Todd and I leave for Yosemite at the end of the week so my focus this weekend was on mileage and multi-pitch.

On Saturday, Steven suggested I lead Snooky’s Return (5.8). I’d been on it before but didn’t remember a thing about it. He told me I’d followed it cleanly but had said I wouldn’t like to have led it. I took one look at it and knew why.

“I really need things that are pretty G these days,” I said.

“Snooky’s is totally G,” Steven said. “You can put gear in every two feet.”

“Good gear,” I qualified, eyeing the thin seam that occasionally opened into a narrow flaring crack.

“It’s bomber gear,” he insisted.

So I racked up. Well, I didn’t have to get very far off the ground (just to the crux) to realize my instincts had been right. The small nut I had in as my highest piece didn’t inspire me with confidence.

“It’s not even the smallest nut,” Steven argued. It was smaller than any non-brass nut Todd carries, so it was plenty small in my mind, but the size wasn’t really the problem. The problem was that I could see the entire nut, no part of it was hidden by a bump, constriction, or even a small crystal. The nut was held in place solely by friction and its own slight taper.

Having faith in neither the nut nor the move, I chose to come down. Steven suggested Thin Slabs Direct instead.

“This is the same route,” I said after a quick glance. “You can’t fool me.” Sure, it was 5.7 instead of 5.8 and when the crack opened up, it opened up farther, but the moves and the pro were similar – thin slab moves over small, sketchy nuts.

So Steven led it. Trying to make it look smooth, easy and well-protected, he rushed it and succeeded instead in making me giggle when he sketched through a move and then spent a few minutes fiddling with marginal gear. I was glad I’d stuck to my guns and when I sketched through the same moves following it I was even gladder. BTW, the third pitch of this route is a real attention getter at 5.7.

On Sunday I had a fear-hangover from Snooky’s and worried my way through the first pitch of Horseman’s (5.5) despite the availability of great gear everywhere. So when Todd suggested we get on City of Lights (5.7), I immediately panicked.

Now some people will tell you that City of Lights is a sandbag and I happen to be one of them. My history with the route goes like this: I led it early in my career and fell repeatedly at the crux, onto what I don’t remember because I had a sort of blind faith in gear back then, but eventually I pulled the move.

My second attempt at leading the route was more recent, during the height of my lead head crisis. On that day I made an epic out of it: climbing up, climbing down, hanging, taking practice falls, swapping gear in and out, bailing, starting up again, and, finally, pulling the move.

On Sunday I was relieved to discover that Todd meant to lead the route himself. We were after mileage, after all. Todd zipped through it, set a belay above the normal spot to avoid some congestion, and put me on. I stepped confidently up to the move . . . and couldn’t do it!

I was amazed. I had always assumed that I’d cruise the move on top rope, that my problems with it were caused by fear, or the weight of the rack, not by the move itself. Repeatedly I launched myself at the out-of-reach jug and repeatedly I slid back down the rock to my previous stance. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry (but I knew I wanted the sympathetic stranger underneath me to stop giving me beta and encouragement). Finally, I forsook all finesse and powered through it in one desperate blast.

Now I think I should try leading the route again. I won’t be afraid of it next time, I think, because now I know that I can’t do the damn move. So maybe I’ll surprise myself and do it.