Climbing in VT

A couple Christmases ago, Holly bought us the New England Bouldering Guide, knowing that it would entice us to get our butts up there to go climbing. We obviously wanted to climb during this trip (even though we were both injured – boo) but didn’t know how we were going to get crash pads. I got a hold of one of the owners of the rock climbing gym in Burlington and she said that she would get some pads for us to rent. This was a couple months ago. Fast forward to our trip – I hadn’t heard from her since then so when we arrived in VT, I called asking about them and the guy on the line said that they didn’t rent any out. So…I guess there was a mix up of information and we figured we wouldn’t be getting any pads. I wasn’t about to give up, so Tom and I drove up the mountain to Smugglers Notch hoping we would find some other boulderers that could help us out. After about an hour of exploring, we ran into a couple of guys, Lex and Sam, who turned out to be our salvation. After introducing ourselves and explaining our situation, they told us to come out the next day and climb with them and we could use their pads. We were thrilled…and they turned out to be the nicest guys ever! We kind of adopted Lex as our brother and we ended up hanging out with him a lot during the trip. He’s a snowboard instructor in Stowe during the winter and bouldering has become his summer sport. He invited us to come back to VT early next year for some free private snowboarding lessons! How cool is that!? So we told him that he would have to come down to Tucson during the mud season next year so we could take him to Hueco. Needless to say, we got to do some bouldering up on the Notch and it was great. My ankle did pretty well and Tommy’s finger didn’t bug him too much. We were just happy we got to get outside and meet some really cool people.

The first problem we got on - Primate V3
Lots of heel hooks...on my good ankle so it was ok. =)

Group pic - Lex, Henry, me and Sam - they loved the boys =)
Family pic
Lex took us long boarding one afternoon - there was a HUGE vacant parking lot at the bottom of the ski area that we skated around in. It was sooo much fun. Tommy and I had never done it but we did pretty well
Tommy tearing it up down the parking lot
One of the coolest problems we got on - Skirt Roof V3
Super fun
Tommy's turn
The top out was a lot of fun
Mantling to the top
The boys hanging out on a pad - I forgot to mention that the girl from the climbing gym emailed me after we met Lex and Sam and told me we could rent the pads! Ha ha...what a goat rodeo. So we ended up renting them for a couple days. It was nice to have so many.
Working on super cool problem - Nemesis V5
The whole thing is a heel hook
This problem was crazy hard - Growler V6
Really hard cross
There was nothing to grab here!
We had to say goodbye to Sam early
It was hotter than hell, so Lex took us to a local swimming hole and made us jump off the bridge! It was awesome
Showing me where to jump
My turn...
Woooooo!
Tommy's turn
Hilarious - Lex being a total goofball
Will loving the water
Henry getting to throw rocks - he loved it