New Brunswick Bouldering at it's Finest!

I just climbed forty-eight boulder problems today.  I must have been making up for lost time, as the weather has not co-operated with my work schedule for the past month.  After a couple hot sunny days the boulders were pretty dry at Munson Lake and the friction was good though –and I took full advantage!

It all started innocently enough.  I turned the car radio off after the 11:30 news update, and parked shortly thereafter, then climbed atop Kingpin.  There, in the sun, I did some calisthenics to get limbered up and decide what problems to get on.  I figured I'd start in the Slab Area and Cornerstones, then depending on the friction and my psyche, work one of my really hard projects.

For speed and ease of travel, I brought just one pad along to Small Slab, then Inversée and Mace.  Very quickly, I got into a groove, sending problem after problem.  I decided to hit up every problem at Cornerstones that could be safely protected with a single pad and no spotter.  Then decided to do the same at Sue Boy and maybe work the project(s) later in the day.

Boulder in the Brook was given a good scrub in the rain a few weeks ago.  This face, and the aretes are now home to 3 beautiful boulder problems.

By 3:00 I was back at the car for some food. Thirty-four problems in less than two-and-a-half hours works out to about 6 minutes a problem.  How much longer could I keep this up? There was no way I was going to stop and rest so I could work some hard stuff. The circuit is too much fun!  I decided to keep going.

I hit every West problem that's fairly close to the roads can be easily protected without a spotter and with one pad.  The only thing I didn't send was Compre(hen)sive.  It may have been slightly damp, but not enough to make it any harder.  Maybe I was beginning to fatigue by then.  In any case, At V7, it's out of place in this circuit, so I felt it was fine to move on.

I'm not really sure if I did keep the pace or not. It probably slowed a bit.  When I realized that there was plenty of daylight and no need to hurry, I did some minor trail work, (foolishly) took a break thinking I could then work the start to a very hard project since I was in the area, and scrubbed what I decided would be the final problem of the circuit.  It's a short, steep problem; all your weight is on your hands.  The holds are very good, but they are SHARP!

Secular Undercourse V1,  the latest addition and final problem in the circuit.

So after drawing blood (and getting the FA), I went down to the river for a quick soak.  The water is high, but not that cold considering it's October.  Once air dried, I walked back up, doing some more trail work along the way and got back to the car at 6:00.

The standard has been set: Six hours and thirty minutes to complete the circuit of 48 boulder problems.  This works out to just over 8 minutes per problem.  In reality it was probably under 7 minutes each, but without a watch it's only a guess, so I counted all the minutes spent doing other things before and after the circuit as well.  This leaves plenty of room for you (and me) to up the ante.

Here is the circuit:
Though listed in the order I chose, you can complete the problems in any order, provided Secular Undercourse is the final (48th) problem.
You must travel between problems on foot. You cannot ride a horse, bike or take a car.
In some cases, an option has been provided for alternate problems in the circuit.  This is because some problems favour a particular body-type or meteorological conditions that may be rare.  Be prepared to give up something in the exchange!
The clock starts when you first leave the road for one of the trails.
If you choose to stash supplies along the way, the clock will start at this time if you leave the road.
The clock stops when you are fully submerged in the Lepreau River.

The problems:

Slab Area

• I'm Brian And So's My Wife (V1)
• Slab Moi Ça (V0)
• That Stinks (V0)
• Stop That (V1)
• Dalle Inversée (V0)
• Husk Musk (V2)
• Pepper Spray (V2)
• Mace (V2)
• Flail (V2)
• Nutmeg (V0)

Cornerstones

• Rails Direct (V0)
• Tongue Exercises(V0)
• Curvy Trunk Cedar (V2)
• Le Pro (V0)
• Munson Burner (V3)
• Cheese Grater Accident (V3) or Enter The Dragon
• Sideshow Bobbed (V3)
• Rubberman (V0)
• Roy Toy (V0)
• Gutterball (V0)

Sue Boy

• Eye Burst (V1)
• Headache (V2)
• Rash (V3)
• Mockingbird (V1)
• Edgecation (V3)
• Elementary (V0)
• High School (V1)
• Junior High (V2)
• Multiple Choice  (V0-V2)
• Oral (V0)
• Big Foot (V2)
• Banane (V0)
• Ghoti (V2)
• Ghoti (V1)

Roadside

• Sugar Ditch (V1)
• R-U-N-N-O-F-T (V0)
• I Think I Tore My Sack (V0)
• Unnamed (V0) on the middle boulder of Hidden Wall
• Vlad You Are There (V1)
• Red Belly (V1) or Emma's Exit
• Pinch Overhang (V3)
• Cow Birther (V1) or Rock Hog
• The Clam (V0)
• Use Your Mussels (V4) or Double Misnomer and El Coucaracha and Rock Hog/Cow Birhter and Red Belly/Emma's Exit

Megacrystals

• Taurus (V0)
• Four-Peckerd Bull (V2)
• Dunce Cap (V0)
• Secular Undercourse (V1)

48 problems have now been completed, but you're not finished until you completely dunk yourself in the lake. No matter how cold it is, you must get fully under!

Periodized Training 7 (Overcoming Staleness)

Four months into a maintenance phase and it becomes awfully hard to get motivated to do a workout.  The programme itself is a success.  All the gains I made in the off-season and preseason have been maintained thus far.  I’m climbing a bit better as my on-the-rock time has been great this summer, but I’m not climbing any harder than at the start of the season.  This is exactly how everything was designed: get better when the weather sucked, climb hard early in the season, maintain that level of performance throughout the summer and into fall.  Put up tonnes of new problems in the process.

This mental staleness may not have occurred if our weather had been more typical this summer.  If we'd had the typical month-long rains and associated clouds of biting insects, I'd have squeezed in a mini off-season when the outdoor climbing conditions deteriorated.  Breaking up the long season into two shorter in-season maintenance phases with a more intensive/extensive work in the middle would have been a bit more stimulating.  Not that I am complaining of the stellar weather this year.  Conditions were amazing, and I did my best to take advantage by climbing often.

But training was getting boring.  Though the specific movements as well as the exercise stimulus to each muscle group changed every month, the overall maintenance programme is pretty much the same for it’s entire duration.  Physically, I still enjoyed doing the workouts, but mentally I wasn’t there.  I found myself slacking off.  No longer looking forward to a training session, I skipped it, then decided maybe the whole week off would do me good. I got Shawn to take me through his rings/campus/hang workout, then he joined me for one of my sessions on Kermit.  I went back to the in-season workouts for another hard week (since I wasn’t going to climb at all the following weekend I ramped up the volume-load hoping to get mentally and physically pumped), but still was left wanting.

That non-climbing weekend involved a fair bit of driving (and a search for solid sandstone -stay tuned for more about that!).  Maybe the humming engine resulted in sympathetic resonance of my brain waves.  More likely it was just that being seated for 5 straight hours made me want to move.  In either case, I wanted to workout.  Not what I’d been doing, not a typical in-season workout, in fact, not a typical workout at all.  I really began to crave a type of metabolic workout that I’d done in the past and used quite often with my team sport athletes.  Everybody loved to hate these, and the adaptations were positive.  The protocol was first reported in the literature about a year ago.  The hormonal response is marked, yet the overall duration of a training session is brief.  Perhaps my body was in need of these hormonal spikes, as my current levels were not fluctuating significantly with the maintenance programme.  The brevity makes skipping them nearly impossible. I thought it would be a good idea to do these for a bit to get back on track motivation-wise.

The pun wasn’t intended, but these are track-based workouts.  Though one could make a weak case for them having some sport-climbing metabolic specificity, from a neuromuscular point of view they are not going to be beneficial.  More likely, those adaptations will actually hinder climbing ability.  I probably should not do these.  What if I modified them by employing exercises (movements and resistance) that have more specificity to climbing?

Other metabolic resistance training circuit protocols I’ve used in the past have had phenomenal results, but are incredibly taxing.  They have no place in-season, though, as they require deliberate rest and recovery strategies between training bouts to prevent overtraining.  Climbing concurrently would be out of the question.

I’d like to train this way, but I want to boulder harder and better, and not miss out on a good outdoor day because I’m tired or sore.  I want my cake.  I want to eat it, too!

Is there any way I could make it work? I mulled it over on the drive home and came up with a few possible solutions.  I reread the pioneering article, and went back in my training log to review what I’d done and what resulted.  I looked up other references, and reviewed the charts of some of my teams.  I got out the calculator to workout volume-loads, and estimate recovery needs.  Eventually, I found the theoretical evidence and enough practical experience to support one solution in particular.

It’s still too early to tell, but so far (just a couple weeks in) I’m psyched to train and to climb.  Physically, I’ve felt pretty good throughout the work/training weeks, and great by each weekend.  A couple days ago, for example, I worked a new project and stuck two really hard moves that I could barely reach/touch last month.  I also was able to repeatedly and easily stick the (crux?) big pinch on Two Zig Zags, a move just beyond my range previously.  The next move (one I’ve done before) eluded me though as the pinch was still dripping wet from the previous days torrents.  All this was after a few hours spent scrubbing and establishing 3 new problems in the Slab Area, and playing around on a couple potential hard lines up Big Slab.

I’ll post the training programme details, if appropriate, once I get a better gauge of the results.  In the mean time, here are some more pics for the online guide.

Nutmeg V0 and Pepper Spray V3 are two nice new additions to the Mace boulder.

Porcupine Caves, Cornerstones area

Colt 45, home to ***Two Zig Zags V8

Dunce Cap V0, Megacrystals Area

Labour Day

This past Sunday, after a great day of new-ish trad climbing at Cochrane Lane in Welsford, I went to the Munson Lake boulders to work a couple projects and to do some trail planning in preparation for a literal labour day of construction Shawn and I had committed to on holiday Monday.

The bouldering session was brief, as I developed a flapper quite early. So after scrubbing the last line on Small Slab, I took off for the river.  My goal was to see if a quicker/easier path could be established between a parking area and a swimming spot.  Previous exploratory visits indicated that though the Slab Area was closest to the river, at that point it’s flow it is too wide, shallow and vegetated for any pleasurable soaking.  Up stream, a trail was beginning to take shape between the Megacrystals boulders and a narrows/rapids.  Though most of the year it is too shallow to swim, the moving water is deep enough to sit submerged in the fast current to relax and bathe.  However, the long walk back uphill to the car (at Roadside Area) afterwards is less than ideal.  I was hoping to head from the Slab Area towards the river, and pick up a game trail through the mature forest that would lead most of the way upstream to the rapids.  This had the potential for a flatter, and shorter walk than the Megacrystals trail.

I hopped over a spongy section behind Inversée, and into an area of mature forest.  The thick canopy formed by the tall trees leave only enough light and moisture for a carpet of moss under them.  Visibility is really good, and the walking is easy. I headed North along a path of brown, well trampled moss.  At the first fork I went left.  It led to a tangled alder thicket.  I backtracked and went right.  This forks as well; one to a boggy section choked with poplar saplings, the other to a nearly impenetrable (for mammals our size) concentration of young spruce on the edge of the old clear cut.  I went back and forth this way, fighting through a rough section hoping for ease on the other side.  After an hour and only progressing half way up the river, I’d had enough.  Finishing the other trail, rather than starting a new one, is definitely the way to proceed.

For the return trip to my car at the Slabs, I decided to try following the edge of forest where it meets the clear cut, so that I wouldn’t overshoot my destination.  As I headed up hill, I passed a few small boulders imbedded in the slope that looked decent enough, but were not worth the schlep on their own.  I gathered up a bunch of dead wood and build a few piles up on the high points to facilitate their rediscovery at a later date.

As I neared the border of the clear cut, I turned South. Fifty metres of easy walking led to a thick wall of green running as far as I could see (which wasn’t as far as that phrase sounds) both East and West. I could see a few places where a moose had crashed through this, so picked one and went for it.  Fifteen steps later, and I was face to face with one of the biggest, baddest, mossiest boulders at Munson Lake.  This thing is 5-6m tall, steep, featured and adjacent to at least 3 similar erratics!

I hadn’t bothered to bring my camera, and I doubt I could have backed away far enough to get a clear shot of these things anyway, so you’ll have to take my word on this. They are amazing! Each is overhanging on at least one side, and most faces (even the overhangs) show obvious features that are atypical of granite erratics.  They'll require some scrubbing, but could host 12 or 15 stellar boulder problems.

***

Labour Day Monday, as planned, Shawn cut stumps at Cornerstones and Slab Area, reducing the pad puncturing potential, while I moved rocks around the base of Mace so a few new lines can be attempted.  There are now five or six problems in this area that are just in need of a final scrub and a first ascent.

We then headed towards the river (via Megacrystals trail), did some trail work, and cleared some dead trees from the area to make room for tents.  We used the logs to build bridges through the bog and got about half-way through before running out of gas.

After refueling, we squeezed in a good bouldering circuit at Cornerstones before heading home.

Rain

A rainy weekend puts an end to Maritime bouldering plans, but it gives me time to post an update on some of the developments that have taken place at Munson Lake.

A couple weeks ago, I went back to Graffiti Block to put the final touches on the landing.  Thirty or 30 or 40 cubic feet of dry masonry later, and we are left with a flat platform that should remain above the waterline for the bulk of a typical climbing season.

With the labour out of the way, I switched my focus to finding a way up the inspiring East face.  The features on the right side are arranged rather uniquely: down low are a trio of big edges for the sit start; to their left 7 or 8 crystal protrusions as decent foot holds; a long reach above the big edges are 3 thin edges (crimps); a bit higher up are a collection of two pad texture-less slopers arranged in every direction.  This clustered pattern of features makes deciphering the proper holds and sequence a very complex task.  The balance, flexibility and opposition forces required add another layer of challenge.  I worked it until my brain and fingers were in need of a break.

Down the road at Hidden Wall, I polished the last bit of dirt off of couple lines, then polished off the FA’s.

The last bit of Hidden Wall, for the guide.

C Goodman on Pinch Overhang V3, (Hidden Wall) at Munson Lake. M Delaney photo.

I returned to Graffiti Block, and within few tries made it up the East face, then sprinted up the slab on the Northwest, adding yet another new problem to the boulder.

That evening PJ, Seb and I worked the crack on Colt 45.  We each struggled on a different move, and kept getting shut down.  Finally, on the last attempt of the day, PJ managed to find a bit more strength and just enough grace to nab the first ascent.  Dubbed Two Zig Zags, at V8 it is the hardest problem yet established on the West side of Munson Lake.  At 3-stars, it is also one of the nicest.

S Launcelot on Two Zig Zags V8,  Munson Lake, NB

As an aside, the star rating we’ve chosen is simple and straightforward.  With just 4 well-defined categories, there is minimal room for splitting hairs and consensus is easily reached.  Here is what we’ve established:

 *** = Excellent problem that would be considered a classic anywhere. It's worth a trip just to do it.

 ** = Very good problem for the region (e.g. The Maritimes; or Maine & NB). It's gratifying to complete, so it is one you will remember for a long time.

 * = Good problem for the area (e.g. Munson Lake).  If it's within your abilities you should do it at least once, as there's something fun and unique about it.  

No star = Common. The problem is somewhat plain, and could be found anywhere. 

Last weekend, a carload from Moncton and I played around the Roadside area some more.  Pierre hardly recognized the Hidden Wall after all the work Shawn & Denise put in since his previous visit.  He was surprised to learn that the biggest two boulders were not nearly touching each other, and now that the trees and brush were cleared they didn’t form a continuous wall!  (Hidden Wall is a double misnomer.)

As we took turns sending the established problems, Pierre would ponder the possibility of new ones up lines I’d previously dismissed for one reason or another.  A quick scrub and a few attempts later and he ended up putting up four worthwhile new problems.  Emma added a fifth.

P Arsenault on Ya Silly Fat Cow V3, Munson Lake, NB

Across the street I added a new problem at Piled Up.  Dubbed Mary Poppins (* V6), it’s a short, but powerful problem capped with a very strenuous top out.  Pierre managed to link it’s start with the off-width known as Wrestling Match, brining the daily tally of new problems to seven.

Not So Hidden Anymore

Sunday, I got to the Roadside Boulders at Munson Lake before the others.  As I drove past Graffiti Block, I noticed the little pond nearby had dried up so stopped the car to have a look.  This is a really cool looking boulder, but it has a deep dark pool of water (that's fed by the pond) around half of it's base –and it's the the half that's worth climbing.  Last fall, I tried tossing a few big granite blocks into the murk hoping to build up a platform to keep the pads dry. They disappeared into the depths.  I rolled the largest blocks I could find to the edge and pushed them over.  They also disappeared well below the surface.  It seemed bottomless.  Many times since, I've made a splash by lobbing rocks from the road to the base of the boulder.

Last month, it was finally dry enough for me to grab the first climb on the Graffiti Block (Sugar Ditch V1), which is to the right of the water hole.  At that time, it was possible to see some of the rocks just below the surface.  Yesterday most were well-above the water.  With some rearranging and additions, I managed to complete a dry and flat-ish landing zone.  I got to work scrubbing just as Shawn and Denise pulled up.

Since these problems looked a little too tough to warm-up on, we continued a bit farther to the Hidden Wall.

Shawn cut limbs and trunks, while Denise and I scrubbed rock and hauled brush.  Then we all scrubbed.  Then they cut a trail and I scrubbed.  Then Shawn built up a landing and everybody scrubbed some more.  Though you still can't see them from the road, these boulders are no longer lost in a jumble of spruce branches and dead birches.  You can actually identify where one boulder ends and the next one begins.  The landings are much improved.  Beer bottles were removed.

The view of Hidden Wall from the new trail.  This face has a long traverse that's been done both ways.

Shawn lacing up for Cow Birther V1 in the foreground, with the middle boulder nicely exposed in behind.

All told, we exposed 8 lines on the southernmost and big middle boulders where we thought there might be 4.  We climbed 4 of them.

On the way out, they asked for a tour of the Slab Area.  Unable to just look, we dragged the pads along as Shawn and Denise quickly dispatched another 4 or 5 problems each before calling it a (9 1/2 hour) day.

***

Monday, I awoke to the sun and songbirds after a restful night in the tent.  After breakfast and a warm-up, I wanted to work a great project at the Cornerstones.  By 10:30, despite feeling that I'd worked out the beta for the one move that was still giving me trouble, and had become more consistent on the rest, I couldn't get it.  It was too hot for the rubber and too slick for my skin.

Back to Roadside I went, but this time to Piled Up.  It was hotter, more humid and with less wind at than on Sunday.  So hot that your hands blister even with gloves on.  Despite this, I managed to scrub 5 new problems and send 2 of them before hunger brought me back to the car for lunch 3 hours later.  Dirty, sweaty, thin skinned, and still hungry I came home.

These boulders are only about 7' high, but have a tricky, rounded topout.  The off-width in is Wrestling Match V1, and the right arete is Baldilocks V3.

As I type this, I can think of a dozen problems on the West side of the Lake that are (nearly, at lest) clean and ready to go.  I am clean now, I've eaten, and it's much cooler in the City, but my skin hasn't grown back yet and I'm hungry again; those twelve FA's will have to wait for another time.

Sometimes You Have To Improvise

P Arsenault not wanting to move out of the shade on Elementary V0, Munson Lake, NB

It was a good couple of days of New Brunswick bouldering.  The sweltering heat and humidity kept us in the easier grades, but most importantly, the bugs were tolerable.


Four of us spent much of Sunday in the shade and on the slabs, and added two new problems to the East side of Munson Lake.  When it got too hot, we broke for lunch and had a little tequila with lime on ice.  Not having a knife, we had to improvise.

As you can see from the middle photo, I had my suspicions, but Dom had the right idea; shears not only work well for clearing paths through the shrub ground covers, they also cut lime wedges with precision.

When the others took off for home, I headed to the shade of the Hardwood Area and put in about an hour-and-a-half of work scrubbing the 5 or 6 chunks of granite that form the Trailside Boulders.  Tired, but with a few hours of daylight left, I set up my tent, then took a bath in the brook before making supper and tucking in for the night.

The Trailside boulders in the Hardwood Area.

Light rain overnight cooled things off for a good half-day on Monday.  Sebastian L met me in the am at the Corner Stones and we dispatched some of the starred problems, before working the long-standing crack project on Colt 45.  Together we (well, Seb mostly) figured out the beta, and each managed to pull off all but one move. For me it's number 2, and for Seb it's the opening move that's the problem.  It has really neat moves between cool holds up an obvious line.  Definitely a 3-star problem that we are both so close to completing that we will likely send it next visit!

S Lancelot executing the namesake move on Enter The Dragon, V4 (Glute Boulder) at Munson Lake, New Brunswick

Just a shot of Inversée for the guide

4:38 pm

I've made three visits to Munson Lake in the past week or so, and all have come to an abrupt end at 4:38.  Earlier in the day, shortly after my (or our) arrival the thin cloud of black flies that formed around any humans was simply curious.  Occasionally one would land and walk along a forearm for a moment, but for the most part they just flied around happy to have some human company.  They wouldn't bite, and we wouldn't swat.  It was a contented relationship.

It's been a warm and dry spring, and even with 5 days of rain to kick off summer, the Lake and surrounding terrain is quite dry. (Dryer than last August when there were no bugs.)  Since then it has been very sunny, hot and humid, to the point that one would expect the biting insects to be done for the year, or at least seeking some shelter in the shade.  Not so at Munson Lake.

So for the first few hours of the day, whether trail building or bouldering, we were happy and warm.  Just look at Pierre's face in the second photo and tell me he's not having fun.

Pierre A. coming out from under Rubberman V1

Pierre A. happy to be riding the top-out jug on Rubberman V1

By 3 o'clock, we'd each been bitten maybe three times.  Considering the amount of exposed skin (temps in the upper 20's and a 80% humidity) this was pretty good.  Around this time, on Monday when I was solo, I put up the first problem on Graffiti Block; a steep but easy line called Sugar Ditch. On Saturday, Pierre and I were putting the final brush strokes on the Hidden Wall in preparation for grabbing a couple of FA's.

At 4 o'clock, the black fly population doubled. At 4:10 it doubled again. At 4:15 the clouds turned into swarms as they went in to feed.   It is impossible to swat everywhere at once, so the best you can do is hope to cover up.  Not only was it too hot for long sleeves, but it takes both hands to pull on a sweater and long pants.  That wastes valuable swatting time, so we tred to do it all at once; dressing, swatting, packing, and scrambling to the shelter of an air-conditioned car.  Meanwhile the black flies had found the openings and were aggressively harvesting chunks of our skin.

We had reached the stage of surrender to the total frustration that arises from being under relentless attack.  We sealed up the windows, squished those bugs that made it inside the car and got out of there as fast as we could.  The car radio showed 4:38 pm.  The time of retreat on 3 separate days was identical.

Graffiti Block.

Hidden Wall Part 1. The pad is below Pierre's new V1, a crack called Cow Birther.  The right arete is Shear Madness, also a V1