Steven is one of my oldest climbing partners and first mentors, so he’s taught me a lot. One of the most important things I ever learned from him is “Good things happen to those who at least try to get out.” That’s why when I emailed him on Friday I anticipated that, forecast for showers notwithstanding, we’d be meeting Saturday morning as planned. He didn’t let me down.

We met in a fine drizzle at the Bakery at 8:30. It was going to be one of those days. The sky was socked in; the air itself was wet. It wouldn’t clear and if it did, it wouldn’t dry. Following my oft-repeated bon mot (when it rains, climbers go hiking and hikers stay home), we went up to Minnewaska. Starting from Lake Minnewaska, where we couldn’t see to the other side of the lake, we walked the carriage road towards Lake Awosting. Somewhere along the way, good things started to happen.

One minute I was wearing a hood. The next, I’d taken it off. The next, the sky was a brilliant blue dotted with harmless white puffs. Soon we were noticing that the rock along the sides of the trail was dry. At Lake Awosting, we sat on dry, white rock overhanging the deep blue lake and watched the wind paint patterns with ripples across the water.

“I think we should go climb something,” I said.

“I think we have to,” Steven agreed.

I was supposed to be doing Doubleissima. I was supposed to be taking a third, and possibly final, shot at it. Not in the rain, of course. Not when it had just rained, of course.

By the time we made it to the Trapps, it was nearly 1:00 but the rock was bone dry. Even the polished feet and muddy pockets at the bottom of Laurel were dry. The sky went from blue to dark grey to blue again, but the ranger on the way in said it wouldn’t rain again and Steven said if I didn’t like the way the sky looked to wait five minutes.

We ate lunch while we made the long walk. I led Sleepwalk; Steven led Groovy. The rock was dry. It was perfectly dry. The big horizontals weren’t muddy; the small horizontals weren’t sandy. “Let’s do it,” I said.

I never expected to find it taken.

Instead I led Directissima a la Todd and Steven ran up the final pitch.

And then I did it. Yes, clean.

Good things happen when you give them a chance to happen.

Sleepwalk, 5.7 (Dawn)
Groovy, 5.8+ (Steven)
Dirctissima a la Todd (P1/2: Dawn; P3: Steven)
Doubleissima (P1/2: Dawn)