Tour De Bloc - Atlantic Regionals

Saturday March 29 brought the Tour De Bloc to town for the Atlantic Regionals. Participants came from all around Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ottawa and as far away as Alberta to put on a show.


Tour de Bloc - Atlantic Regionals from Todd Foster on Vimeo.


Music from ccMixter
Be Cool
Producer: plurgid
Rap/Vocals: FORENSIC
Be Cool (Club Mix): J.Lang
beekoo: Lasswell

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description from Greg Campbell's unpublished guide.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.

Valentines Day Massacre

Here is the video from the Valentines Day Massacre held at Ground Zero Climbing Gym. This was the 7th year that Sean held the event and there was an excellent turnout again. I don't have all the standings in yet but the Winners were...


Valentines Day Massacre from Todd Foster on Vimeo.

Music by: Beastie Boys used under the Creative Commons Sample Plus License. This Track is from a collection assembled by Wired Magazine. Under this license all derivative work is distributed under the same license so you are free to mash up this video and distribute it in any non commercial way. Have fun with it.

Small Boulders put up a good fight

The Scrappy boulders are the farthest boulders on the main "Land of Confusion" loop trail and aren't the tallest of boulders either. I remember the first day we found them, i could not help but wish that they were flipped more upright. I also remember the enthusiasm for them was a bit low and someone even referred to them as the scraps ( useless, worthless, or ineffective). In Greg Campbell's guide he even refers to them as "The Scraps". Well it would not be long before these little guys put up a good fight revealing several surprisingly tough problems, 19 boulder problems in total and five V6 or harder. These boulders are now known as the "Scrappy Boulders".

Here is a re-cut of the LOC classic "Potted Plant Expert - V6" climbed by Jonathan Graham.

It should be noted that there is a excellent variation to this problem that starts with a sit start at the far left of the traverse and goes straight up. It's a bit easier and a good option for people who aren't big on lowball traverses.

The Potted Plant from Todd Foster on Vimeo.

Short but tough

Sorry for the delay on this one. I haven't been all that excited about the video quality on youtube. This clip is suffering in video quality most of all so i've been looking for options. until then....


It was the first day i had ever used my DV camera and the "Get a Grip" crew from Cape Breton were in town for some sends so we took them out for a run around Polly's Cove. First stop was"Havana Affair". It's a nice little problem at the Joey Ramone area, a perfect fit for a stubby guy like Kenny Mac.

Here is the cut of Havana Affair - V5.
Note: in the "Halifax Bouldering" guide it's misprinted as Savannah Affair. I could not find the original documentation (if it ever existed) but i believe the FA was Sean Therien on one of our first days climbing in the area.


Music Track: I like it like That(s.thaens)
By: stefsax
http://stefsax.come2me.nl

Lets see that again

I'm trying a different video sharing site to host some of my videos. I think i get better quality from Vimeo. What do you think? Here is Havana Affair again.


Bouldering Nova Scotia - Havana Affair from Todd Foster on Vimeo.

"When Stars Attack" V7 - Bouldering in the LOC

When filming Eastern Tide: One Season in Nova Scotia I tried to get as many first ascents as possible. At that time there were a lot of FA's going down and I really wanted to capture that energy. When I missed the FA I tried to get the first ascensionist to repeat the problem for the camera.

I was also anxious to get a lot of good sequences in the can. Unfortunately for many of the bouldering developers I would have them repeat the problems several times and film them from different angles until I thought I had the right sequence.

At the time of filming "When Stars Attack" was the hardest problem in the LOC loop, going at a stiff V7. I think to date it has only been repeated by a hand full of climbers. I've tried it several days out and have not been able to do the right hand cross over. I've watched the crux section a bunch and it seems to be all about turning in the right hip (I'm also sure being tall has a bit to do with it as well).

Here is a re-cut of the problem "When Stars Attack". I'm not sure where Zig got the name but it would make a great title for a reality TV series. Who's willing to go head to head with Britney?!


When Stars Attack***, 13ft, V7, SDS – Starts 6ft right of Bop Gun in the obvious fault line. Follow the fault line up and left to the lip. Much harder than it appears. Description from Greg Campbell's unpublished guidebook.
Music by: Tyrad
Song: Struttin'
http://tryad.org/