Friendly Natives

I lost my guide book after our first couple routes.  I have no idea what happened to it and I got pretty pissed off.  Two sets of climbers were around when we lost it.  Matt and Marie are a couple of locals who we got talking with.  They showed us a few cool routes to keep us busy for a while.

What the Schist!

Bob and I spent our first climbing in Rumney...wow!  I lead 11 routes today ranging from 5.6 to 5.10a.  Bob is working on lead and did a 5.6 and a 5.7.  The lower grades seem run out.  The picture is of Bolt Line (5.8) which is a widely spaced.  It originally had only 3 bolts.

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Just got to Parking Lot wall.

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Down in Old Montréal. 

Stranger Things

Bob and I managed to get out climbing at the last minute tonight. We decided to go out to Cemetery Face because of the evening sun and easy approach. Now we have been climbing out there for over 3 years and have never come across another party. With the popularity of the German Face I figured that Cemetery Face was all but forgotten. We were kinda blown away when we got there to find 7 other people already climbing in 2 separate parties. I guess a few other people went out there for the same reasons we did. Phil was out there with some friends and the other party were 2 guys who had read about the area on RockClimbing.com. Cool.

More Than Last Time

The four of us got out to Manuel's today...this morning (5am). It was windy and it was cold! Bob brought his own source of natural gas to keeps himself warm but unfortunately it was an open system and he contaminated the rest of us with his retched stink. At least the wind was good for dealing with that.

I am finding developing this face is harder than the German Face. We had to cut a new trail but it is steeper. When we got there, we discussed potential lines. It was decided that we needed to have the top anchors lower than where we were so you could climb it with a 60 meter rope. So we had to get to the top, lower on rap, drill two top anchors, pull the rope and then set up top ropes. That only took 2 hours leaving only 30 minutes to climb (we cleaned a lot of moss off the face). Kim was at the top for quite some time and when she came down, she was really cold. She needs some more meat on her bones.

The plan is to keep these two routes as a two pitch. Bob's top anchor keeps the rope short by 10 feet. On rappel you can get enough rope stretch to get to the ground. The one Jan and I were on will have to be two pitch, a 60 meter is definitely short. I placed a second set of top bolts at the bottom of where the face goes vertical. The bottom section will be EASY sport (5.2) just to gain the belay ledge. I think that we have 2 potential lines off that set of top bolts, both real cool climbing. One on the left is dead vertical with great features. Good jugs just when you need them. The other one I didn't climb but it is really quite thin. I was on Bob's line last week and that is looking pretty cool as well.

We have spotted 3 or 4 trad lines in the face but we haven't brought our racks to try them out. The next time out we should be putting up routes. Unfortunately for me that will not be until July, I have to go to Rumney!

Feels Like Old Times

We had a foursome climbing on Saturday; Kim, Bob, myself and of all people Jan (where the hell has he been?). It had an eery feeling of last summer when we started developing the German Face. We bushwhacked to get into the face, we hauled a lot of loose rock off the cliff and we actually did a bit of climbing. Bob placed a new set of top anchors and Kim and him cleaned and top roped what will likely be a nice 5.5ish trad route (Red). It follows a feature that may take pro but they may choose to bolt it.

Jan and I set up a top rope on a set of anchors I placed last year. I new it was higher than 100 feet so we belayed from the top so we could lower more than 100 feet. We cleaned the face as we were lowered down, knocking off a few blocks and weeding some ledges. I came down directly over the small roof I have been thinking about all year. It was not nearly big as I was hoping (I have never heard that before...really). Regardless, the climbing above and below is really good. I had noticed some cool features on the left of my line. One was a continuous hand crack leaning out left. I mentioned this to Jan before he went down. I belayed him back up and his smile could not have been wider. The climbing was great and he figures something in the mid 5.10's.

So I think we have our first 4 or 5 routes figured out now we need to bolt them. Maybe next time.

Rumney Climbing Guide

Finally got my guide book for Rumney in the mail the other day. Getting that makes it REAL. Just flipping through the pages and seeing all the routes...awesome. Rumney is known for being steep and overhanging. It has a huge concentration of climbs in the 5.12 to 5.14X range and has one of the few American 5.15b's. I figure it will take a bit of work to put that one down!

There are actually a lot of bolted moderates. There is even a wall called the 5.8 wall. Most of the climbing is 100 feet or less so a 60 meter rope works well. One climb has already sussed out is called "clip-de-do-da", a 2 pitch sport 5.5. That will be fun

Office test

Just testing out blogging from my phone.

Fern Gully 5.2

Bob and I finally got out Saturday morning, before it got nice. We suffered for our art, BIG time. The hike in was brutal because all the crap we were carrying. Most of it is for cleaning routes and we leave at the base so it was not as bad coming back.

We started cutting a new trail only to find that it came out too far away from the Upper Face. It will be fine for the Wall of Possibilities. We were hoping to hike to the base of the Upper Face and start climbing. The brush was too thick to bushwhack through so we had to go to the German Face.

Bob climbed German Access and set a top anchor over Tack Auch. We then had to hoist our crap up the wall and then I followed, cleaning the gear. Finally we mad it to the base of the Upper Face.

I had one big goal for the day, and that was to put up a fixed line to get access to the top. I climbed up though the gully slinging a couple of saplings and the odd piece of gear to keep myself safe. I guess you could call it a route but it isn't anything I would ever clean for a real climb. Too much gardening for that.

I built an anchor and brought Bob up. Bob had one big goal for the day and that was to places top anchors for a new route. Bob bought a new drill over the winter and has been itching to use it. Unfortunately, by the time both of us were up we had to leave. Oh well!

The liken on the face very slippery and near impossible to remove. When it is dry it just flakes off. So all this rain is messing up both climbing and developing. God we need a break.