Spring Day at Lincoln Woods

Before I had ever even been to 'the Woods' I had heard of its gym-like qualities. "It gets mobbed there" and "There are so many variations, you should probably use tape" are the kinds of comments I'd received. And on this beautiful spring Saturday, I began to see the reality of these descriptions.
On our two previous visits, we had nearly the whole place to ourselves. One was a frigid winter day and the next was just a bit warmer.
This past Saturday began calmly enough. We started at the Tombstone Boulder and had it to ourselves for about 90 minutes, before Paul Robinson rolled in with two others to warm up. We had completed our routes, so we moved over to the hilltop boulders with Iron Cross V4 (which everyone sent quickly) and the Cave. That is when the mob scene began. The Cave Boulder is one with about 15 routes in a 30 foot section of wall. We took our turns on things like Rump to Jump, The Clutch, Neil's Lunge and New Dimension. We all got Neil's Lunge but despite good work, didn't finish any of the others.
We then scouted out a few other boulders but ended up down at the Try Again wall, which is another 15 problem wall in 30 feet of space. The crew there was working a cool V8 called Diesel. I took one go at Try Again but the ledge was just too painful for that late in the day. Kyle tried again, and again and again. The most fun route on the wall looked to be Loadies Zen V6, so after cruising to the jump move and flying right past the hold, I decided to try it statically. Although the prescribed method is a cool jump, I much prefer slow and in control, so I pinched, perched and moved slowly to the top, completing the classic route in three tries.

Lincoln Woods is a very nice and compact boulder field, which I believe is best kept for the dead of winter. I'm pretty sure that we won't return there until the crowds have dispersed and Thanksgiving has passed us by. Have a great summer RI.