There’s a temperature below which sticky rubber no longer sticks, but it wasn’t that cold Saturday morning. It was cold enough for my fingers to go numb starting Birdland, making that first lock-off move harder even than normal when I had to trust to a pebbly crimp I could see more than feel. Ever since I re-found the left hand at the crux of Birdland, it’s not the crux to me anymore. Now that first move and the moves on the second pitch get much more attention.

But it wasn’t so cold that rubber shouldn’t stick which is why it made no sense that my feet kept skating off Roseland. I looked at my shoes later and they were pretty filthy, so maybe that was it. The last time I was on Roseland, that slab beneath the traverse was running with water, so it made sense that I couldn’t trust my feet. Saturday it made no sense but it was still true.

After getting gear into the corner I tried to relax a minute and totally failed. I was hanging on for dear life, getting pumped. Then I tried to step up and move out to start the traverse but the move made no sense off those slippery feet and I found myself quickly scurrying back down. I almost gave up there. Almost said take so I could rest. Wanted to bail completely, didn’t want to do that move or the moves that came afterwards. But I jiggled my right foot around some more and got a heel scum that felt better than toeing in and relaxed enough, not to let go, though it should have been no-hands, but at least to de-pump.

And then I did it. Just like I’d rehearsed in my head. I started the traverse without trying to clip the pin and waited to clip it until I was hanging directly under it, one foot under my butt and the other dangling. Stable there. And then I made the long move right without panicking and got the second pin clipped and remembered that it was almost a stance there and made the most of it. At the end of the traverse I was pumped beyond belief but once the gear was in and I’d given each arm its turn to dangle briefly, I finished quickly. Best to get it over with, I thought, and I was right. So Roseland bites the dust finally. Good.

Then I tackled another revenge route – Outer Space. I’d backed off it one day after having a lot of trouble getting the pin clipped. It still seemed impossible to clip the pin but that’s because you get suckered into going up straight/right because of a big chalked up jug when it’s really easier to go up left – the direction you’ll be traversing anyway. The rope drag by the end was hideous. I don’t know how you protect that route without hideous rope drag but, however you do it, I didn’t manage.

Then we went to take it easy on Yellow Ridge where I led the first two pitches as one and Robin took a whipper trying to lead the third pitch. She gave out quite the bloodcurdling scream (appropriate for Halloween) but was unharmed. Then she did it again.

Birdland (P1 & P2: Dawn)
Roseland (Dawn)
Outer Space (Dawn)
Yellow Ridge (P1, 5.8 alternate start & P2: Dawn, P3: Robin/Dawn)