I don’t know whether to laugh or cry over this one.

Ostensibly we pick the route because it’s open. Secretly I pick the route because it’s 5.9- G and therefore On The List. I haven’t told Todd yet that I’m going to lead the crux pitch, but I fully intend to.

Let me spoil the suspense by saying that the 5.9- part went very smoothly. It was just hard enough to give me a huge charge when I did it but not so hard that I had to stand there for half an hour first. Ten minutes tops. No, it wasn’t the 5.9- that got me, proving once again that 5.9- is kind of a gimme rating at the Gunks, rather it was the 5.8 first pitch.

I pull through the pumpy first few moves and lead up quickly to the tiny roof near the end of the first pitch. It’s a small roof, so small in fact that you can easily stand beneath it and still have fully half your body over it. No, the challenge of this rooflet lies not in its sharp, well-protected outthrust but in the smooth slabby rock above it.

There’s only one hold above the roof, that’s the problem. I wish I could say that it’s a height thing, that I can’t reach that solitary hold, but that wouldn’t be the truth. I can reach it all right. I just don’t like it.

If I could only crank my left foot up over the roof I think I’d be OK, but my feet aren’t quite high enough, or my hip joints aren’t quite flexible enough, to maneuver myself over the lip. I need to bounce the right foot higher, to smear it, in other words, and I so don’t want to. I keep eyeing the fall behind me.

Which is perfectly fine, in case you’re worried.

I add a third piece to the crack beneath the roof and start equalizing. I have the sinking feeling that Todd is going to come up here and pull right through this and that, worse yet, so am I once I’m not on lead. But no matter how many times I try I can’t find a sequence that guarantees results without consequences, and I’m so damned anti-consequence these days.

I lower off and let my ropegun take over. I watch him approach the roof, waiting to be shown up. What’s this? Todd has taken one peek over the roof and is now traversing right.

“There aren’t any holds up there,” he says.

“But that’s not our route,” I protest as he gets farther and farther away. Now ten feet out with no gear in, he’d better find an easier place to pull the roof. Or come back where he belongs.

Todd makes what looks like a balancy step up over the dwindling roof and traverses back left again. As he leads the remainder of the first pitch and runs it into the second pitch, I’m left scratching my head. Is the roof 5.8? Should I have gone to the right? Should I have more faith in my ability to recognize a non-5.8 roof when I see one? I assumed the route was 5.8 and I wasn’t, but perhaps it was the other way around.

Todd hasn’t placed any gear on his detour. That leaves the way clear for me to find the answers out for myself.

I climb up to the roof. Fifteen seconds later I’m over it. I think Todd is losing it.

“I don’t even see how you reached that hold,” Todd says.

“But you didn’t even try,” I argue. And neither did I really. When Todd chose to run away from the roof instead of pull it I had a brief respite from the demons in my head, but now they’re back.

Try the move. Take the chance. Try the move. Take the chance. Stop being such a weenie.