New rock comes with a lot of work.

Ah the winter rain. This is the time of year when I just want to find a dry place to climb and make it through the winter in the best shape that I can. Unfortunitly this is not always possible because we have a lack of steep rock around these parts. It is because of this fact that I sought out new rock in the winter time 4 years ago and found something new.

What I found was overwhelming in a big way. The potential was great but the work would be very hard indeed. The next weekend I came back with route development tools and started in ground up. Over the coarse of three visits I put up two routes and was ready for some tries on them.

The rock is hard basalt and supper steep. There are features but they are not as easy to deal with as one might think. I thought that my fist route would be in the mid 11's but 13- is were it landed. After this learning this I thought that I would come back at a later time when I had finished some of my other projects at other crags and thus got a lot stronger in the process. While I was away some others put in some hard work and got some routes going on the walls. I thank them so much for the work!! So three weeks ago I got back out and brought some friends with me. We got to work on a new line and the excitement is back.

Working up my route to rap in on the new line.

Check out the moves

Just a little higher

Trying to swing to some gear.

Lichen

Now to find a placment

Gear is in.

It steep!

Nice rock.

Placing a bolt.

Bolt number two.

All said and done we got in part of a route. My friends come back later and put in the rest of the route. The next weekend I got back out and climbed on some of the other established lines. They were hard to say the least. I cant say enough how primitive this area is. Maybe in a couple years it will be ready for the main stream.