Nine Corners Lake Update...

I took Friday off from work to extend the holiday weekend even longer to give me more time to check up on some of the local climbing areas before this weekends climbing festival.  Unfortunately the torrential downpours on Thursday night made the climbing in Caroga Lake narly impossible this weekend especially since more storms kept springing up.

Overall, the Caroga Lake area held up pretty well against Hurricane Irene.  There were only a handful of down trees on the trail to Nine Corners Lake and even fewer trees down around the boulders.  Let's hope for dry weather throughout the week so the bouldering competition can go on as scheduled.  I will keep updates as the weekend nears.

In between cleaning up garbage, down trees and branches, I was able to get a few burns in on my current project...the full sit start into "Whip Tide" on the Wave Boulder.  The conditions were horrible and even after a few decent attempts, I was still not able to link the problem from start to finish.  I am anxious for the upcoming crisp fall weather so I can finally write this problem off.  It has been a good test of patience and self control.  I did the line from one move in back in May and have only been able to successfully do the stand start (V6/V7) twice since then.  The right hand holds on the arete are really friction dependent which have made things difficult lately.  One a positive note, in between trowing out wobblers this weekend on failed attempts on "Whip Tide", I was able to do "Low Tide" on my first try.  It was rewarding because I had never done this boulder problem from the full sit start, and it shares the same sit start as "Whip Tide".  It's only  a matter of time now!

Hope to see everyone this weekend for the climbing festivities.

"Low Tide"-V7