If this has been posted somewhere and/or every fredericton climber already knows about, and has climbed them... well... apologies, I'm an idiot.
If not:
The boulders themselves are fairly lowball; somewhere between 5.5-6ft tall roughly.
That being said, they are freakin' awesome!
Despite their height, if you apply some rules/ethics to climbing them, they can make for some really challenging problems!
Rules we came up with;
- 1 - No using the actual holds that are bolted onto the boulders. This is for 2 reasons; One: it makes it way too easy to get around. Two: 3/4 of the holds on the damn boulder are spinners and you'll just end up on your ass if you try and use them anyway. We may bring a tool from the gym to tighten them in the near future, if we think a specific route we've set would benefit from using an actual hold. So far though, we find its more fun and ramps up the difficulty quite a bit if you only use features of the boulder, no holds.
2 - No using the top-edge of the boulder (the corner of the top-out lip) during your climb (unless you are topping out). This is because the entire top-out edge acts like a giant jug, always in reach, no matter where you are on the boulder. As such, for the same reason as the holds, we ruled it out... it makes it to easy.
These are just our silly rules we made up to make it a challenge though; climb on them as you see fit!
The boulders are excellent for;
- Challenging traverses
- Location - aside from the under development Woodlot and the UNB R&I Gym (which is right around the corner!), these boulders provide some of the close-to-home fun climbs for locals.
- A super fun after-work evening of first checking them out, discovering the holds and features, etc. It'd be like installing a new wall at the Gym, for example... that type of excitement. New features!!
- Really really sweet overhanging sections, with awesome slotted underclings built right into the boulder... the beauty of these boulders is that despite their size (roughly 10ftx10ftx6ft), you can find some really challenging routes and traverses pretty easily!
The downsides of the boulders;
- The "artificial rock" surface they applied to the boulders hurts your hands... especially if you don't use the holds themselves. It's not unbearable - but you will certainly feel it after you've climbed for a bit. That "raw" feeling you get on your finger(tip)s when climbing in the gym for a long time ends up happening a lot sooner on these boulders, and it isn't a great feeling.
- There are 2 boulders, but they're actually identical boulders, just rotated slightly differently. As to why the Centre Saint-Anne felt the need to buy two identical boulders... I have no idea. Seems to me it makes more sense to invest in two differently shaped boulders... but whatever. This, however, can also be an upside! If you climb on them and find a sweet route with a friend, you can both climb the route at the same time, just each use 1 boulder.
- Eventually (Caleb and I are starting to get to this point), you memorize the boulders. You memorize which holds are spinners, which aren't, which features are good holds, which ones to avoid, etc... so for us, the fun of discovering and exploiting the boulders is starting to fade
They're right in my, Emma and Caleb's back yard (Magee / MacLeod Houses) so their location is particularly awesome for some evening training every night. Pretty sweet view of the sunset too, recommend climbing here when it has cooled down between 8:30 and 9:30 PM!
For now I'll provide 2 pictures and when I go tomorrow night I'll upload lots more showing all sides & features.
Happy climbing!
