New Brunswick Bouldering Guide

Eighteen months ago, I finally gave in to the repeated requests to write a guidebook for Munson Lake.  This expanded into a comprehensive guide to cover all the established boulder problems in New Brunswick.

Cover of the New Brunswick Bouldering Guide, available here.

Today, the New Brunswick Bouldering Guide went live!  It is a 100 page digital-download, with over 300 photos.  It describes nearly 700 boulder problems over 15 bouldering locations.  There are road maps, trail maps, descriptions of each area, descriptions for each problem, topo pictures, inspirational action pictures, a history of bouldering in New Brunswick, potential future development opportunities...

You can order your copy here: https://sites.google.com/site/nbboulderingguide/ordering-info






Note: Bald Peak / Mt Douglas are on DND land and that anyone visiting needs to get a recreational pass from either Range Control on Base, or from Petersville at the gate off the highway.

The Esquilax, Part 1

Yesterday I went snowshoeing to Bald Peak.  Aside from enjoying the fresh air and the activity itself, I wanted to see how much snow had accumulated on the few boulders near the summit.  My hope was “very little” so that we could head back on some warm day soon and climb.

The boulder whose name I can’t remember could be topped out, but there’s a fair bit piled up at the base.  The Esquilax had some snow in the off-width, but the crack itself was dry (despite melting temps and full sun).  The other problems on it were not climbable as there was at least 10cm of snow right to the lip.  With this week’s forecast, the chances of early March bouldering are favourable.

One of the Lodge/Smith problems, on the back side of the Esquilax.

For those who are interested, here’s a bit of a history lesson on the area:  The southern tip the Mount Douglas summit plateau is exposed granite, which rolls off southward to form 10 to 20 meters of near vertical cliff.  Climbers, who have been coming there for many decades, appropriately dubbed the area Bald Peak.  Some Nerepis Valley residents, refer to it as Devil’s Rock.

Most of the visitors are hikers.  The face probably sees more ascents on one Saturday in September (a UNB Rock & Ice event) than the other 364 days combined.  Over the years many people have explored nearby and scrambled up some short cliffs or one-move boulders, but there’s not much there.  I know of only twice when people ventured to the top, specifically with the intention to boulder (and find more).

The first party was made up of Jon Lodge and Derrick Smith, who walked much of the South and West slopes of Mount Douglas.  In the process they established a couple of boulder problems just below Bald Peak, dozens at the Ski Hill (adjacent to the cliff known as Mount Doug), and came across the cliff that became Sunnyside.  The specifics of their ascents have mostly been forgotten.  Hopefully one of them will read this and pass along some details.

A few years later, Jeff Hum and I tried to follow their steps.  It was a sweltering and humid day.  Hum was hung over.  We had to stop for a rest and to re-hydrate before reaching the summit.  I had some lunch.  He fell asleep.  I wandered off and discovered a few things.  1) We were one turn, and less than 100 paces away from the summit.  2) Derrick had left his toque beside a boulder and it was only partially decayed. 3) Esquilax exist!

After finding the hat, I went to the base of the steep overhang (that matched their description and whose sharp crystals still had some chalk on them), squeezed onto the exposed slab and hopped down the back side.  There, I came face to face with dark eyes, massive buck teeth, long whiskers, and a pair of 25 cm ears on a head the size of a volleyball.  We stared at each other in disbelief for a few seconds, then it slowly turned it’s grey body away and hopped a couple times.  It’s  white rump was at least 30cm wide.  Just before takeoff, with thick legs extended, it’s little tail was almost half a metre from the ground.  It stopped, looked back at me long enough for me to confirm it had the head of a rabbit and not a lynx, then turned again and in three slow graceful bounds disappeared into the woods.

Reeling from this experience, I looked up at the boulder.  Nearly a 2 metre roof split by a crack.  It’s spectacular! How could they have missed this?

I went to wake Hum.  On our way to the boulder we got turned around in the thicket and emerged at another boulder that looked worthwhile.  We immediately went to work on it.  Once we got some shrubs and branches cleared out, we realized we were just a few metres from the Lodge/Smith boulder problems.  No wonder they missed the roof crack!

J Hum back in the early 2000's on the boulder we didn't name.

After a blown out shoe and a few FA’s, the heat had taken it’s toll on us and we packed up to leave.  Passing the roof crack, we stopped in awe.  I couldn’t resist. I had to do this thing.  Easy face moves lead to the crack.  I started at fingers, then a hand jam, a fist for the next move.  I remember cutting my feet loose and swinging from an arm bar to do a heel-toe near the lip, then an off-with top-out.  I dubbed it The Esquilax and I remember it as being the nicest boulder problem I’ve ever done.  The rock, the moves, the setting, the exposure, everything.

The roof is not quite 3m off the ground, and just left of the frame, the flat landing drops of pretty far, making for some exhilarating exposure!

Isn't it gorgeous? Hopefully a real photographer will come for the next ascent and get some better shots.

I couldn't back up any further, but enough to show the snow in the off-width.

I plan to climb it again this spring.  It will be interesting to see if it holds up to the high status my memory has instilled upon it.  I’ve climbed hundreds of problems in the years since the first (and only) ascent, so for the past while I feared it may not.  Revisiting it yesterday though, it looks exactly as I remembered.  Stay tuned...

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.

We Found It!

Back in the fall of ‘98, back when bouldering was just picking up as a pursuit of it’s own, back when Zig was known as Ziggy, he bought a crashpad.  For some at UNB Rock & Ice, it was the first one we’d seen.  Keen to put it to use, he convinced a handful of us to take a trip from campus to this big boulder that was supposed to rest somewhere between Bald Peak, and the quarry in Welsford, NB.

The way I remember it, Zig(gy) had heard about a boulder that had been climbed free or used by the previous generation to practice aid.  He had some idea of where it might be, but wasn’t sure about any of it.  Chris, Eddy, Jordy, and I joined him.  We were not really sure what we were getting into, but certainly it was going to be better than studying.  

We parked at the Welsford School, back when it actually was a school, and walked across the ball field to the Bald Peak trailhead, then turned left and down the overgrown road to the abandoned quarry.  Ziggy suggested we keep our eyes peeled for anything that might be a boulder since all he had gathered from his research were the three boundaries (road, quarry, trail) that encompassed a rather large and densely forested slope.  As he led the procession, the rest of us were quickly distracted by the novelty of watching a black rectangle with matching legs waddle ahead, so we didn’t do a good job boulder spying.  

Without a word (those of you who know him, probably didn’t need me to write that) he dashed from the road and up the hill.  The slope looked no different here than anywhere else, but we followed him and a few minutes later we were at THE boulder.  At its base was a handle from an old wire brush, with less than a dozen rusty bristles remaining. On the other side were a few stumps that had obviously been sawn many years previous as they were showing a fair bit of rot.  We cleaned off some dirt, moss, and lichen exposing a couple of really easy problems, that even then weren’t considered anything but descent options.  The real climbing was on the other side, but it seemed impossibly hard.  Even an aid ascent would be difficult to imagine.

Nearby, and towards the quarry, we found a number of smaller angular boulders with a problem or two each.  Actually, judging by some of the drill scars, they were probably part of the quarry.  We spent the rest of the day on these, and getting footage for “Bouldering, EH?!” the first production by ZigTV.  (Highly recommended, by the way, to anyone with a sense of humour and an interest in what it used to be like back when UNB R & I membership was about 12 misfits, back when there were not much more than 12 boulder problems in the province.)

Top to bottom: Zig, Eddy, Chris, back in 1998

A couple years later Eddy moved to BC, then Korea.  I went to Montreal.  Ziggy moved to Halifax, and Chris to Vancouver.  I’m not sure where Jordy went.  He did end up back in Fredericton last I knew, but no longer climbs around these parts.  

Five or six years after that first and only visit, with a crash pad to call my own, I decided to go find this boulder again.  I spent hours back and forth between the road, quarry and trail, but could not find it.  I went back later in the week and tried again. No luck.  Hummer joined me one day. We found a couple near the top of the trail, but didn’t find THE boulder.  I asked Zig and Chris if they could remember any details of it’s location.  They had nothing, but thought I was looking in the right area.  I asked some of the older generation climbers if they knew where to find it.  They did not.  

I’ve lost track of how many times and over how many years I’ve searched for that thing.  I tried when the underbrush was blanketed in crusty snow, in the spring before the leaves obstructed the view, in the fall so something might look familiar...  The best I could do was find the small angular stuff, but that was easy (to see and to send) because it was right on the edge of the quarry.

Fast forward to March of this year, and Dom and I went to Sunnyside.  It wasn’t sunny, and was colder than forecasted.  Our early March climbing day came to an early end.  With time and energy to burn, we decided to hike out to a boulder he found in the fall near the cabin, then to explore the area between the quarry, road, and Bald Peak trail for the elusive boulder.  Unless you’ve forgotten the title of this post, you know that we found it.  And it is as tall and as blank as I remembered!

This past Monday evening, Dom, Matt and I, went back out to the boulder.  Despite having left a trail marker in March, I did manage to get us temporarily lost on our way in, but we did get there.

We only took a couple of attempts each at the central gem. A route up the tiny sloping holds spread far on the overhanging face is climbable.  If we can figure out good beta it will be at least V6.  More likely it will be much, much harder.  Since nearly every feature is sloping and left facing, I doubt there are clean aid placements, and there are no scars from hammers/drills or seams for pins.  It is amazing to think that this was climbed in high-tops, by a local “nobody” (not some sponsored pro legend), without a pad, and without fanfare some 25 years ago.

Left to right, Tito, Dom, Matt, this week on the mysterious, legendary and elusive boulder in Welsford, NB