New Boulders

As I mentioned in the last post, today Finn and I went out to Sunderland to develop some new boulders. Turns out we were successful! Not incredibly successful, but we managed to FA 2 new roof climbs.

Finn cleaning the big roof

The first one we had tried a while back... I think last fall? We found it at the end of the day and just tried it from the ground, since we had no rope. This time we came prepared and gave it a solid cleaning. The climb starts high on there two aretes, on two ok slopers, and starts by chucking to a sloping edge at the point of the two aretes. From there, you heel hook right next to you hand, on a small pebble, which is hard to keep on, and lock off to this awesome hold, which is a 3/4 pad two finger pocket, with a spike to put a third finger on. From there you do a very tensiony move out of the roof to a wide pinch, which has to be grabbed very precisely, or else you'll slice your fingers on sharp pebbles. Then you get your feet up and lock off to a small sloping edge, with a little pocket that your pointer finger sits in. The last move is a bump from that left hand crimp up to this hidden 3-finger pocket jug, which is nearly impossible to see. Your feet are at 8 or 9 feet, so the move is quite scary and committing, since the landing is sloping downwards. Once you hit the pocket there are nice jugs to the top.

Tension move from pocket to pinch

Sticking the final three-finger pocket

I decided to name the problem "Scissortongue" because of how unbelievably sharp the rock can be if hit wrong.. 

After that we cruised down the road to this roadside project Finn had been trying a few days earlier. Now i'm not sure if this is an FA, but I had never heard of it before, and the top was most certainly never cleaned. Either way, its a crazy problem. You start with a little boulder of maybe v4 or 5, leading to this insane dyno to a jug. Both you hands are facing the wrong way, so they pull you to the left and you end up hitting the jug (or flat hold more accurately) on the side spinning your body 180 degrees. Because of this, I came up with the solution to catch the hold with my other hand and jug hold the swing backwards. Within a few tries, and a punting off the top out breaking a hold, I managed the possible first ascent. As for a grade... it is very morpho.. but compared to other climbs of the same style i've done, v8 is fair. 

Anyways. Got video of both the sends, and they'll be out eventually.. in some form or another.