An Adirondack Foray

The weather looked really good last week, so Margaret and I decided to zip up to the Adirondacks and do some climbing. We got some breakfast in the morning on Sunday with our friend Tim and then headed up.

We arrived late afternoon and went straight to Beaver Brook to get a few pitches in before dark. I couldn't believe how cold it was up there still, and actually there was snow on the ground in places! After getting totally spanked on the Beaver Brook Project, we drove into Placid and got dinner at the Mirror Lake Inn (my old place of employment). It was fun to be back at the ol' stomping grounds for sure. Even got a yummy martini courtesy of Sarah. We drove back into Wilmington and crashed in Colin's driveway.

Next morning, after playing with Henry and Cecey for a little while we headed out to Potter Mountain to meet up with Jim and Alex and Phoebe. Per usual Spring-time-Potter, the top of most pitches were wet. But there was still plenty of climbing to be had. We got like seven pitches of climbing in, included a new pitch that Jim just put up called Jug Or Not. It's a fun pitch that starts on a big jug. Then you go up to the really nasty, tiny gaston crimp, stand up on a nubbin, and cross to a decent hold. That probably goes at close to 5.11c. From there there is some 5.10+ climbing and then it eases back to 5.9/5.10a. Much goodness indeed.

What was not "goodness" were the black flies. They were atrocious. So bad, in fact the we decided to head out to Snowy Mountain Boulders the next day. I've always wanted to head up there because the rock seemed so cool. Turns out, it is. The geology of the rocks here, according to Adirondack Rock creates these awesome "solution pockets" which are created "when mineral clusters dissolved faster than the surrounding rock." The effect is these honeycombed, sandstone like features. Very much fun. Did a couple of super classic problems, including Coitus (V6) which is one of the best anywhere, and the Cure (V8), which is my first V8. Woot Woot. Overall, Snowy is a cool places to visit. There aren't tons and tons of problems, but the ones that are there are really quite fun indeed.

From there, we drove back to Albany with Rich and Nyssa, got some dinner, and then headed home. Another fun time in the ADKs.