Monday, February 27, 2012

Tentbound in Devils Bay

The idea started off as a good one: To establish new trad climbs on the amazing 1,200-foot granite big-wall rocketing directly out of the ocean in Devil's Bay, Newfoundland. But for climbers Hazel Findlay, Alex Honnold, James Pearson and Mark Synnott, the great idea soon became something much different then planned.

Though Newfoundland is relatively close to Mark Synnott's home in upstate New Hampshire, in reality, it would be easier to reach some Himalayan basecamps than get to Devil's Bay. Five days of travel by car and boat into this land forgotten by modern time, the team finally arrived only to discover adverse conditions and suffering.

Expeditions are remembered for being either great successes or grand failures. But the reality is that most of the time, they are neither. For the climbers, their experience became as much an inward exploration of their own hopes, anxieties and fears as it was an exploration of the vertical walls. "Tentbound in Devil's Bay" is a portrait of the darker side of an expedition, a side that you rarely hear about.



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