The Beginning of the End

This week marks the beginning of the end of an era for me. I am entering the last semester of my Masters of Accountancy program. This December I complete my academic career at SUU. This means change is on the horizon.  Cedar City will be left behind for a new destination.  This means a lot of changes in lifestyle but hopefully living near a climbing gym will allow me to build my level of climbing with a smaller time commitment.  This change won't come a moment too soon, as I am running out of climbs to do in the cedar area. I love establishing a new route or boulder problem but it is nice to have an established route at your limit,  already knowing that it is possible helps when you are pushing your limits.
One thing this situation that this has forced me to do is climbing in less trafficked areas.  A rediscovery was made by my good friend Ryan a few weeks ago. A week ago I finally made the hike in and find two abandoned and neglected routes located on a giant boulder.  Both routes stand only about 35 feet tall but both are steeply overhung which is a bit of a novelty for Cedar Canyon.  Upon closer inspection I found that due to flooding their was about a half an inch of mud completely coating the entire bottom ten feet of both routes. Also all the hangers have been removed, the empty bolts and cold shuts at the top are the only indication that this piece of rock ever saw an ascent.
I contacted an former local and he said that back around 2001 it was bolted but only one of them was ever able to get to the top of the routes so they quickly took the hangers and put them up on a route that they deemed more worthy.
Rachel and I hiked in yesterday armed with brushes and brooms to try and clean the routes up. Immediately we found that the mud had dried rock hard and the brushes had a limited effect.  After many failed efforts at trying to ship it away with rocks and sticks we decided to try water. Unfortunately we only brought one Nalgene bottle. Luckily the river was only about 15 feet away, after a bit of effort it started  working and the mud started to quickly slide off revealing solid gray limestone hidden underneath.  After getting very muddy we were able to clear off the bottom of both routes.  A lot of the cleaning is out of reach so rather than hang from a rope hauling buckets were have plans to head back today with homemade "waterzookas" and finish cleaning it up.
I am excited to have a new sport climbing opportunity so close to home.  It is a great setting located only feet from a river and surrounded by tall cliffs.  The routes were never documented to my knowledge and probably haven't seen an ascent since 2001. They appear from the ground to be 12+ but only time will tell.
Here are some pics of the area and the clean up.