Andrei puts a hex on me

“You should lead Bonnie’s,” I tell Andrei.

“I’m really careful pushing my leading limit,” he says.

“Bonnie’s is cake,” I argue. “Plus you can put gear in wherever you want from practically a no-hands stance.”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, “I’ve always found it really awkward to clean gear under the roof.”

“Oh sure,” I waffle, “the roof.”

So now I’m wildly stuffing gear in under the roof from some sort of sqrunched up position I’ve never achieved before and with good reason. The first piece I throw in is a nut so bomber that the cliff would have to disintegrate around it before it would pop.

Any reasonable person would now pull through the next couple of moves with equanimity. But I’m no longer a reasonable person. I’m now a terrified sport-climbing weenie who can’t make a move without a bolt at her waist. I grab the sling from the nut and lower myself down onto it. I look sulkily over my shoulder at the crowd below (why is there always a crowd?).

“Sad,” I say. “I’ve never had to hang on Bonnie’s before.”

“Don’t grab pieces until you’re below them,” Todd tells me. It’s probably a good rule of thumb but he doesn’t know that you’d have to turn the cliff over and shake it to get the nut out so I just pout at him.

“I’m coming down,” I say. I don’t mean it yet; I’m just testing the waters.

“Then put in two more pieces,” he says. Well, sure. If I could hang up there long enough to put in two more pieces I could pull the move, couldn’t I? Which is why he’s always saying that, I think. He knows that once I have another piece in I’ll just pull the stinking move. I put a cam in near the edge of the roof and pull the stinking move. It’s just one move to the left. This is why Bonnie’s is cake. Once you get to the part where you think it’s going to be hideously hard, once you grab that first nose, it’s really all over. I used to know that.

Andrei’s fault.

True to form

You’d think that after the Bonnie’s debacle I’d spend the rest of the day top-roping quietly but when Todd mentions that Ant’s Line (5.9) is about to open up I know immediately that I’m going to lead it.

There’s no chance I’m going to get this clean – a prediction I make before even starting. But the point is to get it safely and Ant’s Line is the best protected 5.9 in the Gunks.

I make steady progress up to the crux. At one point I think about the fact that I’ve just made the three best nut placements of my life all in a row. The roof itself I plan to protect with a cam. Todd has suggested the Camalot Juniors. For once Todd is wrong. I try cam after cam in the corner at the far edge of the roof. Nothing will go in. As with the Bonnie’s roof, it’s a bad stance from which I have to place gear. I’m seriously considering the possibility that I’m going to come off just placing the crux gear and have to step down several times to rest.

Finally I give up on placing anything at the outside edge of the roof and stuff a cam in directory overhead.

“Good,” I say.

“Does that mean the pieces is good?” Todd asks and I can hear the relief in his voice.

I step back down to clip it and gather my strength as best I can. This isn’t exactly a rest down here. Then I start pulling around the roof, quickly, desperately. I know I’ve had it at one point and start looking down and back, trying to figure out how to get back to my gear.

“The next hold is good,” Todd yells up. And somewhere in me I find the fortitude to go for it. I snatch for the hold, feel my fingertips against it, understand that I’m not going to get it.

“Falling!” I yell, surprising myself. I’ve never managed anything more than a scream before. I fall down and into the corner. It takes a moment and it takes forever. I hit with a bump and then everything is still. I start to laugh.

I don’t know why it’s funny now except that I’m alive and not terrified anymore. I’ve tried so hard to avoid this, falling, that it’s unexpectedly easy to hang from the rope and look up at the cams and the crux and know that I came from there and that I’m going back up there.

I pull through easily on the second try. Better rested, moving smoothly, knowing where the finishing hold is, I make the crux look easy this time. I mantle onto the ledge, stand up, and throw my arms in the air.

“I’m alive!” I shout.

“Did you say off belay?” Todd asks.

I think he was kidding.