Simpson wall

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Simpson wall

Postby Dom » Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:53 pm

Right underneath the dead tree with slings is a huge death block that is ready to come out on Marge 5.6 on Simpson wall. I didn't dare to trundle it out as I had two dogs running around at the bottom of the climb. Please tread lightly or better yet, Hop on Excellent Smithers 5.8, Homer 5.6, Dooh 5.7 or Springfield 5.8.

Those are some sweet routes we did recently.

Dooh is probably my favourite route on Simpson. Not sure if we used the right start but we went in that awesome moderate layback dihedral and then exited right through the middle of a roof. It says 5.7 R in the guidebook but I found the R part pretty easy and the crux roof had bomber gear in it. One could even protect in the R part on the left.

It's really dirty though: why don't people climb it more? STOP RAPING SNAKEPEEL EVERY WEEKEND AND HOP ON DOOH!!!! my 2cents. And don't pull that it's 130 feet BS. Trail a rope and be done with it. Better yet get someone to lead a route next to ya and meet at the anchor. Two rope rappel. OK I'll stop ranting, the important thing to remember from this is Marge is dangerous, Snakepeel is overdone and Dooh is rad. :mrgreen:
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby theriault » Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:17 pm

Well said Dom! +1 on that speach!!
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby *Chris* » Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:33 pm

What a sales pitch!

"Walk away from one of the best moderate cracks in N.B. and go climb an admittedly dirty, R-rated slab." Dom

I love it. :P
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby GKelly » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:40 pm

I certainly appreciate your opinion on some lesser known routes. We climbed some unstarred routes on the far left (striated maybe?) on the weekend and they were heck'n great. Kockhorse and flaky rib I think? Kockhorse has got to be the craziest 5.4 ever.
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby *Chris* » Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:11 pm

GKelly wrote:I certainly appreciate your opinion on some lesser known routes. We climbed some unstarred routes on the far left (striated maybe?) on the weekend and they were heck'n great. Kockhorse and flaky rib I think? Kockhorse has got to be the craziest 5.4 ever.
I've got the evidence.
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby Fred » Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:04 pm

You can actually rap Simpson from the bolt anchor with a 60m rope. It will get you to within 12ft or so of the ground and you can downclimb/scramble the bottom easy bit. Untie one knot from the end of the rope then let your ATC catch the other knot to pull the rope down with you.

Simpson is a great little wall. We should clean some of the other routes.
I want to go to hell... there's probably lots of rock to climb there.
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby Dom » Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:26 am

*Chris* wrote:What a sales pitch!

"Walk away from one of the best moderate cracks in N.B. and go climb an admittedly dirty, R-rated slab." Dom

I love it. :P

I wasn't saying that Dooh is better than Snakepeel. I'm simply saying that some people will climb Snakepeel 5-10 times in a season and never touch other good obscure moderate routes. As you can see I don't work in marketing. :mrgreen:

GKelly wrote:Kockhorse has got to be the craziest 5.4 ever.


Agreed What a route!! Let's see a 5.10 gym climber on it mouhaha!! :wink:

Fred wrote:You can actually rap Simpson from the bolt anchor with a 60m rope.


The routes to the right of Slime mold 5.4 don't end up close to the bolted anchor. What we did to rap we walked over to the anchor of Comrades in destiny and rapped all the way down. We had a 70 though...Dunno if you reach the bottom from the Anchor of Comrades in Destiny with a 60 in one rappel. (in front of I wouldn't rather be anywhere else) You could do it in 2 rappels though as there are a lot of trees there or even rap to sheet of glass area and hike down.
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby *Chris* » Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:14 am

I'll put in a pitch for Comrades. Get off Snakepeel and go climb this. It's an impeccably clean and varied crack that eats good gear and gets nice sun. Get on this one!
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby Shawn B » Thu Mar 31, 2011 1:06 pm

Can't remember sitting here at my desk for sure but I think you may have combined two routes Dom if you used the corner. I believe for Dooh I stayed on the face between the big brush/moss/grass filled gully and the shallow corner. The corner was a different route. Steve might be able to remember better and I'm sure he'd have it documented somewhere. I do remember Dooh being rather exciting and had some pretty good runouts. Some of the rock in the roof area also "creaked" a bit. I could tell you better if I were at the cliff.

Also from what I have been told where Comrades goes is the same route we took for Springfield. Have to agree with Chris this is a very nice route and deserves some tlc. Split for me for the best route on the wall between Springfield and Homer.

An interesting tidbit...all routes on this wall were done ground up on-sight clean as you go. Most were done on hot summer nights and we were dirty. Clean lichen and moss off hand hold, clean other hand hold, clean foot holds, move up, dig dirt out of the crack for pro, repeat, adding in a slip on the lichen here and there for excitment. Definitely an under utilized wall with great moderate trad routes. Just so hard to keep it clean as the sun never hits the bottom of the routes due to foliage.

I believe but have never confirmed with Rob that Dooh may have actually been done by him prior as "a little r&r". Not sure if it was ever documented outside of the sign in books.
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby Dom » Fri Apr 01, 2011 8:15 am

Shawn B wrote:Can't remember sitting here at my desk for sure but I think you may have combined two routes Dom if you used the corner.


That's right, I'm looking at the guidebook right now and it says the corner is Bart 5.6 G and the roof is Dooh 5.7 R. Mixing both routes takes the best part of both routes IMO.
As for the choss, there is a bit underneath the roof, but not in the roof proper. I was able to put bomber gear in there without worrying that the roof explodes on me.


Shawn B wrote:Also from what I have been told where Comrades goes is the same route we took for Springfield. Have to agree with Chris this is a very nice route and deserves some tlc. Split for me for the best route on the wall between Springfield and Homer.


I agree with Chris that Comrades is a nice route. I have always done this route from a ledge to the left of Dawn wall. I use the fallen tree and the fix rope to get to it. This makes the route about 50 feet of some of the best granite in Welsford.

When I did 'Springfield' I started from the bottom of Simpson wall. Only about 5-10 feet at the very end were shared between the two routes because on Springfield I stay to the left and Comrades I'm more on the right.

So to me they are pretty much different routes hehehe. I guess I climbed those wrong too. ohh well Fun routes/variations nevertheless.
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby Burley » Mon Apr 04, 2011 10:12 am

Dom,

Personally I don't think you can climb anything wrong if you leave the ground, get to the "top" and make it back to the ground alive. I was looking at a loonnngg traverse yesterday - why the heck not? It is what I want to do and that is really all that matters since I climb for me and the partner that is with me at that time. Variations can be great too.
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Re: Simpson wall

Postby Dom » Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:46 pm

Burley wrote:Dom,

Personally I don't think you can climb anything wrong if you leave the ground, get to the "top" and make it back to the ground alive. I was looking at a loonnngg traverse yesterday - why the heck not? It is what I want to do and that is really all that matters since I climb for me and the partner that is with me at that time. Variations can be great too.


I agree! I just meant that I did not climb those routes according to their description so I guess it wasn't wrong. I happened to climb them differently.

You guys were in CL yesterday? Was anything dry for free climbing?
I was in Sunnyside horsing around and was only able to do 3 climbs. Wish I had a snorkeling mask though hehe! :mrgreen: Had fun anyways and I even climbed Superstar shirtless. That's how hot it was in the sun.
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