Jack's Arete

I am Jack's Raging Bile Duct.
I am Jack's Cold Sweat.
I am Jack's Complete Lack of Surprise.
...I am Jack's Arete.

Anyone Remember Fight Club? Jack was the name of the dude who lived in Tyler and the Narrator's house before they became squatters and formed Fight Club. This movie left it's impression on the crew of original Nova Scotia bouldering developers. Several areas and problems are named from references in the movie.

Jack's Arete is a tough V4 on the house boulder. It's a classic LOC slopey arete and a must do, but beware this little gem has sent many a hard man packing.

"This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time."

JACKs Arete***, 15ft, V4 – Climbs the arête starting on shallow flakes and eventually onto a very sloppy ledge on the face near the top. Fantastic and rarely done successfully.
description from Greg Campbell's unpublished guide.




Bouldering Nova Scotia - Jack's Arete from Todd Foster on Vimeo.

Porcupine Fortress - A fun day trip

The Porcupine Fortress area is small, but dense. It sports some of the biggest freestanding boulders I have seen in Nova Scotia and the rock is heavily featured. In most cases the landings are not bad, although there are some exceptions. The area offers potential for V0 to V13 problems, with everything in between. Since it is on Crown land, camping is an option. The one drawback is the distance from Halifax (45 minutes).
Description from Teth Cleveland's Site

I had initially planned to include Porcupine Fortress in Eastern Tide. We made two trips down to film some of the better boulder problems and had gotten some good footage, unfortunately i had a mishap with one of the tapes and it got totally munched up in my deck. I even attempted to take the DVCam tape apart to fix it with no success.

It was early in the spring, the swamps were thawed and the bugs were just starting to come out so i never got back to make up for the lost tape and so the porcupine fortress footage remained in the archive.

Watching the footage again reminded me of how fun this little bouldering area around Hubbards can be. This area sees little traffic so i'm sure the project i left undone is still waiting...

Here is the first installment from Porcupine Fortress.
Problems in order of appearance: Quill V-0, Quiver V4, Confidence V-4


Porcupine Fortress from Todd Foster on Vimeo.

Music By:Misfilter "Like an Angel"
http://misfilterband.com/

Diamonds

We began Developing the bouldering area know as the Land of Confusion during the winter of 1998/99. Major development continued for several years, mostly in the winter. It was during those early years that i bough a Digital Hi8 camera and attempted to capture as much of that development as i could.

At that time the professional cameras were just too heavy and expensive to be draggin into the scrub of the LOC. Once the advent of the MiniDV came along i virtually abandoned the Hi8. The quality just would not stand up next to the new DV format. Because tape itself was relatively cheap i never reused a tape. Also with small format tapes the oxide would not always hold up on multiple passes and i never wanted to take the chance of missing a moment due to tape issues. Much of the early footage never made the cut in Eastern Tide and sat in boxes until recently.

Anyone who has done any amount of development in the inland areas around Nova Scotia (that's only a hand full of people) knows that the holds are not to be trusted on new problems. This was especially true in the LOC. I can't remember how many little flakes broke off of new problems leaving them devoid of any "holds".

The footage quality is not good and this was really before i has started shooting seriously but it's still an interesting look at what we had to deal with when developing the LOC. Dirty, wet, crumbly holds, waist high brush, bad hair and even worse fashion.

For your enjoyment an early first ascent (FA) by Lance Thruster of a problem in "The Strip".
Diamonds - V2


Diamonds from Todd Foster on Vimeo.

Visage Coupe - V7

I believe roughly translated it means slash face. This is the hardest boulder problem at Chebucto Foot but certainly not the most dangerous. It's amazing that this problem is ever doable. The black rock is a stark contrast to the orange granite at this seaside spot and is like that because of the frequency that the waves hit it.
If i recall the landing is a bit slippery there. When watching the video you will notice that the spotters have disappeared in the wides shot. Did the ocean take them away? I'm sworn to secrecy.



Visage Coupe - V7 from Todd Foster on Vimeo.