New boulder problems?

So the Shawangunk mountains that make up the Gunks would better be described as a rocky ridge that is seven miles long. That means there are at least seven miles of routes and boulder problems. That said, there is so much rock in the Gunks. I mean, like, so, much. And while the Trapps may have been climbed out a decade or more ago, the Gunks is still an endless sea of fallen blocs with countless hours of exploring to be had, much of which will yield hidden gem after hidden gem. This past week I got a taste of that.

I went on a hike last week to explore Giant's Workshop. I'd heard that there were a couple of hard classics out there and I wanted to check them out. I took a bit of a circuitous way to get there and happened upon a bunch of boulders and short, boulderable cliffs. I'm not sure if what I saw was a part of the Giant's workshop boulders, or if it's something else, but there was no chalk on anything. At the very least it deserves another look-see.

Then just the other day Margaret and I headed out to the Northeast boulders. Margaret worked on Megan Fox (V5) for a little while, making good progress and I sussed out the Schwapple (V5/9). The easier stand start looks totally doable and I think the sit start isn't too far out of my range either. With a few pull-ups maybe it'll go down this season.

After that we went to find some more problems that Margaret knew about, and while we didn't find those we found three new boulders! Margaret nabbed the first ascent of The Sloth (V1), and I did Anowon, The Ruin Sage (V3). Both problems definitely get stars. Mucho fun. And then there is another boulder that has some hard looking problems. One with slopey upside down slapping, Budha-like stuff, and another with some small crimps up a steep face with poor feet. Yum.

And toDAY I went out to Lost City with a couple of buddies. We went to the right side and warmed up at the Warm-up boulder. Then we figured out a new sequence to the V5 on that boulder and then did Fantastic (V5) which doesn't have a fun helicopter move on it when you do it the correct way (turns out). After that we meandered our way over to Middle Lost City where Alex Honnold put up a new problem. Turns our there is like a 20 foot tall slap with little crystal knobs going up it. The one previously established line on the bloc is called Stand Up Start Button (SUSB) (V5), and the name literally says it all. You stand up on that start hold, which looks like a button.

Anyway, Alex's problem went up next to that and we did two new problems left of his: The Creative Male Light (V0) and The Emotional Female Void (V4). The former is a really fun, tall arete with pastey feet and the latter is a really fun micro-crimp high-stepping smear fest that certainly gets your heart racing by the top-out. After that we did two more problems on a boulder behind the SUSB boulder, one called King of Lames (V3) and another called Tree's a Crowd (V1). Yay!!

To finish the day we checked out some more lines at a little place that was on the way home. Fun fun.