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Northwest Branch

Posted on 05. Feb, 2010 by B3 in News

Wednesday I arrived in Washington, DC for the ABS Nationals Season 11 Championship. I am here as part of a four person setting crew which includes Chris Danielson, Scott Mechler and Kyle McCabe. Most of the wall from the World Cup in Vail this year was driven out and is currently being reassembled inside, which should make for a really nice competition. Qualifiers begin a week from tomorrow and finals the day after. The comp is being held in Sportrock, Alexandria, VA and I hope to have photos and updates as the week goes on, particularly of the comp. itself. The crew is awesome and motivation from the setting crew is very high.

I was really hoping for a chance to get outside and tick off at least one new state in my V10 quest. Wednesday was cold, but today was really quite nice, as the sun was out for most of the day. I procured a pad and drove out to Northwest Branch, at the recommendation of James O’Connor, who I regularly climb with at CATS. It took a while to find the area, but I eventually stumbled upon a small parking lot in the midst of East Coast suburban madness.

Northwest Branch Parking Lot

The boulders were obvious and thankfully one side of the gully faced somewhat south. This left the hillside fairly free of snow and I quickly found my objective. I had several options, but due to the snow, the only feasible one was a V11 called Prelude to Crimps. The rock was fairly poor, but I was motivated to just see new boulders, and tick one off the list.

Crimps

I climbed the stand start Crimps V9, as a miserable warmup and proceeded to have a go at the sit. I tried to be as efficient as possible with skin conservation, beta and attempts. After doing all the moves I took a nice rest, calmed my mind down and climbed the problem.

Prelude to Crimps V11

I find much motivation in visiting these out of the way places and today was no exception.
I can’t thank James and Phil London enough for providing the beta to get me here!