Great Day at Nine Corners Lake (September 14, 2013)

So I held off on this post for a couple of weeks for the mere fact that I have been so busy with work, bouldering, life in general and even more importantly, the Adirondack Bouldering Guidebook tasks.  Anyways, back on Saturday September 14th I headed up to Nine Corners to meet up with some friends to do our last photo shoot for an upcoming bouldering article in Adirondack Life.  It rained considerably for a couple of days prior to that Saturday so we postponed the meeting time until later in the afternoon and I am really glad that we did.

With a strong breeze throughout the entire night and no rain predicted for that day we ventured up to Nine Corners to climb on some of my favorite boulders while Aaron Hobson (http://www.aaronhobson.com/) documented our lifestyle as boulderers in the Adirondack forest, our successful and failed attempts on boulder problems and our overall team energy and psych throughout the beautiful fall afternoon.  I was able to establish a new boulder problem that I starts as "Try or Cry" and traverses to the left on sharp crimps to get into the boulder problem "One Might Think".  I was able to link through this section earlier in the year (April/May) but fell over and over again on the big dyno move on "One Might Think".  With renewed energy and psych and a large audience on that particular day, I was able to successfully stick the dyno and "Didn't Think"-V8 was born.

Shortly after the send of "Didn't Think", we all got to witness Zac W. successfully top out "Pop or Drop" for his first send on the boulder problem.  It was one of the most inspiring attempts and sends that I have ever seen first hand...big props to you Zac for keeping it all together.  After the sending spree on the Fortress Boulder, we headed over the "Tower of Power" for some dramatic highball bouldering photos.  Ron, Andrew and I all took turns enjoying the 25 foot boulder problem and even Amanda couldn't resist the temptation to get on the line.  On her first attempt she reverted to down climb to evaluate the problem again from the ground.  On her second attempt, she passed her previous high point only to reach another committing and scary sequence.  From here the down climb was not an option so the SAC crew had to get creative and we were able to build a human pyramid for Amanda to stand on so she could safely bail off of the side of the boulder that would typically be a "death fall" zone.  The smile never left her face despite being in a dicey situation for a minute or two.  The epic scene of everyone scrambling to help get her off of the massive boulder sparked a very creative video idea for Aaron who plans on shooting something for the Banff Film Festival...so stay tuned for that!!

All in all, it was one of the most enjoyable days I have had bouldering in a very long time.  Everyone was really motivated and energetic and it couldn't have turned out to be a more beautiful day.

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