A few new boulders were found/developed. First following a tip from Neil Bradbury I found two nice new boulders on the highway close to the vacation boulders. I managed one day of climbing there during the summer but the flies were so bad I just managed to clean and climb on line while being eaten alive. The climb was worth it though. "Fly Casual" is about V4 and one of the best at its grade I have ever climbed. It squeezes up a slightly over-hanging prow feature with big moves and a fun lunge to a jug at the top.
Joel Harvie on "Fly Casual" V4
The other new development this summer was at some boulders found by Kyle Hussey and John Bennett beneath Topsail Head. There are several large boulders there but so far only one has had any climbs done on it due to the fact that the cleaning process involved removing several large trees that had fallen on the boulder using only small hand saws.
Once the trees were removed we were left looking at a 20 foot tall overhanging face with widely spaced holds. Some of the rock was a bit loose so we were wary of getting 20 feet up over an uneven rocky landing so ended up doing the problem headpoint style with a top rope first. A fact I was very glad of when I pulled off a hold near the top while harnessed in.
David Bruneau and myself got the first ascents of "Know what'm sayn" another new very high quality problem.
(UPDATE: John Bennett had already climbed the problem so here is a video of us repeating "Nice Try" V5 that we thought was the FA)
Know What'm Sayn? from Dave Stack on Vimeo.
Both new spots have plenty more good problems just waiting to be cleaned and climbed so hopefully someone will get at them.
The other big bouldering thing this summer was the first ever outdoor bouldering event/competition in newfoundland. The Flatrock Boulder Bash saw nearly 50 people bouldering in Flatrock at once. That's more people than normally boulder there over an entire year. The event was aimed eqaually at getting new people out bouldering and testing the abilities of seasoned boulderers. A ticklist of 30 problems ranging from V0-V10 had plenty of problems to keep everyone busy for 7 hours of climbing. Sponsors Evolv, La Sportiva and flashed hooked us up with prizes. Lewis Loader climbed the most problem for the Men and Keely Whitelaw wasn't far behind him at the top of the women's division. Hopefully this will become an annual event.
I should mention that the event was organized by the newly formed Newfoundland section of the Alpine Club of Canada. The club is dedicated to brining together the climbing community in Newfoundland through monthly climbing related events, as well as maintaining climbing areas. If you are living in NL and are interested in climbing at all I would highly recommend joining the club.
Other than a few scattered days out here and there I didn't get much other climbing done over the summer because I was getting ready to move to Switzerland. Now that I am here I am very excited about climbing regularly again. I've been hitting up the closest area to Geneva at St-George pretty regularly and am starting to feel like I am getting back in climbing shape. I am very excited to check out new areas and managed to get to one this weekend. Vernayaz is nearly 2 hours by train from geneva but with a high concentration of quality problems in the v7-v12 range it's more than worth it.
Here is a little video from my first trip there.
Vernayaz Bouldering from Dave Stack on Vimeo.
