Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Livin' Local: Lynn Woods & Castle Rock

Despite ambivalent New England weather and Ben's cookies, we got to make it outdoors a couple times this weekend.  Bennie's in town and he brought the LEGENDARY psyche (albeit with a certain acridness).  We got beaten up by the Gulu Gulu on Friday, so Saturday started slow.  Woke up dehydrated from buff chick pizza, with the previous night's jazz cover of SpottieOttieDopalicious ringing in my ears.



                        hello

By 2, the sunshine and warm weather had made its presence obvious (until it started drizzling 30 minutes later).  We inveigled AB and hopped in the car to explore Lynn Woods.  We'd been there once and hadn't really seen the meat of the place.  The preserve is HUGE.


We decided to search for the Weetamoo area.  Definitely took a wrong turn somewhere but ended up finding some other cool blocs.  We skipped some early teasers in lieu of a longer band further on.  It had some great lookin lines, but when we got on they were hard as nails. ¡SHUTT DOWN!

                               blort

There was an amazing crimpy line that we tried a few times to no avail.  Razor holds and vanishing feet weren't doin' it...

                                         Nicky likes?

So we bounced and headed back to a balancing boulder we passed earlier.  Around back there was a burly shorty which used some cool pinches and edges to ascend the arete.  Super fun.

                                     Bennie's Balancing Beta, Gym Rat, V3

                                ...sussing a variant

We tried some other hard stuff and got junked...3 hours, 1 Boulder Problem, 0 Complaints (too cheesy?)

                      I'm a muthafucking Monsterrr!...Liquid Nails, V9

Today we got inspired to get off our asses late in the afternoon.  Luckily, the extra sunlight the comes with spring, offered us a few hours to explore. As it turns out, a beach in Marblehead has some boulders, pebbles, and seacliffs.  Walking down the narrow cobblestone beach path, we really had no idea what to expect from Castle Rock and then...BOOM!!!  The place exploded before us.  There must have been like 20 problems in a 1/10 of a mile beach strip.

<= That's Bennie lookin' cool on a climb called The Outpost.  Kinda burly, but had some awesome 2-finger pockets and thumb-catch pinches.

                                        Aaron crushing The Outpost, V1

 Make a flip book:
                                         Step 1

                                         Step 2

                                         ...I'll Stop



After that we made our way to little crevasse which had a pretty route on the smoothest granite you'll ever find (camera died but think we got some celly footage).  It's on a band about 17 feet tall with a seemingly infinite array of overhung slopey climbs.  Definitely going back with a pad asap.


A moment to reflect:  This weekend really drove home the point that it's not so much about the destination as the route (no pun).  We weren't all that great at sniffing out the klassik problems but we had two memorable days of curious hiking and laughable punting. Reminded me of that saying that French saying: J'ai appris que tout le monde veut vivre au sommet de la montagne, sans savoir que le véritable bonheur réside dans le maniére de l'escalader.

"I learned that everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, without knowing that true happiness lies in the way of climbing it"

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