I LOVE CHOSS

I've been sitting on this link for almost a year now. I wanted to share it but held off, knowing that Chris wanted to do something special with the images. Some of them appeared in a recent issue of Rock & Ice magazine.

Last winter, 2010-2011, Chris Beauchamp and I hit the Catskills pretty hard. The end result was the discovery a climbing area called the Dark Side (I'm going to post information about that soon), new route development of the upper Devil's Kitchen, and Chris's production of this album of really amazing photos.

One of the coolest aspects of the album is that 90% of the pictures are of obscure or new routes. I was with Chris many of the days, and the work involved in getting good images was substantial. Chris uses a flash for much of his work, and he frequently carried a large flash on a boom, plus a motorcycle battery to power it. The boom would get rigged off a tree, out over the cliff at the top of the route. His pack was large many days, and he routinely carried a smaller pack up front. This man is motivated!

Again, here is the link to the edited version: I LOVE CHOSS - A Visual Exploration of Mixed Climbing in New York's Catskill Mountains

Here is a less streamlined compilation with many more images from last winter.