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.