The good news is that I led four pitches of 5.9 this weekend. The bad news is that only two of them were clean. Or three. Depends how you count.

Since I’d never been to Cathedral before, I wanted to start with something easy. There’s not really that much that easy at Cathedral. Aside from standing in the Thin Air line (that comes later), we were looking at 5.7, so we did a two pitch 5.7 called Funhouse. I thought Marc’s pitch was harder and he thought my pitch was harder, which was the theme for the weekend. Maybe my lead head is finally coming around to the point where leading feels more natural than seconding, but really I think it was the pack. I don’t like climbing with a pack. My excuse is that when you’re short and light the weight interferes with your center of gravity more.

But it was hot and two pitches only took us part way up the wall, so water was a must. Once on the mid-height ledge we had to decide what to do next, so the guidebook had to come along too. And it’s a long walk back down, so the shoes were crucial. So the pack came with us, like it or not.

As soon as I joined Marc on the ledge my eye was drawn directly to the slanting flake above us. Marc was reeling off possibilities like a salesman (or like a guy holding a guidebook) but all I could say was, “What’s that?” It was Retaliation, 5.9. I said I’d do it and Marc said he’d do it and I said no, I’d do it and he said either way, so I got to do it.

First he led the short 5.6 pitch to a small ledge about 40 feet up. That’s where it gets hard. I figured I could at least hang my way up the thing but it turned out to be too hard to for that. I had to actually climb it.

The trouble with Retaliation is that it always looks like the next stance is a good stance. I’ll just do this move and then I’ll be standing there and it will be better than standing here and I’ll put in gear and have a little rest. The trouble with Retaliation is that next stance always turns out to be as bad as the last stance.

The feet were there but small – little stems on little ripples. It was the left hand that caused all the trouble. Because the flake slanted right, the left hand spent most its time hanging around feeling stupid. Left foot on the flake, right foot on the wall, right hand in the flake, left hand . . . Left hand? Here, sir! What are you doing there, left hand? Um, nothing sir. Could you maybe put in some gear? Not really, sir. The gear’s kind of over there and I’m kind of over here and . . . Then could you hold on so that right hand could put in some gear? Not really, sir. See, the holds are over there and I’m . . . Sigh. Never mind, left hand, just never mind.

I got gear in here and there. The gear was great. It would go in anywhere. Just, you know, you had to put it there. I slipped a nut in overhead because the higher I placed the better I could actually see what I was placing. It wasn’t great, that nut. I could have put in something better only it didn’t really want to come out and I didn’t want to set it that hard because the last piece was a way-ish down, and besides, I was going to get a stance after this next move.

So I did the next move and it wasn’t a stance, it was the goddamned stinking crux, and I reversed the moves and as I did I heard the click of the nut shifting and I tried to remember just how way-offish that last piece was, only when I was back at the last non-stance and the dust had settled and I looked, the nut had actually seated itself into a much better position. So I did it again.

The book gave the idea that the crux was at the hole near the top but that part was easy. Then there was supposed to be a short 5.6 pitch from a treed ledge which Marc was going to lead, only there was no tree on the ledge and there was no way that crack was 5.6. So I led it too and then there was another ledge and another crack and another ledge and another crack and eventually there was the top, so I guess it was 5.6 after all.

It’s a long walk down on pavement from Cathedral. Someone should start a shuttle business. It made my feet hurt, all that walking. Hot death-like march, except downhill.

We decided to see what the crowds were like at Recom-Beast and finding them largely non-existent, we did it. Marc led the first pitch and I fell off it. I was strolling along one of the less-hard 5.7 bits and palming against the wall and then the wall was gone and I was falling and it was only the sound of rock hitting rock that reminded me to yell rock, I was so surprised by the whole thing. Surprised and a little freaked out. This wasn’t some obvious flake or chalk-encrusted jug hanging by a thread I’d pulled off. I’d managed to push a bump off of the freaking wall. I mean, it was a sloper.

“I’m only touching holds with chalk on them,” I told Marc after we’d both established that I was fine. It didn’t bode well for our trip to the Dolomites that I was pulling off rock on a Cathedral Ledge classic, that was for sure.

So I was shaky heading towards the Beast Flake and I made a mistake. I z-clipped my two crux pieces. I can explain that. See, I was moving down and left and the piece was up and right and then the next piece was down and left but then after you do the crux moves you have to climb up a bit for a stance and to protect your second and the route slants back right and . . . Maybe I can’t explain it. I had to lower down and fix it. Personally, I’m counting that pitch as clean but I know Steven won’t, so I’m on record as only two clean pitches.

Then comes the pitch that sends Recom-Beast back into Recompense which I linked with the previous pitch. I did the low traverse. Now here are all the pros and cons:

Link the pitches, pro: rope drag is your friend on the traverse
Link the pitches, con: rope drag is not your friend on the finishing moves of Recompense P2
Link the pitches, con: big cams needed to protect the low traverse have all been used on previous pitch
Low traverse, pro: overhead protection (see caveat above)
High traverse, pro: avoids the finishing moves of Recompense P2 which are grunty and hard
High traverse, pro: it takes smaller gear that you’ll actually have on the rack
High traverse, con: looks hard

I bruised my way up the end of Recompense P2 to the belay, muttering and groaning and cursing the rope drag and putting in gear, I didn’t care whether it made life worse for Marc or not (it seemed fine but he had to go low, obviously). I felt bad for the previous team’s second who had to watch all that. I told him it always made me nervous watching someone who might be about to fall and he said he just didn’t look. So that took care of that.

Then the pitch which I most definitely didn’t get clean: the last one. I chickened out. Backed down from the last move of the crux and hung. I’ve got a lot of excuses for why that happened, so many I don’t have time to type them all.

Marc said I looked like I was about to fall over on the walk back down and it wasn’t far from the truth. Four pitches of 5.9 is a month’s worth for me. Then some nice man with a harness and a pickup truck picked us up and threw us in the back with some other climbers and it was bliss.

We took it a little easier on Sunday, starting with Repulsion which features a scary first pitch (Marc’s lead) and two tree downclimbs and ended the day on Thin Air. Thin Air is OK but, as often seems to be the case with easy “classics,” it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It’s just the easiest route on the cliff. You solo the first pitch. The second pitch is a traverse (and also the crux, never mind what the guidebook says). Then two short pitches of semi-interesting climbing and, for some unknown reason, a 20 foot 5.2 finishing pitch which the party in front of us actually led as a separate pitch.

But the position is gorgeous and the belays are all good. We didn’t wait too terribly long, considering. And it’s done now. The next time I go back to Cathedral, the one thing I don’t have to do is Thin Air.

Since Marc didn’t have the 4th off, we separated Sunday night. He crossed the border and I headed south to tend to my wounds – more bruises and scrapes than I can count. My multi-colored arms and legs triggered a realization in me that there’s something special about the Gunks: the Gunks aren’t grovelly. You can climb 5.2 at the Gunks and never leg-hump anything, never stick any part of your body into any crack, never touch the rock with anything more than the tips of your fingers and the toes of your shoes. You know what? I think I like that.

But I like cracks too, especially when I can put gear into them. Next stop: Squamish.

Saturday
Funhouse (P1: Dawn, P2: Mark)
Retaliation (P1: Mark, P2 & 3: Dawn)
Recom-Beast (P1: Mark, P2, 3, & 4: Dawn)

Sunday
Repulsion (P1: Mark, P2 & 3: Dawn, P4: Mark)
Thin Air (P1 & 2: Dawn, P3: Mark, P4 & 5: Dawn)