Mid winter reflections

January seemed to move quickly...though planning on getting out for one more day this month...

Stepped out for a tour in the Northern Desert with Kevin, Sara, & Cole earlier in the month.  A decent day, though slightly challenging conditions. A couple new problems on a boulder midway up the hill heading to Big Slabby, though slightly north...best approached from the roadside Honzel Warmup Boulders. No pics at the moment, but a nice compression to deadpoint problem makes it worth the stop...

From there we hit up the smaller boulder out front of Big Slabby

We then headed north on the ridge over to a boulder Ari and I played on back in July.

A nice sit start was added, as well as a sds to left traverse to the arete.

From there we dropped down to Decompression Sickness and a tour of the back gullies...unfortunately, the rain started coming down and did not let up...we ended up walking out to the Fonzie Boulders and up to the 13/14s and back out for a decent loop. While it was a wet walk it was nice to get my bearings out there again, and fun to get out with some psyched people in the darkest days of the year.  That said, it's a good time of year to be anywhere in the Lower Forest. The Desert up through the Druthers seems pretty dry at the moment.

Hope you are enjoying your winter.

Cheers

Decent December

December in the Lith can be joyous or downright miserable.  Weather is usually the limiting factor and December is certainly one of the wettest, if not the wettest months of the year.  Alas we venture out in search of dry stone and sending temps.

Part#1 Dryads

Early December we were able to get a sizable crew out to the Dryads.  It was a perfect day with excellent temps and fun was had by all.  After warming up we headed straight toward the newly found Barely Illegal Boulder.

Guy giving Sweet Tart a go

Emily scaling the excellent mod Barely Illegal Arete

Sarah on the beautiful and techy scoop of Sweet Tart 

Going for it on a proj

Part#2 Benchlands

Weather during the middle of the month was wet.  But we managed to get out at the very end of the month mostly on a scoping mission in the Benchlands.  Last year we spotted a boulder at the very top and very far back of the area it looked good and its high position on the ridge likely meant bomber rock.  Even though it was around 20 degrees F with intermittent snow.  We were not disappointed with our finds and even got to put up some stellar new problems.  

Smooth sailing and it's a 12" pow day at Bridger - what are we doing this for again?

The Galactic Facet (named after our favorite local website http://www.galacticfacets.com/) a wild boulder with crystal cobbles, pockets and bullet hard patinas at the very top of the Benchlands

Galactic Facet Traverse 

Galactic Facet Traverse - kind of looks like an alien skull, coincidence I think not

An ancient crystalline circuit board clear evidence of forgotten technology

Below the Galactic Facet is a boulder with super hard stone with crystal filled monos on it!  The wind was picking up so we moved on.  There could be some uber hard problems on this boulder - any takers?

Tweaky monos everywhere

Close up of one of the crystal filled monos

Since the weather was quickly deteriorating we then moved on in a direction we never went before and we found a couple nice fins with potential.

 

With the snow picking up we thought we were done.  Then Tom spotted something through the trees.  We debated on if we should even go check it out -  we are certainly glad we did.  What we stumbled into is definitely within the top 5 boulders either of us have found in the batholith.  Steep, great stone, featured and awesome- gaze at its glory.

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Even though it was nuking snow I had to at least give the holds a test

We thought that it was all over.  Then we stumbled into a boulder problem that Tom and Pat K. found years ago and could not find again an offwidth squeeze called The Breather..  This is one of the problems with the Benchlands, it is a 3D maze of insanity I feel lost every time I am there.  So loosing one's way or finding something again is not uncommon.  This time Tom got a GPS point on the problem so we will be able to find it again.  We both gave it a go but conditions and common sense told us not to push on through.

Tom in The Breather

Exhaling in The Breather

Then we headed out and enjoyed some awesome driving conditions on the way home.

It was a great year!  Hope next year is just as good!

Merry Christmas and have a happy New Year!

L8er,

podenbeck

New Finds for the Fall

Project on the incredible Barely Illegal Boulder - Lower Dryads

Despite the lack of posts we have been busy this Fall developing an area we have dubbed the Cooridor and Lower Dryads.  The Coordior is an are that we have avoided  in the past.  Thinking that there was little to nothing in there boy were we wrong.  The basically the Corridor connects the Namazu and Lower Isos areas to the Dryads.  With this connection you can successfully tour all the way from the Desert to the Dryads with less than a 5 minute walk between each major area.  First up some new finds in the Lower Dryads.

Seeing Spots in the Lower Dryads

Tom sending Child's Play - Lower Dryads

Broken Blade Boulder - beautiful stone much like the Superb Boulder in Superbia but a terrible landing

Margin of Air - Broken Blade Boulder - Lower Dryads

A really big scary looking block

Double Decker Dolmen - Lower Dryads

Barely Illegal Arete - Lower Dryads

Tom on Barely Illegal Arete

Tom giving the super awesome and techy Sweet Tart a go

Sweet Tart - Barely Illegal Boulder - Lower Dryads

More on Sweet Tart

Here are some things I found on the first scoping mission into the Corridor.  I made a couple FAs but was solo so no climbing shots.  When we went out this weekend it started raining right when we got to the goods but everyone seemed pretty impressed.

We were calling this the One in a Million Boulder because of the incredible patinas it has and that being a rarity in the Batholith

Celtic Hand a very nice bear hug tech combo

Really sweet crack problem - this one is for Tom

Another shot of the One in a Million Boulder

Burly looking overhang

A couple nice tall blocks

Nice eyebrows on the Hardly Illegal Boulder

Inversion in the Lith 

L8er,
podenbeck