What a day...

The last few days have been warm, compared to the previous arctic weeks.    After sending my longest running project, the sit start to Busted Shadow, known to all as Serendipity moment.  I moved on the sit start of that.  Well it actually turns into a crouch start.   

The sit start

The coruch start

This new start was added by Dan Bates, a few years ago and supposedly, bumps up the grade to 8B.  I figured out some micro foot beta and hooked it up with the quickness.  This was the third accent from this “new” start. I’m not sure how hard it is, since I’ve spent half a decade trying to finish the Moment, but entry level v13 or hard v12 would add up.  After making send, my friends and I were spooked by some trucks driving around the dirt roads that surround Bradley.  I know that that doesn't sound too alarming but there have been a few events over the last couple of days that would suggest otherwise.  On Friday the water dep. posted two new “No Rock Climbing” sings at the trail head we use to access the boulders.  Then on Saturday we were asked to leave and told that we were trespassing.  So seeing these trucks driving around made us feel like there were people trying to get us.  We all ran over to an area where we would be out of sight.  This area just happened to be one of Bradley's best and since we were waiting out whoever we thought were after us, we decided to climb.  We climbed here for an hour, I surprised myself by climbing the sit start to Suspect Devise dubbed Devil Eyes V12. 

Then we left the boulders, not knowing if we will ever be allowed back.  I would suggest to anyone that is planning on making a trip to Bradley to hold off for now.  Or contact a local to see what the status is.

I know this post will upset some readers, thinking why is someone climbing and writing about a access sensitive area.  All I can say is that over the past 10 years that I’ve spent climbing at Bradley I’ve seen trends come and go.  There have been sings put up and taken down.  The Metacomet trail, which is open to the public, was moved directly in front of the main area at Bradley a few years back. People began to think that the boulders were not on the water dep. land, just the ones close to the reservoir were.  Then last year, just a 15 min walk from Bradley a new cliff was opened to the public with permission to equip it with bolds.  I think we have to find out who owns the land where the boulders sit.  So what I’m trying to say is that for now we should lay off until a settlement has been reached and all of the gray areas have been straightened out.