New 5.13 at New Brunswick’s Utopia Crag
New Brunswick has a number of good climbing areas that are often made of solid granite. Utopia is the province’s newest sport crag with around 30 bolted routes up to 30 metres.
Jon Adamson has recently sent Send Badge 5.13a, which is the second route up the big overhanging wall called Sunnyvale Wall.
On ClimbEasternCanada.com, he said, “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. Thanks to Peter Adamson and Kristen Maillet for the help putting this route up, and thanks to Kris for the awesome photo [below].”
While there are a number of bolted projects up the steep granite, the other sent route is Inversion 5.12c. For a complete list of routes as of 2015 see the online guide here. Utopia is about 4.5 kilometres north of St. George and has a number of open projects. The most difficult route listed in New Brunswick is Slam Piece 5.13d, which was sent by Seb Pacey-Smith this year at Gondola Point. Follow along with East Coast news here.
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