Utopia New Routes

[F Côté]

I went to Utopia the other day for the first time to check it out. Very nice cliff with great potential and many established lines that look really cool. However, many of the routes were still quite mossy. I was dissapointed to see this especially at a new crag. I intend on going back to do more climbing and scrub some of the existing routes. For anyone interested in bolting routes, please clean them well. Clean routes are always way more fun to climb.

[theriault]

For anyone interested in bolting routes, please clean them well. .

New routing is a long hard and dirty process, there’s only a hand full of us in NB doing it, if more people where involved routes would be cleaner, please think about this before criticizing the work done by 2% of the community but enjoyed by the rest.

[SMW]

Speaking of bolting routes, what's up with the club drill now that Adam is MIA for a few months? Does anyone have it that could lend it out next weekend?

Assuming it's at home and not already borrowed by someone (I'll have a look and see if it's kicking around) get in touch with me by text or email. Terry also has access to our place and I think could get it for you if I'm not home.

[Terry_M]

Speaking of bolting routes, what's up with the club drill now that Adam is MIA for a few months? Does anyone have it that could lend it out next weekend?

Assuming it's at home and not already borrowed by someone (I'll have a look and see if it's kicking around) get in touch with me by text or email. Terry also has access to our place and I think could get it for you if I'm not home.

Yeah I had the drill at my place and lent it to Shawn F a few weeks back.

[Terry_M]

I went to Utopia the other day for the first time to check it out. Very nice cliff with great potential and many established lines that look really cool. However, many of the routes were still quite mossy. I was dissapointed to see this especially at a new crag. I intend on going back to do more climbing and scrub some of the existing routes. For anyone interested in bolting routes, please clean them well. Clean routes are always way more fun to climb.

Dude - are you being serious?

[F Côté]

[/quote] Dude - are you being serious?[/quote]

if I say yes, is that the wrong answer

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the work people put into the cliff and all the hours spent cleaning and bolting. I know firsthand how much time and effort it takes. I am just thinking if you put up a route, clean it to the best of your ability, thats all.

[F Côté]

And I obviously messed up the quote thing on my previous post. my bad. need to learn how dec works I guess.

[F Côté]

cec

[Dom]

Which routes are you talking about?

François, perhaps it wasn't your intention but your comment is awfully sanctimonious.

[Terry_M]

if I say yes, is that the wrong answer

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the work people put into the cliff and all the hours spent cleaning and bolting. I know firsthand how much time and effort it takes. I am just thinking if you put up a route, clean it to the best of your ability, thats all.

Most of the routes I've seen put up have been rappelled numerous times with hammers, crowbars and a multitude of brushes. The lines are pretty clean, safe and well-bolted.

Utopia is a brand new crag which gets virtually no traffic. All the routes need to see more ascents! Holds will break, whippers will be taken ... Let's be honest, most of the rock isn't of greatest quality either (some is borderline choss).

I guess you really felt the need to vocalize that these new routes aren't up to your standards of cleanliness? We need to step our game up. I for one will bring Molly Maid with me on rappel next time :0

[theriault]

if I say yes, is that the wrong answer

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the work people put into the cliff and all the hours spent cleaning and bolting. I know firsthand how much time and effort it takes. I am just thinking if you put up a route, clean it to the best of your ability, thats all.

Most of the routes I've seen put up have been rappelled numerous times with hammers, crowbars and a multitude of brushes. The lines are pretty clean, safe and well-bolted.

Utopia is a brand new crag which gets virtually no traffic. All the routes need to see more ascents! Holds will break, whippers will be taken ... Let's be honest, most of the rock isn't of greatest quality either (some is borderline choss).

I guess you really felt the need to vocalize that these new routes aren't up to your standards of cleanliness? We need to step our game up. I for one will bring Molly Maid with me on rappel next time :0

If you are not satisfied by the hard work done by others.... I hear indoor plastic routes stay pretty clean ... even in winter

[Greg]

if I say yes, is that the wrong answer

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the work people put into the cliff and all the hours spent cleaning and bolting. I know firsthand how much time and effort it takes. I am just thinking if you put up a route, clean it to the best of your ability, thats all.

Most of the routes I've seen put up have been rappelled numerous times with hammers, crowbars and a multitude of brushes. The lines are pretty clean, safe and well-bolted.

Utopia is a brand new crag which gets virtually no traffic. All the routes need to see more ascents! Holds will break, whippers will be taken ... Let's be honest, most of the rock isn't of greatest quality either (some is borderline choss).

I guess you really felt the need to vocalize that these new routes aren't up to your standards of cleanliness? We need to step our game up. I for one will bring Molly Maid with me on rappel next time :0

Also, Utopia is mostly vertical to overhanging terrain making it even more difficult to bolt, clean and project. Kudos to everyone who has been down there working on this cliff - certainly not an easy task!

[PeterA]

Just saw this, so I'll throw in my thoughts.

At a quick calculation I would estimate that there are upwards of 150-170 bolts over ~20-25 routes. If you estimate about $5 per bolt, more for rap rings, biners, fixed draws, chains, as well as drill bits, wire brushes, gas there has probably been over $2000 spent by a small handful of people over two years. Not an insignificant amount of money.

Next, we can calculate the man hours spent down there. Developing routes at utopia is quite difficult, given the steep and loose nature of the rock down there. We've spent many days on certain routes just pulling rocks off. Keep in mind, you need to put a bar behind pretty much everything on every route to make sure that the route is safe before you start bolting it. At this point you've probably spent about 3-4 hours hanging on a rope just cleaning off loose rock. Add in the time required to brush the route so you can climb it and your at 5-6 hours on a rope. Next you have to rehearse the route, dial in where the bolts are going to go, then begin the bolting process. Overall the fastest we can generally complete a route is 8 hours. On other super overhanging routes like inversion we likely have upwards of 20 hours put into the route. Project these times over the 20-25 routes, divide the time between the small number of people we have developing, and you have upwards of 400 man hours put into the cliff.

If the average work week if 40 hours per week, a small number of people have put 10 work weeks worth of effort in so that you can enjoy the routes without putting all the above work into it. And, we only paid $2000 out of our own pocket to do it! What a steal!

In short, the reason that the routes may be dirty is not because we are lazy developers. They are mossy because we live in New Brunswick, and things get mossy. Many routes have yet to see a second ascent and none have seen significant traffic yet. Even if a route is fully scrubbed it will grow back over if it doesn't see any traffic over multiple years. The best solution is to just take a brush with you when you go to less traveled routes and lend a helping hand to the cleaning process. Somebody probably put a lot of effort into it a few years ago
-PJ

[Kdemo]

In Francois' defense, his comment did not mean to offend though I understand why it struck a nerve. Some of us (myself and Franc included) are putting up a few routes there and understand how dirty the walls are and how much time it takes and will take to clean. I guess what he was trying to get across was if the person who bolts the route doesn't clean the route well, someone else will have to do it eventually... it was just a thought! But nonetheless, the long hours and money put in do not go unnoticed!

[F Côté]

I just want to say I think this has been taken way out of proportion. There was some moss on some routes. Nobody died and it didn't ruin my day. It's not a huge deal. Moss probably grows faster on that cliff since it only gets sun in the morning so might stay wet longer than south-facing cliffs and has seen practically no traffic. I didn't mean to point the finger or blame anyone although I know thats exactly how it came off. I appreciate all the work that has gone into the cliff because it's a great addition to NB climbing.
Dom, the routes I was talking about are the more slabby and vertical ones (The ones that would naturally have more moss and see a faster re-growth of moss)
On a side note, does anyone know why there appears to be bolts but no hangers on Thing 1?

[F Côté]

And I openly apologize to everyone I have offended with my poor choice of words and/or poorly delivered message

[PeterA]

On a side note, does anyone know why there appears to be bolts but no hangers on Thing 1?

I believe we took them off and put them on thing 2 because I think they were put up during the great hanger shortage, and thing 2 is the better route Pretty sure Jon plans on putting them back on at some point

-PJ

[sloaner]

I believe we took them off and put them on thing 2 because I think they were put up during the great hanger shortage, and thing 2 is the better route

I agree that thing 2 is a very fun route. Is the first bolt on thing 1 & 2 up so high because of the great hanger shortage as well? If so would you be opposed to the addition of a bolt on each route in the name of safety? I would gladly put the bolts in if you are okay with it.

[PeterA]

I believe we took them off and put them on thing 2 because I think they were put up during the great hanger shortage, and thing 2 is the better route

I agree that thing 2 is a very fun route. Is the first bolt on thing 1 & 2 up so high because of the great hanger shortage as well? If so would you be opposed to the addition of a bolt on each route in the name of safety? I would gladly put the bolts in if you are okay with it.

The 1st bolts are up pretty high because the routes were bolted ground up on lead. On thing 1 natural pro could be found down low so the 1st bolt went in when the pro disappeared and on thing 2 the tree was slung as the 1st piece and the 1st bolt was put in after that. I think Jon did Thing 1 and Steve did Thing 2 so they would be the ones to ask about putting more bolts in.

-PJ

[sloaner]

The 1st bolts are up pretty high because the routes were bolted ground up on lead. On thing 1 natural pro could be found down low so the 1st bolt went in when the pro disappeared and on thing 2 the tree was slung as the 1st piece and the 1st bolt was put in after that. I think Jon did Thing 1 and Steve did Thing 2 so they would be the ones to ask about putting more bolts in.

-PJ

I was fairly certain that the guidebook listed you as having the FA. I will try in get in contact with them (or hopefully they will see this) to see if they would be opposed to the addition of a bolt.

Thanks,
Eric

[JonA]

Utopia is still very much in development, there is still plenty of work to be done there.

I thought SteveA had the first ascent on thing 1, I didn't think I was involved in those routes (? I know we were all there , maybe it was me, I dunno). Regardless, on my list of items to be done @ Utopia was removing the trees on the slabs, and de-limbing the big birch, and adding a bolt down-low on both of those routes. I can check w/ SteveA to confirm he's ok with adding that bolt on thing1 (in case he was the one who did the FA), but I don't see it being a big problem as my attitude here is that this is a sport area. The only route I personally would like to avoid bolting is the crack at the upper end of the slabs/overhang corner.

I assume PeterA is ok with adding a bolt to thing 2 if we remove the tree.

I think thing 1 is still missing an anchor as well. Adding that anchor is on my list too. And putting hangers back on thing 1. Hopefully I'll get out there in the next week or so and get some of this done.

[PeterA]

The 1st bolts are up pretty high because the routes were bolted ground up on lead. On thing 1 natural pro could be found down low so the 1st bolt went in when the pro disappeared and on thing 2 the tree was slung as the 1st piece and the 1st bolt was put in after that. I think Jon did Thing 1 and Steve did Thing 2 so they would be the ones to ask about putting more bolts in.

-PJ

I was fairly certain that the guidebook listed you as having the FA. I will try in get in contact with them (or hopefully they will see this) to see if they would be opposed to the addition of a bolt.

Thanks,
Eric

Yeah I think it does list me as the FA but I don't think they we done by me. Pretty sure the only involvement I had was on thing 2, I was trying to bolt an extension to it but took a big whip when my foothold blew apart half-way into drilling a bolt I certainly have no issues with bolts being added though

-PJ

[JonA]

If anyone feels like adding a bolt to the start of either of the slabs, adding hangers to thing 1, adding anchors to thing 1, cutting down those trees, and cleaning the slabs I won't be really disappointed if you get to it before I do.

[JonA]

Send Badge 5.13a 30m/S(16)/R(2)
FA: J. Adamson, P. Adamson July 2016
This route climbs the large, overhanging bombay-chimney/corner just right of the giant fin on Utopia Wall. Begin in the center of the small slab under the large overhanging corner's. Climb past 3 bolts on the slab to reach a short, steeper section. Clip a long draw on the 4th bolt and move left to a corner and roof. Clip the fixed chain draw and pull up and around the large hanging block to gain the start of the corner/chimney section. Move up and right along the chimney until it is possible to exit right onto the face. Continue straight up the face past 5 more bolts to the anchor.

This route is definitely one of or possibly the coolest route I've ever been on, let alone put up. It combines hard bouldery moves, interesting chimney climbing and absolutely wild exposure. It is so good; if you can climb in this range you should check it out.

However it still requires a bit more TLC before it is truly good to go. The upper face needs more cleaning, I need to chop a couple bolts I had to move, and I may need to replace the bolt protecting the crux (with the long fixed chain) with a glue-in as the rock is a bit soft in that area and the wedge bolt is spinning in the hole. It was solid enough to hold my whips for now, and I doubt it will fail catastrophically but I don't feel I should leave it like that. I'll post up when I've finished the last bit of work.

It should be noted that despite two fixed draws this route is tricky to clean on lower. It is manageable but requires all the usual tricks for cleaning very steep routes.
Thanks to Peter Adamson and Kristen Maillet for the help putting this route up, and thanks to Kris for the awesome photo.

[JonA]

Updated Utopia Guide is available here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-iWE ... Xhuc0NsVXM