Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Little Bighorn- First Ascent @ Crane Mountain

As promised, here is the video edit from this past Saturday at Crane Mountain.  It was a great weekend with some close friends as we continued working on new problems and repeating some established ones in the "Boulder Woods" sector.  The SAC crew was rolling deep with high energy levels from Kippy (Adkbouldering.blogspot.com and long standing legend), John Strazza (A long time Adirondack Boulderer and now our Vermont connection with some serious guns), Johnny Sullivan (The kid who can deet and daht like no other), Ron Manning (a guy who simply refuses to let go of climbing holds), and Ryan Pooler (the man who despises an empty cooler and occassional battles camping stools).

A new boulder problem dubbed "Little Bighorn" was established and climbs one of the coolest features I have climbed on in the area to date.  The problem begins low on an overhanging arete feature with some nice compression moves up to a heinous finger lock move with the right hand.  Off of the right hand, you have to make a pretty dynamic move with the left hand up the arete, then squeeze hard with the right hand as you slap aggressively up the prow fearure.  After this compression sequence, the boulder problem eases up with some 5.8 climbing up the highball face above and tops out at around 20-25 feet.  It is an excellent boulder problem and a great addition to the Crane Mountain set.  I also cleaned two other highball problems on the same boulder (The Whale Boulder) and hope to get back on them in the near future.  I hope this video gets other climbers interested in this massive bouldering location.  I honestly believe it could hold as many if not more boulder problems than Nine Corners Lake (which after counting the problems last night in my "rough draft" guidebook has just over 300 boulder problems...counting all varations, etc!)  Numeorus potential boulder problems that I have personally seen at Crane Mountain could be some of the most difficult in the Adirondack Park...only time will tell and the more visitors this area sees, the more problems that will get developed.

Deet, daht!

Media Update:


5 comments:

  1. Jut, the new boulder problem looks really good! Nice send man and please keep finding more and more. Looking forward to getting up to Crane Mountain while we have all of this prime weather to see what else you have been working on

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  2. I don't care if that new problem is V2 or V8 it looks awesome! I can't belive nobody has climbed that before. Is it in a different area, away from the main set? Great FA dude

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    1. This problem is actually right in the "main" bouldering area. The height of the boulder may have deterred previous attempts because the line itself is very obvious. It is a really fun problem, go get on it! Thanks for the comments

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  3. Hatchet Wound is the crack line to the right, yes?
    Rocco got bloodied in those boulders on the FA.

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    1. Jeremy- Hatchet Wound is in the current guidebook as the crack to the right but I am not sure who put that up or when. As I was preparing the top out of "Little Bighorn", it appeared that all of the upper holds had never seen climbing activity and the logical, easiest top out for "Hatchet Wound" would have been the same top out as my new problem since the right rising crack disappears and the obvious holds trend towards the left arete. Do you have more information on "Hatchet Wound". Is the Rocco you are referring to the same Rocco that is a climbing coach at Brooklyn Boulders and a guide at Hueco Tanks?

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