me that leading ice was actually possible for sane people. I now own screws and used them today. Looking forward to more ice.
Odin, A2: Cochrane Lane: It took me all of February to psych myself up to leading this. When the weather finally started heating up in March I knew Erick would belay me. After hours on the route and within sight of the anchor I lobbed myself for a huge 30' footer and bailed. It was not a loss. It was my biggest fall and my hardest attempt at aid. I learned a lot from this failure.
Awe, 5.10a: My first decent lead after lopping off a bit of my index finger. A re-start and an important confidence booster.
Mon Premiere French Kiss, C1: Cochrane Lane: My super fun bachelor party line. A natural line up a striking feature. Inflatable boobs on. Portaledge city waiting at the top with cold beer. The best!
La Renversee, 5.9: Kamouraska: Overhanging jugs forever with a nice view!
Popcorn, 5.6: Main Face: Midnight climbing by headlamp. High quality rock. A party of 4 which included Mark M. on a trad route! Jager bombs waiting at the end. What more could you ask for?
They Died Laughing, 5.9: Cathedral: Fell/took all the way up but loved it all the same. A stout finger crack that I can work on in the future.
Reppy's Crack, 5.8: Cannon: The first pitch on Moby Grape and a completely perfect splitter. I led it just after the crack of dawn on what would be the biggest climb to date for me.
The Finger of Fate, 5.8: Cannon: This was the 5th or 6th pitch of Moby Grape and Hennigar's lead. The traverse off the anchor was airy enough to beat any single moves in Welsford and the actual Finger of Fate was an unreal feature. I've not found any pictures that do it justice. If you think a lead of Gumby's roof is impressive... you ain't seen nothin' yet.

And just as last year, a few pitches I'd rather forget:

Odin, A2: Cochrane Lane (part 2): The pitch that never was. Was heading back to re-lead it and clean my gear after a week but was stopped by gore within 50 feet of the line. Set me back 6 weeks, 1.5 cm, and about 2 grades.
Sleeper, 5.7: Main Face: So dirty that we swore we were nowhere near the 3-star route described in the guidebook. I got shut down and had to take on a 5.7.
Scrambled Signal, 5.8: Cedar Pt.: The line that refused to be bolted. Went there twice with a load of hardware. After eating 3 battery charges in less than a single bolt-hole I gave up. Not worth the effort.

First Ice of the Season, Last of 2010

2010-12-31T20:20:00.007-04:00

Went out ice climbing with my new (to-me) gear and the same old Jon C. It was a good way to spend New Year's Eve day. We stopped in at a roadside waterfall he heard about on the way to Hayes Falls. Lower Joclin Falls is a short 25' chute with potential for about 3 lines. Jon led the FA on the right side of the falls while the center was blasting water at full bore. Well done!

A look at the Lower Joclin Brook Falls.

This place can be found by parking at km #250 heading west from Fredericton on the Trans-Canada. I've marked the spot on my 'NB Ice Climbing' map. Worth a quick stop.

Jon leading the right side.

Hayes Falls was in. The ice was varied with some hero ice mixed in with some baked ice and the occasional hollow stuff. I led the center line a few times and Jon led the smear in the woods. The main falls has a lot of water volume crashing under the ice which made for an interesting day.

My new Cobras were very very nice! A bit of work is needed on the interface between my Rambo 4's and my old plastic boots. They fit... but not 100%. I'll probably write about this sometime but for today... all was good.

Worth a Thousand Words

2010-11-22T21:17:00.005-04:00

So this picture can tell you two things about me:

I'm a knob and yep... I'm still wearing my well socked-in flip-flops with 3 inches of snow on the ground. I concluded that this was retarded today so I promise I'll smarten up. Socks aren't worth much once doused in slush. Gross. If I've ever harped on you in the past for wearing impractical footwear you really ought to call bullshit on me. (that's you Jenny)
This picture isn't typical of my snobby camera set-up which can only mean... wait for it... yes, I own a cell phone. [Gasp]

A Few New Bolts

2010-11-16T21:50:00.004-04:00

You win some and you loose some.

Last weekend I planned on finally bolting 'Scrambled Signal', a moderate sport line at Cedar Pt. on Sunday. That meant that I had my bolt kit and the drill with me on Saturday while I was climbing at Sunnyside. Liam and I looked at a line he'd cleaned a year ago and both decided it was both worthy. This line is at the far right end of Sunnyside past 'Celestial Motion' just before it becomes a boulder heap. I even think it may have been looked at (and possibly scrubbed) a few years prior by Erick... but if so... it's been abandoned. Liam asked for some help since it would be his first route. It was a quick job and a fine addition. Well done Liam. 'Two Armed Bandit' 5.10d. A nice addition.

Liam putting in bolts for his new line.

The next day bolting at Cedar Pt. didn't go as well. I drained a full battery on 1/4 of a hole just as I did the last time I tried to establish this line. I jugged back up to my pack and grabbed another fully charged battery only to waste it on 1/2 a hole near the top of the line. WTF! Two dead batteries in less that a singe bolt hole. The weird thing is they both were drilling smoothly making quick progress and then went instantly dead. To make matters worse, the second hole was being drilled in the marble-looking rock that makes up the top 20 feet of the route. This rock was literally pulverizing from the vibration all around the bolt hole giving it a blown-out look. It did not inspire confidence. For this reason, I believe the second quarry area at Cedar Pt. might have to remain a top rope only area.

History at UNB Rock & Ice

2010-11-08T12:41:00.006-04:00

Since I've taken on the job at the climbing club I've yet to write anything about the experience. Mainly, it's because I'd be stretched to have positive things to say. I've had a rough time this year and I've felt squeezed from both the University and occasionally from other climbers. It seems as if all new ideas are bad ideas... and that has me wondering whether I'll ever bother again. Now, that's been my personal experience and not a reflection on the club as a whole. The many volunteers we have this year have been stellar and new climbers are appearing with enthusiasm all the time. Which is great.

Anyway, my perspective on the job brightened up considerably when I received an interesting letter, right 'out-of-the-blue'. It was addressed to me from a Mr. George Strunz. I've pasted in some snippets below:

Hi there:

A recent e-mail from a Shay O'Hanlon of the Irish Mountaineering Club got me reminiscing about the joy I got from climbing when I was much younger, and brought about the attached little article.

While it is mainly concerned with climbing in Ireland, at the end, it does mention some climbing I did in the White Mountains and especially on Mt Kahtahdin with a group from MIT in the 1960s, and later the efforts of a small group of us start a climbing club here in NB. We explored quite a few routes on Eagle Rock though I have forgotten most of them by now! The hoped-for club never really got off the ground (unintended pun) and after its demise, I used the small amount of money left in our treasury to buy a book on mountaineering for the UNB library. (Unfortunately I have also forgotten what the book was...it may have been something by the late Gaston Rebuffat, a member of the French team who were first to climb Annapurna in the Himalayas in 1950.)

I am delighted to know that the UNB Ice and Rock Climbing Club is thriving. It may be interesting for you to know that the rock climbing potential of Eagle Rock was explored some 50 years ago...and possibly earlier for all I know!

All good wishes

Sincerely

george strunz

George wrote again today to mention the names of several other climbers now in their 70's & 80's, some of who still reside in Fredericton. Unfortunately, he doesn't believe any documents or photographs of their climbing days in Welsford during the early 1960's still exist. I'd be curious to see if anyone can track down the book mentioned above.

Just thought I'd share this interesting piece of history. I've always been told that the club as it exists today was formed in the 1970's by Steve A. This piece of information would date club back another decade... and I think that's worthy of mention.

Halloween

2010-11-01T12:28:00.003-03:00

Not sure which costume was more frightening:

Zombie climber!

or...

Dick English. Uurrgghhh

Changing Seasons

2010-10-18T22:43:00.004-03:00

A few photos taken since the seasons started to shift:

Conks growing on a nice oak in N.H.

One of Fredericton's massive sprawling elms.

The image of the elm is actually 3 glued together. I took 10 exposures trying to get the whole thing combined into a single mosaic but I missed big sections. I'll have to go back. The crown on that thing just goes forever in every direction. If I only had a ultra-wide lens.

Climbsgiving

2010-10-12T19:52:00.013-03:00

Over the long weekend I hitched aboard a road trip to N. Conway, N.H. for some climbing. It's been a year since I've been there and unfortunately, I don't feel as strong as I did last year. Regardless, I was determined to have a few firsts... and I did.

Saturday my only real objective was to jump on a sustained 5.9 finger crack called 'they died laughing'. It's a Henry Barber route (as are half the lines at Cathedral) and it's crazy aesthetic. After a quick easy warm-up I racked up for it. About 2 pieces in I was already breaking down. The polished rock was spitting my feet out of every jam and Chris was scolding me for not committing myself to climb above my gear. I ended up resting on gear all through the crux but I eventually made it up. Ok I guess but I'd like to try it again.

After that Tracy and I went for an easier climb up Funhouse. A nice line but was unpleasantly cut short by the sound of skidding down a slab and the thud of a decking climber to our left. After a few yells the guy responded that he was ok. By the time we were down to find him he was gone without a trace. I guess it sounded worse than it was?

Sunday Chris and I were up and out before sunrise to climb Moby Grape, a 9 pitch, 5.8 at Cannon. A long route with an alpine feel, it climbs the tallest line on the massive exfoliating dome to a peak over 4100 feet elevation. I think it`s one of the tallest walls in the northeast.

I led the awesome Reppy`s Crack first pitch, a perfect hands splitter. Chris led the next two pitches past a nice roof crack on nice rock. By pitch 4, my feet were colder than a well diggers ass and it was slowing me down considerably. A decision was made that for speeds sake, Henni would have to lead the remaining pitches and I'd have to improve on my cleaning speed. Beyond pitch 5, you can no longer rap the route and are committed to the top.

Me... about 2/3rds up Reppy's crack.

Again me... cleaning pitch 3.

Mid afternoon laded us at the Finger of Fate pitch. This thing is absolutely improbable. It's a 20-foot high shark fin pounded into the cliff like a piton of the gods. It's climbed by campusing/heelhooking along very positive holds for a few moves and then chucking your whole body up into the widening crack and humping your way to the top (sweet)! Even getting to it has a few really cool and spacey moves downclimbing to a thin traverse off the anchor and then onto a really crazy hanging thin flake. Exposed and wild!

Hennigar... poking out from the Finger of Fate.

Beyond that the climbing was mostly slabby to the top with the odd wet patch and run-out. I led the last pitch of a few moves to scrambling to the top. We got off the climb at about 5:00 pm. It took us about 10 hours.

The Whitney-Gilman Ridge is the arete in the background in sharp contrast. It was first climbed in 1929 as a solo by the pair. Clearly... they were made of different substance than modern man.

A final note on this climb is that you'd want to avoid getting finished in the dark. The climbing wouldn't be the problem rather it would be very difficult to get back down. Finding the descent path involves thrashing through dense thicket, boulders, and deep cracks. Lots of misleading goat paths go off in the wrong direction. Definitely not ideal to be doing in headlamps.

For the best topo we found, click here:

Rock School

2010-10-04T22:02:00.006-03:00

Rock School went down last weekend. What could have been totally screwed on weather turned out great. I think most folks got enough climbing in and had fun.

Whipped off some photos while I was there:

Amer... doing his best epic-face! Awesome.

Fall colours in full swing. Red Maple

Little Miss Olivia K... most certainly a future climbing star!

The night sky over Cochrane lane.

Football

2010-09-27T10:58:00.006-03:00

Yesterday I took my old man to the CFL football game in Moncton. He's a huge CFL fan and he's been stoked to go since it was announced a year ago.

The event itself was really smooth. Buses ran quickly from parking to the stadium. Lines moved efficiently. Beer available everywhere! Nice work Moncton!

The football was sloppy. A lot of fumbles and interceptions... many in scoring range. It was a weird game.

The one really funny thing was this red-haired, freckled kid two rows in front of me. Now I don't like to label people... but this kid lived up to the stereotype. 100% Team Ginger! Some fool felt it was a good idea to arm him with a Vuvuzela??? As such, in good ginger form he made it a mission to piss off everybody around him. He buzzed that thing in the ears of the rows in front of him and swung it around hitting the girl sitting in front of me in the face.

BBBBTTTTZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Eventually, the kid's dad finally clued-in and took it away. Staying true to form little ginger cried, stamped his feet, and then pouted! Super Funny!

WWWHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Skyliners

2010-09-21T08:30:00.002-03:00

I'm not a slack-liner... but this is pretty cool.

Skyliners Trailer from sébastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.

Welsford at Night

2010-09-18T15:58:00.004-03:00

Last time I went to Welsford I tried my luck at a few nighttime long exposures. The sky was without clouds and no moon. It didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I set a 45 minute exposure and went to sleep... but when I woke up... the battery had died without taking the shot. I did manage to sqeeze off this 5 minute exposure for interests sake though. I'm surprised how much movement in the stars there was in that little time.

Cauliflower Math

2010-09-04T00:16:00.004-03:00

My mind wandered sitting around tonight waiting for Hurricane Earl to hit. What's a hurricane and a cauliflower have in common? Spirals. That's what. Digging through this week's veggie box I found a head of cauliflower that is mathematic in it's symmetry.

Trippy eh? Maybe I just need to dial-back on the veggies... I'm going crazy.

New From Big Up

2010-09-03T20:27:00.002-03:00

It's tough for me to get excited about indoor climbing flicks... but this is well done.

Congrats to Marcelle & Chris

2010-08-29T22:32:00.005-03:00

Marcelle & Chris were married yesterday. Great day, good party, and lots of good friends. Before the wedding they roamed around town into some good spots for photos. I'm not sure if this runs a foul on etiquette... but I brought my camera to the pro wedding photo shoot.

Lookin' good kids! A few more photos here.

Another Float

2010-08-25T22:47:00.009-03:00

Last weekend Jill and I made our annual float to Grand Manan. Great place. I spent the weekend roaming around taking photos, watching marine life, and eating fine foods. Blackberries were in full season so I ended up picking a kilo while waiting for the ferry. Another kilo probably never made it into our buckets..

Blackberries. Tart.

We came to a couple of epiphanies:

We want to get back onto team veg. So as of Sept. 1st we're vegan again for a while.
We want waterfront property. Eventually. But not on the island... somewhere on the lower river. I'm now shopping.

Anyway, I think half the reason why we like fishing communities so much is that they seem to share our taste in colour. All vibrant; all the time. Although I found lots of nice flowers and nature over the weekend it was the man-made colour on the island that really stuck out:

A collection of the colours I found.

Anyway, I've talked about it before but this map points to the location of the best campsite I personally know of.

View Larger Map

Cover Story

2010-08-12T18:14:00.004-03:00

A week ago I was interviewed by Here Magazine about climbing. Today it was published... along with a few of my pictures (one of which was the cover shot... nice). Yep... no credit... by that's my photo on the cover! No mention of it being of Moncton climber Franca Z either. Why are we both not rich and famous now?

The interview went o.k. and the article isn't as ridiculous as I expected given the odd questions I answered. But seriously... long-boarding is nowhere near as cool as skydiving or climbing. Come on.

It's funny. Notice the stock picture of the guy belaying in jeans, sneakers, and ice screws on his harness? WTF! Oh wait... that must be Hennigar since nobody else has a daisy chain of tied webbing. LOL.

A Stag for H-Bomb

2010-08-09T13:42:00.007-03:00

Last weekend I threw a stag party for Chris Hennigar. A few years back we spent a day climbing at Main Face in NS just outside of Halifax. It's a pretty spot with a decent trad cliff growing right out of a big lake. I got wind that the cabin at the summit was open for rent and got the contact info from Climb Nova Scotia (now a card-carryin' member).

In typical style for Henni and I, we packed an obscene amount of stuff which had to be lugged in. He focused on necessary climbing gear... while I went heavy on bringing beer, liquor, and meat. The drive there was quick enough but we got there after dark, leaving us a bit insecure at the prospect that we were lugging hundreds of pounds of stuff up a steep ATV trail in the wrong direction. Anyway, we eventually ended up at the cabin a-ok.

The cabin at Main Face. Not pretty... but location is everything I guess.

(Funny side note: Mark, driving in a separate car behind us... got separated and lost in rural Nova Scotia. He decides the appropriate course of action is to call a stagette party full of ladies for help. Nice work Mark! Try again.)

The lines at Main Face can be really quality, but unfortunately, as we were warned, many of the 3-star classics are quite overgrown. Expect moss, lichen, and blueberries to be the norm. A few lines remain naturally clean and they are stellar. Oskar and Mr. Puff were exceptionally nice.

Henni cruises Oskar.

Fred proposed 'The Meatgrinder' as Henni's epic route for the weekend and it didn't disappoint. He got up it though and wasn't beat up too bad in the process. Way to go for awkward 5.9 offwidth!

We had a big feed Saturday night and after a few beer decided to do a midnight run of Popcorn, the classic 5.6 that goes strait out of the lake. This is a cool 45% dike that traverses about 15 m in a 25m pitch. Mark, Adam, Chris, and I jaunted up this with headlamps. Perfect finish to a long day with a belay view of the cosmos and owls hooting across the lake. We were back to camp by 1:00 a.m... in time to down a few Jagerbombs and shoot Ian's pimped out pellet rifles for a few hours! Drunk, we finally crashed around 3:30.

NB Day Weekend

2010-08-02T21:41:00.007-03:00

Great NB Day long weekend.

7-Mile Lake

Went to Jenny's camp and spent a great day drinking, flag-raising, and swimming in the heat. Got on the boat with Jill and her parents for delicious surf n' turf the next night. Today, I finally started painting the house. Why does the colour never look the same as it does on the chips in the store?

Jill back on a boat with me... she swore this would

never happen again!

A fire to make Ryan proud!

Farewell Norweigan

2010-07-29T19:33:00.004-03:00

Anders (who is the star of half of my climbing notes in the last year) is moving back to Norway this weekend. We went out for a few final pitches last night after work. Great night. Melanie came along and did a great job up a tricky route in the Upper Tier. Anders sent his project and I took a few photos. It's going to be tough to find another belayer like him... cheers! Hope we can link up for a few more pitches in the future. Perhaps a 400m WI4?

Anders making a clip.

Melanie sticking the crux! Nicely done.

Mr. Clean sending Mr. Torpedo

...and a link to the full set

Cheekbone

2010-07-15T14:03:00.007-03:00

I figure at least once a year it's worth it to head up Cheekbone Corner.

Interesting Fact: This used to be termed 'the Nose Buttress' as per this early topo of the area:

This year the occasion was that Anders is soon moving back to Norway and he really ought to climb it before he leaves. We left town Tuesday after work with that objective in mind, arriving at the base of the 1st pitch ready to go around 7:00. On a good day, I figure I could lead this in around 2 hours... leaving plenty of time before dark. The plan is for Anders to lead it.

He ties in and sets off, knowing that the 1st pitch is easy climbing but poorly protected. About half way up the corner he decides he doesn't like the look of things and bails; down-climbing back to the ground. No big deal. It's now 7:30 and I decide we're here anyway so let's go for it. I rope up and move to the alternate 'Pete's Retreat' start. Before leaving the ground I say to Anders 'don't forget your head-lamp'! He replies 'What? I don't have it today'. Who heads to Cheekbone after work without a headlamp? Oh well... 1 is enough... and I'm off.

We traded pitches up to 'pigeon shit ledge' (which is nicely clean now thanks to peregrines) and I bring him up while enjoying the sunset. Now in the twilight, I send him to lead the last pitch for the photo hanging off the needle. He cruises it, but can't find the route afterwards. Just go up! After some time he makes a tree and I follow up, now in the dark.

After walking off and getting back to the packs it's now at least 10:00. I call Jill:

'Jill... I'm ok... I'm just not going to be home for at least another hour and a bit', says Chris.

'Where are you?', replies Jill.

'I'm at the base of Cheekbone Corner', I respond.

'Well... that is stupid!', she explains... and shortly thereafter hangs up.

Needless to say... this isn't the first time I'll be returning home from this route around midnight.

While on the way home just pass Sunnyside, I hit a skunk. Dang. The car now smells like burnt skunk. We roll up our windows. Another 20 km down the road we hear the sound of a big motor gaining on us quickly... but no lights. We roll the windows back down and Anders realizes that it's an army helicopter right above and behind us... following us down the middle of the highway... in the middle of the night... at 110km/hr... with no lights on. A little unnerving. I'm sure the pilot was training for how to blast me away... but this ain't Afghanistan and I ain't no Taliban. Please strafe somebody else. It followed us for about a kilometer then broke off and was gone. Very weird.

What a great night!

The Wedding

2010-07-09T14:13:00.006-03:00

Now I got married about two weeks ago. I must say that my wife Jill was awesome. She pulled together a wedding and reception that worked out perfect. Very relaxed, great friends, unique ideas, it was totally custom made for us. Great job Jill.

I had a lot of fun. We took pictures down town Saint John before the wedding an made a total spectacle of ourselves. Random cruise boat people would clap for us as we stormed around the market. We tucked in a ceremony in the Public Gardens just in the nick of time before the place was overrun with graduating high-school kids. (I was guaranteed no other weddings that day but nobody said anything about hoards of well-dressed kids). We also did a good little party afterwards at my in-laws place with piles of food and drinks. I had a perfect time.

Thanks to everyone willing to take a random Tuesday to see Jill and I get hitched!

A selection of friends and family... as shot through our photo-booth... with my chintzy ebay $5 remote setup. Worked like a charm!

Ryan. In his best rock-out face.

Jess and Jon (crafter of our rings)

Krystal and Jenny (my best lady)

The Tompkins ladies.

Marcellegar! (best man on the left)

Adam (Rasta wedding singer!) Jah Mon!

Stag Party

2010-06-30T08:46:00.008-03:00

I need to catch up on a few fun things that happened over the past 2 weeks... beginning with perhaps the coolest stag party ever.

Chris, John, Anders, and I booked out of work early Friday afternoon headed for Welsford. My mission was to lead the arch in Joe's Garage and have an anchor set under Gumby's roof before dark. We packed up aid racks, portaledges, beer, food, water, etc. and were off. Hiking with all that will either kill you or make you strong as a bastard. No middle ground.

We got to Joe's in decent time considering the burden and I got racked up. I was then awarded my weekend 'rack'... a set of inflatable D-cup boobs. Climbing with large boobs is damn near impossible. You can't see your gear sling, your feet, nothing. I was constantly having to move them around to get the right size cam off my harness. Nice to look at... but I'm glad I don't own a set. Fast forward a few hours, the worst pin I've ever trusted, and a wide crack to find me now at a bomber anchor under the roof.

Me leading the arch - Probably C1+ @Anderfo

By now Erick had joined us, hauled, and had the ledges almost all set up. By dark we were all set up with plenty of beer. The boys even brought up an inflatable wife, Rosalita, to keep me warm. Very nice touch.

Anders... insulin deprived! @Anderfo

Saturday morning we climbed a bit, cleaned our rather huge mess at the base of Joe's, and headed off to the Gorge. The Gorge is probably the best swimming hole in NB. Cliffs, a big bridge jump, Tarzan rope, and always good weather. Ryan met up with us there.

Ryan launching the cliff @Anderfo

Next we were off to Pennfield for skeet shooting. Now I grew up in the city with a fishing father so I'd never handled a firearm before. Totally a good time. The lot of us fired at least half a thousand shells that afternoon. I did better than I thought but still sucked. Anders was quite good and Erick is pro. Then again, he quit climbing for this stuff.

Note the shootin' glasses and hooters! @Anderfo

Following that we made it back to Fredericton for a night of booze at Chris's place. Jenny came out and braved the stagosphere and we spent the night burnin' stuff, drinking, and hot-tubbing. I'd be hard pressed to think of a more bitchen' 24 hours.

All pictures stolen from Anders. He has more here

Another Great Weekend

2010-06-14T09:18:00.006-03:00

I'm marrying the right girl. With only 9 days to go before the wedding Jill was all 'go ahead and climb again today sweetie, I'll look after the boring wedding stuff'. I'm livin' the dream! So, I got two good days in this weekend.

Saturday at Cochrane lane with Anders and Sunday at Cedar Point with Chris and Marcelle. Anders had the camera Saturday so there may be pictures here sometime. I had it Sunday so here's a few of NB's best educated climber! Shooting was a bit crappy. No sun, slow lens, high ISO. I wasn't super happy despite this being about as photogenic as a setting as one can ask for.

Chica Bonita

...and several more of MacGruffin

Will Gadd on Redbull

2010-06-09T13:32:00.002-03:00

I've been meaning to make a few blog posts for a while but have been too busy. As a cop-out... I'll offer up a link to a much more interesting read (for climbers). Will Gadd has come out on his blog speaking against Red Bull (his big sponsor) and their recent err in judgement regarding a Patagonian expedition. It's a bold move on his part.

Read here:

Kamouraska

2010-05-25T23:08:00.008-03:00

Went to Quebec to climb over the long weekend in Kamouraska. Great time with a huge NB crew from Fredericton and Moncton.

The weather couldn't have been more perfect. High 20's and blasting wind coming off the St. Lawrence. No bugs but crowded like crazy. We ended up waiting over an hour for a line once.

Here's a few shots from the weekend:

One of the Moncton crew on Cassonade

Raphael on Tache Noire... classic line

Franca Z. cuts loose on Moby Dick

Unknown climber on a hard Cerveaux route

Me... stretching to clip on Moby Dick

Jumped Downtown

2010-05-17T10:18:00.003-03:00

Over the weekend a friend/colleague of mine was jumped while waiting for a cab downtown. As far as I know he was by himself and was randomly ambushed by a gang of guys. He’s now in the hospital getting his broken jaw wired shut and he’s in and out of consciousness. Senseless.

Jill and I are on edge when we’re downtown now anytime after 8:00… and for what? The cops are handing out fines to cyclists without their helmets on while people are being beat to a pulp less than a block away from their headquarters?

If you’re a friend and alone downtown late night, give me a call. I’ll come pick you up. No big deal. The dog has me up almost every night anyway. This has got to stop.

Edited: I learned today that Chris spent 3 hours unconscious at the corner of Brunswick and Regent before anyone found him. That's disgusting. It's one of the busiest streets in the city. He'll be in the hospital for at least another week due to serious internal injuries. Chris is one of the brightest folks in the city and would not have instigated a fight. This was a random and unprovoked beating by a gang of guys. Wishing him a speedy recovery.

Edit #2: I've written the mayor and chief of police on the issue. I figure they should be hearing about it. A copy is posted here.

First Evening Sesion

2010-05-12T22:18:00.007-03:00

The day is getting longer. Long enough to make Sunnyside after work a viable option. Also happy to report no bugs on Tuesday night. The only drag is that my finger was bothering me so I couldn't crank on it very much. Hope it toughens up. I ended up taking pics as much as I actually climbed.

Terry - Fai Tois Pas Mal (or something french like that)

Adam - Topping out!

Terry - All Hail

Adam - Thunder

Sunnyside

2010-05-02T23:53:00.008-03:00

Went to Sunnyside today with Adam and Terry. Nice weather but the black flies are out in full force. I took a lot of photos...

Adam beginning up Quantum Theory

Clipping!

Terry blasts through the crux of Quantum Theory...

...only to bail on the top-out!

Solaris

This guy has a ridiculous reach.

He ends up sending!

Cedar Point

2010-04-26T21:31:00.004-03:00

Got out on Saturday for a few hours and met up with a few folks at Cedar Pt. It's handy to have this new crag within 3 blocks of my parents place. This is a fairly scenic place tucked away in the middle of Saint John but currently sticks. Deer jumped off the cliff. Seriously!

Me... making photos.

Phil O. on Poop Deck.

Liz M. cruising

Earth Day

2010-04-22T20:22:00.004-03:00

So I celebrated Earth Day today. Here's how...

I opened my power bill. Today happened to be the day that I got my annual report card on energy consumption. So, while some celebrate by turning off a light bulb for an hour or by committing to do better next year, I'm celebrating by showing off what I've already done.

Over the past 12 months I dropped my power consumption by %22. Now... admittedly, not all of those savings are my doing. I looked up Fredericton's change in heating degree days over the same time frame. Heating degree days are calculated on how much colder than 16 degrees Celsius the temperature is. It is a good indicator of household heating needs. Over the past year, Fredericton was 10% warmer (so I can't claim that) but the difference of 12% is mine to brag about. New windows, better seasoned wood, and a few new efficient appliances contributed to the saving.

... and oh yeah, the SUV got replaced with a little car too! Happy day Earth!

The Gore

2010-04-12T10:53:00.006-03:00

Posting pics of the gore due to popular demand. Recovery @ 3 weeks.

Incidentally... I Googled my doctor and found this... Guess I'll go elsewhere when it comes time for me to get a boob job!

Sucker Punched

2010-04-06T22:27:00.005-03:00

Since I busted my finger, I've led a dull several weeks with little of anything to write about. So... I've decided to tell the story of my nose getting bloodied a while back. Sigh... this is gonna take forever to tap out on my iPod (I've got fat thumbz).

Most people know that I got sucker punched back in February. The story was that Jill and I just got finished our Valentine's date and were walking back to our car by the Tannery. Out of nowhere this crazy bastid' comes yelling at us for money. Not the normal panning for change routine... this guy meant business. I told him I didn't have anything for him and moved forward to place myself between him and my lovely fiancée. He squared up to me and goaded me on to hit him. I turned to say 'let's book outta here' to Jill when the guy swung and I ate his fist. Ate it!

After that I took a few steps back and spat out a mouthfull of blood. Jill was going ape-shit and yelling for help and meanwhile the guy was yelling some kind of banter about how he hit me for 'all the crimes I've committed against his people'. Yeah, that's right, this was a political statement rather than a random act of violence. Fitting that this native asshole sucker-punched me. Noble statement!

Anyway, a pile of people saw it and called the cops, who arrived shortly afterwards and arrested the guy down the street. Turns out that the call to the cops came from our youngest city counciller - Jordan Graham. He and his poor date ruined their entire date night with us at the cop station making statements. The cops also took a million photos of me for evidence.

One officer told me that the guy was just looking for a way into jail for the night... I was his ticket.

Fast forward a few weeks...

Now convinced that my snout was actually broken (since it still hurt), I get a call to do a line-up. Thinking I'd be standing behind a wall of mirrored glass while a bunch of crooks are paraded in, I eagerly agreed. No such luck, those are only for Hollywood. I just got a pile of photos to look at. Oh well.

A few more weeks...

Jill and I get a supeona to testify in court... meaning that the guy (Joe Paul) had a change of heart and decided to plead not guilty.

And finally today...

We went to court. When we got there we waited around for a while to talk to the Crown prosecuter. She told us to be prepared for a total gong show since Mr. Paul skipped his pretrial hearing and has decided to defend 'himself, as a member of the Burnt Church nation'. Whatever. She was pissed since it was obvious that this guy wasn't serious about the court (he had not even asked for our statements) and he was likely to just use it as an oppertunity to make a soap-box tirade. When it all got started and it was clear that this guy wanted to go ahead the Crown prosecuter tried to tell the judge that the guy couldn't have even read the evidence since he couldn't read. It went ahead anyway.

I swore on a bible ~ and took the witness stand. After telling my story, Mr. Paul was like' well... yeah... I can't really argue with that'. (Brilliant defence, well played)! He changed his plea to guilty and it was done. No soap-box, no gavel banging, no tazing any bros, no excitement at all... just a huge waste of everyones time. They kicked me out of the room so I have no idea what he was scentenced to... probably just more probation. Guess I'll have to read the Gleaner (/shudders/).

Bad Luck Comes in 3's

2010-03-16T14:54:00.010-03:00

I sincerely hope that my luck begins to turn around soon. If not, I'll have no choice but to take my material and begin a new career in the country music industry crooning away my woes... and nobody wants that!

In the event you've not heard my misfortune of last weekend, this is a graphic account of how I came to loose the tip of my right index finger. If that sort of thing bothers you than please excuse yourself from the rest of this blog post. There's no judging here, so just bail. This stuff aint for the light-of-heart.

I was hiking back into the ampitheatre in Welsford to help Erick take care of our previously unfinished business on Odin. We headed up the through the boulder field and scree with Ryan Murphy and Shawn Burdette, who were headed in the same direction. It's funny, as I slogged up that same slope which I'd done many times before I bitched and complained about being too old to lug gear, and I mentioned putting the ampitheatre on my Murtaugh List. Big effing mistake; don't whine in the presence of Odin! He smites down upon that kinda nonsense.

With the route now in sight ahead I looked up to see all the gear I left there the week before. My attention to where I placed my feet broke for a moment as I looked up at the piton that had caught my fall. I don't know how the next chain of events started; I heard a large boulder start to slide immediately in front of me. Without thinking it through, I just grabbed it with both hands. I wanted to stop it from sliding onto my legs, or worse still it would have rolled downhill hitting one of the other guys. I yelled 'rock' (which is climber shorthand for "get the fuck out of the way) and the guys below scattered. I actually managed to stop the movement of the rock, and I think I might have breathed a sigh of relief seeing that my legs didn't end up getting bashed. The relief was short lived unfortunately, brought to an end by Erick asking "Dude, did you just chop off your finger?". "Yep, I think so".

I only got a glimpse of the gore but it sure looked like Zombieland to me. In about a minute, the boys had me bandaged tight, the bleeding stopped, and the heckling started. In all seriousness I was lucky to receive their first-class first-aid. I couldn't have been mangled up with a better crew. Shawn even found what was left of my finger tip's meaty bit and packed it in a sandwich bag with some snow (sorry Shawn, despite this image now being burned into your sub-conscience, the admitting nurse just laughed at our trophy and pitched it out).

After stopping at the Irving for ice and a call to Jill, Erick sped me off to the Fredericton hospital... a gesture which surely consumed thousands of dollars in gas and burned a 75km long hole into the Ozone layer. Thanks again buddy, a card's in the mail!

A young Italian ER doctor (who is now the object of my mother's fancy) patched me up and treated me to my first round of morphine... on the house! Not too shabby. First thing the next morning I was in plastic surgery. Being operated on while awake and moving my finger was unnerving. Sure the freezing renders it all painless but the idea is creepy. To make matters worse doctor #1 was in the process of teaching doctor #2 the ropes so I was privy to detailed debate on how exactly they'd trim my bone back to a neat and tidy shape... and then they'd do it! After a few minutes of that deep breathing just wasn't cutting it so the nurse got my Ipod for me and I zoned out. The docs continued on without me and sculpted me a top-of-the-line, aerodynamic, stylish new stump (or so I'm told).

I'm supposed to heal back to 100% functionality and effectiveness within 6 weeks or so. I'll just be shorter. I hope to be climbing again within two months and back to leading respectable routes by the fall. I'm told that my aspirations to go back and cleanly lead Odin are history; that route is now blacklisted. I just hope I dont get too fat before my right hand is back up and running. Anyway... this post is too long... I need an editor!

Odin

2010-03-08T12:35:00.003-04:00

Odin is an aid climb that I've wanted to lead for at least a year now. It's an exposed, sharply overhanging crack/seam in a blank, water-streaked face that runs about 140'. The stars finally seemed like they aligned yesterday: Erick agreed to sit out the long belay, I had just got myself a sweet vintage Chouinard hammer and some pins, and the weather 10 degrees and sunny.

We slogged Erick's massive aid rack and several ropes up the snowy, crumbly approach to the amphitheatre. Not an activity I recommend for a first day of the season. If you're out of shape... you're going to suffer.

By about 11:00 on was on the line but making slow progress. Odin is not A1 as the guidebook suggests. It felt pretty squarely A2+ to me. Tricky placements - Yes. Awkward placements - Check. Body-weight only placements - you betcha! Most of the route involves strenuous stepping and some top stepping on wet, overhanging ground with little in the way of face holds to help get you stabilized. A1 is crazy sandbagged. As Erick put it: "all aid is A1 until you fall". Very true.

There's a few awkward placements and traversing to get to the first anchors but most of the interesting stuff comes after the bolt ladder when the crack becomes very thin. Ball nuts, #1 knife-blades, and fixed RURPs tied off with boot laces. I probably only used 2 pieces larger than a 0.5 and I could have gotten away without them.

I was 3/4 of the way up when Erick told me that there was only an hour of daylight left and that I'd been on the line for about 6 hours. Though exhausted I sped up as best I could. Nearing the top I had only 1 more tricky section before the anchor. A horizontal traverse around a bulge and onto a slab.

Standing a rusty knifeblade I placed around a corner and got what seemed like a decent micro-cam. Weighted ok, bounced ok, and I committed to it. Took a few steps up and removed my daisy from the piton... now completely standing on the cam. As I was reaching to clip my rope in to the piton I heard the distinctive 'PING' of my cam popping and I had just enough time to think 'ahhh balls'.

I sailed over the bulge and off into outer space. I saw my pieces whizzing by and had enough time to let out a big heroic death-scream before the rope came tight. My first genuine big whipper. Looking back up, I had taken a 25-30 footer and been caught by by a lost arrow which I had just pounded in. Funnily enough I had considered a microcam in the same spot but went with the piton because I was scared that if the cam ripped... the several pieces below it would too. Good choice.

Frazzled and out of daylight, I backed off leaving an entire rack on the climb; which I now have to go back and get next weekend.

Mad props to Erick for sitting out the belay and for making a Golden Glove award-winning catch. Here's his graphic take on the whole thing:

Alberta & BC

2010-03-04T20:48:00.007-04:00

Thought I'd post up a few things from the trip Jill and I took out west last week. We ended up having a lot of fun!

Started the week off in Calgary with a list of must-do's from a friend who lives there now. Ticked off a few good ones including MEC for some new pitons and lunch in the rotating restaurant atop the Calgary Tower.
Here's a view of the Calgary skyline from our table (word to the wise... we weren't told ahead of time that lunch is going to run you at least $80 when she's all said and done).

Next we stopped for the night in Lethbridge and headed down to Fernie for some skiing. Southern Alberta is absolutely part of the prairies... flat, devoid of trees, and completely strait gridded roads. We passed a massive wind farm (probably a few hundred turbines) and so I had to get in a picture with one.

Tom Tom (our GPS) got us slightly lost when I disagreed with it's choice of dirt roads and we ended up adding some time it took to get to the Rockies. If lost in this area of the country... prepare to end up in WalMarts chocked full of hutterites. No kidding.

The Rockies are an awesome sight. They come up like a brick wall out of the flats and they go on seemingly forever. This is a shot just entering Crow's Nest Pass.

Here's the 'burmis tree'. Several hundred years old at death... the locals have it propped up with wires, anchors, and pickets. Very odd.

On the way to Fernie you pass Sparwood, BC. An old coal town this place is home to the world's supposedly largest truck. Check this bad boy out!

Fernie is a big mountain. Seriously. Sadly however there was no powder when we were there but good snow nonetheless. The summit is well above treeline and there are 5 huge alpine bowls to ski. Awesome.

Jays's wedding went off without a hitch. I didn't lose any of the rings and I don't think I offended anyone with my toast. A great success I guess. The Mormons were really nice folks and seemed very accepting. Best yet... Terri Jo is a licensed pilot so I'll know who to call when I need a ride into the Bugaboos!

Spent a final night in Calgary out with another old friend, Cathy (yeah... the irony is thick). Went for sushi and Jill braved the sashimi for the first time and liked it! Good for her. After dinner we actually got a tour of the 1988 Calgary Olympic venue. For a cool hundred bucks... you and 3 of your most foolish friends can get a zip down the full sized bobsled track! Super cool.

Ice School 2010

2010-02-16T23:08:00.003-04:00

Thought I'd post a few pics from last weekend's Ice School:

Bait n' Switch

2010-02-09T21:25:00.002-04:00

So last Saturday night I ate at a fancy restaurant in Saint John with Jill, her sister, and brother-in-law. The occasion was Nicole's b-day and she wanted to eat at Thandi. Sounds good. Jill and I are actually shopping around for wedding caterers and this place was short-listed so I thought it would be good idea to give them try first.

The place was packed... #1 good sign right? Visually stunning too with a great feel. After waiting a half hour to be seated and another hour to be served I was starved. (ice climbing all day... see last post). To boot... this place had Red Snapper on the menu... a delicious little fish not easy to find in Fredericton. Yum.

This brings me to my point... imagine my disappointment when I'm served what could only be described by first visual as frozen haddock fillets. The first bite confirmed it... I was a victim of the old 'bait and switch'. (sorry... just too obvious).

Turns out that the problem of swapping in cheaper fish and pawning them off as premium has now filtered down to Saint John. It's now well known that this happens in upscale NY sushi houses. Check out this article in the NY Times. Take your DNA decoder with you next time you hit up Thandi.

...and just 'cause it needs to be said, the haddock was overcooked and bland. I should have sent it back but everyone knows I'm a total wimp when it comes to that.

Thandi = 4 thumbs down

Mt Misery - Feb 6th

2010-02-07T23:25:00.010-04:00

Made it into Mt. Misery for the first time on Saturday with Anders and Adam. Nice spot. A casual walk up the frozen Kennebecasis finds you at the base. Conditions were fat enough to convince Adam and myself to try our first ice leads.

Hippies Helping Haiti

2010-02-02T18:29:00.006-04:00

On rare occasions, even hippies can be productive, functioning members of society. I wanted to give a big shout-out to Adam Morgan this week. Over the weekend, he offered up his dreads at $10 each in order to raise money to send away to a Haitian orphanage. When I figure out the site for the charity I'll post it up.

Before:

During:

After:

Good job Adam!

The Quarry - Jan 23rd

2010-01-25T10:00:00.006-04:00

Made it into the quarry on Saturday with a good crew of people. Although we didn't get lost the snow was up to my belly once I was in the woods. I'm buying snowshoes this week... at any cost. The weather was perfect and the ice was good enough (albeit a bit thin and brittle in places).

New camera swag.

2010-01-25T09:06:00.011-04:00

So last week I splurged for some new camera swag. The main deal was a new 50mm prime f1.8 lens. It's primarily a portrait lens, but I was curious about what else I could do with it. Also, I picked a heavy-duty tripod that had a little tiny scratch on the leg and haggled my way into 50% off. Score.

I wasn't sure if the lens was worth keeping since a friend owns one that hardly ever gets used. I took it for a spin over the weekend.

First, it isn't a lens that lets you get away without a flash in crummy indoor light (which I'd hoped it might be). Second, it isn't super versatile and can't do macro. A half meter for a minimum focus distance isn't great given the angle. It makes it totally impossible to hold the camera at arm's length and take a self-portrait. Sigh... if only I had a better ape-index! Where it lacks in versatility it makes up for in giving really crisp images in good light with wicked-fast shutter speeds. It almost makes photographs of easily distracted dogs a possibility.

Here's are a few portraits of taken of some willing models:

...and saved the best for last

Turn's out that I'm keeping it since I lost the lens cap already.

The Epic Failing of Parlee Brook

2010-01-17T22:15:00.007-04:00

Saturday was pointless... well, not entirely so... I got a beer out of it.
Jon, Anders, and I set out to find the infamous ‘approach from below’ at Parlee brook. The rudimentary directions in the ice climbing guide have apparently thrown off several other climbing parties this year. I wasn’t worried... in fact... the night before I was full of cocky optimism. When talking to Jon late Friday night he pleaded with me to bring a map... a suggestion which I balked at replying: “I’m not worried... how bad could it be?”

When the morning arrived I was psyched. I’ve never been into Parlee brook but the pictures I’ve seen looked really cool. Steep narrow gorge covered by ice in all directions... permanently in the shade. The forecast called for a high of 0°. Perfect. Anders was confident that it was going to be the day of my first ice lead.

We passed Sussex and turned southeast towards Poley Mt. First problem where is Parlee Brook Road? I had incorrectly assumed that it was the same road which is taken for the more commonly used ‘approach from the top’. It isn't. It actually is the last road heading southeast before the entrance to Poley. Once at the end of Parlee Brook Road we parked behind some familiar cars belonging to fellow climbers from Saint John. A good sign. On the way in we passed a disheveled looking crazy person who we could only assume lived in this hobbit hole at the end of the road:

I assumed this is ‘The Abbey’ mentioned in the guidebook... although it’s impossible to be sure? What the hell is an abbey anyway? Shouldn’t I see monks or something?
The only advice in the guidebook is to ‘follow the trail for 1.8k until seeing a cabin on the left’. From there you should see some ice in the distance. Looking around I saw several trails... which one to take? Deducing that the guidebook must be referring to the unplowed section of road as a ‘trail’ we set off. It only made sense at the time since that’s where the cars belonging to fellow climbers were parked and a fresh set of snowshoe tracks and snowmobile trails went off in that direction.

Slogging through snow can be misleading... it’s tough to tell how far you’ve gone since you’re unsure how fast you’ve been going. It’s certainly slow business. We passed several cabins on the right side of the road which was a promising sign since we were looking for a cabin on the left. Also promising were periodic piss-holes in the snow... a sure sign that coffee-driven climbers were here just ahead of us. The road was following a well flowing stream through a steep valley. This was definitely the right terrain.

After what seemed like at least 1.5 km we saw somewhat of a small ice fall off in the distance through the trees to the left. Convincing ourselves that our landmark ‘cabin on the left’ was just ahead we continued. At some point we found a bridge over the brook leading to a cabin on the right. Why hadn’t the guide mentioned this bridge? Where had the snowshoe tracks and associated piss-holes gone? WTF?

A steep hill was just ahead. At this point we felt like something wasn’t fitting. Going up the hill would get us to a good vantage point though so we headed on. Ever been on an endless hill? You know, one of those hills that looks like it finishes in just 100 more meters only to trick you? We must have been tricked by that effing hill about a dozen times. When we made it to the top we realized that we’d cleared all of the steep valley terrain and had come out at houses on a plateau and a road marked ‘long settlement road’. Fuck. We’d been beaten. My cocky approach to finding this place came back to haunt me.

Jon was convinced that we should try to hitch hike back. I was pretty tempted looking at my heavy pack and thinking about slogging back the same way I came. I didn't know though... since we were in the middle of BF nowhere who knows when somebody would drive by willing to pick up 3 men who are armed to the teeth with medieval looking ice axes. We ultimately walked it back.

Getting back to the car went quickly for some reason. We dumped our packs and look for where we went wrong. 100’ back from the Hobbit hole we found an ‘Arnold’s Hollow’ road sign leading off at 180° to where we’d been. This road looked more like a trail and was well beaten with snowshoe tracks. How’d we miss it earlier? It was now 1:00 and the day was shot. Knowing we’d have to slog another hour in the snow to get to the climbing we quit, packed the car, and headed out.

The guide mentioned another nearby little climbed route named Dragon’s Den just 5km past Poley in the community of Cedar Camp, NB. It sounded neat ‘A free hanging ice pillar over a cave’. It was supposed to be visible from the road and with only a 15 minute approach sounded possible for a day now more than half shot.

We found it but the only obvious approach was blocked by signs indicating ‘no trespassing, no parking, and beware of dog’. Not a very hospitable place. Not willing to risk another epic we booked, and ended up at the bar at Poley... the only success to an otherwise total ice climbing fail.

I make it sound bad but I think any other reasonable person would have actually chalked it up to a great day to hike in the woods with a few buddies. I guess that’s true.

Tomorrow, I’m pulling all the air photos I have for the area and whenever I return, I’m posting a comprehensive guide to the ‘approach from below’... complete with maps and photos... as it should be.

Let's Bring Back the Shaker!

2010-01-14T11:40:00.005-04:00

Ok, we all know it... the biggest mistake UNB Rock & Ice ever made was demolishing the shaker. I want it back.

I started to use my new favourite program: Google SketchUp, to imagine how to bring it back. Here's what I came up with:

Step 1... use $10,000 to smash out the concrete wall all the way to the ceiling.
Step 2... smash the arete and the overhangs all the way over the the current 10 degree.
Step 3... design the new 'Super Shaker' (see below)
Step 4... convince everyone in the club it's a good idea (ongoing)
Step 5... build the frickin' thing

As soon as we find out that getting into the new Curry Centre is a bust I'm proposing we start spending cash.

I also built in some model components for our new volume holds made locally at Bolo Climbing.

I uploaded my model to Google Earth and embedded it below so you could tour around... pretty slick eh? If you want you can download the reno model itself and play around with your own design: Here.

SketchUp

2010-01-08T22:58:00.006-04:00

I've just wasted an entire Friday evening. Sorry Jill. I did it by downloading Google SketchUp... a really cool and free CAD program. Starting with a drafted paper copy of the floor plan and using angles now committed to muscle memory, I created a 3D model of the climbing gym.

For someone with no CAD experience this was a really easy thing to learn. My next project will be to build a model of the basement and play with where the walls go.

Feel free to download my UNB Rock and Ice project file: Here

AirCanadaNomNomNomics

2010-01-06T17:32:00.006-04:00

Looks like a big Scandinavian word, doesn't it? Sadly, it is not.

It's the sound made by Air Canada as they munch down on your credit card. The same tickets they sold me 8 weeks ago for $1,600 are now on for $950. When I called to ask for a credit they told me in no uncertain terms to 'go pound sand'. This after the mandatory 25 minutes on hold listening to elevator music.

I just wrote them a lengthy response to their customer service rep's suggestion. I'll post when I get their reply. I'm not holding my breath.

Memorable Pitches of 2009

2010-01-06T09:45:00.003-04:00

Browsed through my climbing log today and easily picked out my top 10 favourite pitches of 2009. They clearly stood out above the rest:

Leviathan, Welsford - my first clean 5.11 lead.
High Exposure, Gunks - this line could just as easily be labelled Great Expectations from all hype surrounding it but it seemed to follow through.
Warm & Sultry, Welsford - my first 5.9 lead on gear.
Weeping Whisker, Welsford - this is likely to get my vote for the best route in NB. Finally lead.
Victory Cabbage, Sunnyside - a climb which Erick and I made the first ascent of on top rope two years ago, I was unable to get it clean on lead last year. This summer it finally went down. I find it quite technical.
Dynamic Duo, Welsford - a great crack which I'd previously never climbed. Onsight.
Ménage a Trois, Welsford - this line is the most valuable addition to NB climbing this year. Fred's unearthing of Waterwalk to lead into Astroboy Direct and finish atop the detached pillar high above the L-Shape.
Black Lung, Cathedral Ledge - a classic crack that has interesting moves and bomber gear. Onsight.
Inferno, Whitehorse Ledge - perfect hand crack with big exposure. Very memorable lead. Just be sure to get somebody else to lead Hotter than Hell on your way up.
Rockstar, Welsford - a sustained line with every style of climbing imaginable all stuffed into 30 m. The old pin needs to be replaced but makes for a spicy lead.

...and a few pitches I'd rather let fade into obscurity:

Ride a Cock Horse, Welsford - dirty & awkward. Don't let Fred con you into leading this one with 'everybody has to do this at least once'. Next year it'll be Precious at the cave.
Lower Refuse, Cathedral Ledge - dirty & awkward for two pitches. Seriously... just wait in line for Bombardment or Fun House. Even following the party of 5 who was there just ahead of us would have been better.
Nuclear Sausage Particle, Sunnyside - although partially responsible for awarding this line it's ridiculous name, I'd never climbed it prior to last fall. Likely never again. YMMV.

404'd

2010-01-04T22:17:00.005-04:00

My old laptop bit the dust (again) the other day. This machine was declared dead a few years back when it was the property of a friend. I did some serious software fixes and got it back to life after she had paid her last respects and moved on to a new love (read iMac). This time I think it's dead for good. Would only boot if tilted at 90 degrees.

Luckily I got everything I needed from it onto my mobile hard disk. Did a quick Kijiji search and wound up with a new beauty for the bargain price of $250. My new machine does all kinds of tricks and is a big improvement. Just need to get used to Windows 7. So far so good.

2010

2010-01-01T18:27:00.003-04:00

Started the new decade today with 2 pitches of snowy adventure aid climbing with Burley at the cave. Not bad. No pics unfortunately.