Tuesday, December 27, 2011

10.2.2011 Good Luck Mountain

Good Luck Mountain is in the Southern Mountains region of the Adirondacks.  The drive from Troy was only ~1.5 hours, so not too bad.  From the trail head it was another 30 minutes until we reached the spot we ended up climbing.  It had rained heavily the day prior so there was lots of wet rock and much of the trail was swampy and wet.  I heard that there were some boulder problems around here, so I went out to EMS with Cam the night before and bought a bouldering pad for some extra protection.  We didn't end up bouldering because of the rain, but we did use the pad to cover some areas of the rock that would have "been in the way" of a fall.  Luckily, I got to carry the bouldering pad while Charles and Cam made the approach with heavy packs of food, gear, and extra clothing.
 This is the area where we stopped to do some exploring.  We probably spent close to 40 minutes spelunking and following a pink string that someone had put out to mark a "trail".  After a bit more scrambling we got to a wall with some nice climbs on it, but it was soaking wet.  Cam and I came back for an overnight trip to climb there a couple weeks later.
 This area was protected from the rain so we unloaded and tried to find something dryish to climb.  There were no routes in the guidebook for this specific area, so Cam picked out a crack on lead to see where it went.  He later named this route Submarine (5.9+ G, 50').  Here it is looking up at Submarine from the bottom.
 Charles belaying Cam on the lead.
 The climb ended up being longer than we expected, which was a pleasant surprise.
 Here I am thinking out a section that I was stuck on.  The rock was great, nice and textured.  You can see Cam's legs here.  We decided to belay for this route on an upper ledge instead of from below where Charles was in the photo before.
 I ended up making it past the tough move and making my way up the route.
 Almost to the top anchor.
 Charles' turn to give it a try from the bottom.
 Passing by the belay spot for a nice photo op.
 Cam belaying Charles, notice the Lichen that covered a lot of the rock here.
The weather wasn't optimal for this trip, but you'll see that it gets a lot better here when it is dry.  There are plenty of quality climbs.

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