Dawn's Climbing Blog

On a thoroughly disgusting day, steam rising from the ground, rock wet from the lingering fog, Steven and I made our way down to the Arrow wall because “if the road is dry, Arrow is dry.” It wasn’t clear that the road was dry, but the Arrow wall was certainly our best bet.

I took a huge leap of faith that it would be better up higher and offered to lead Three Doves, which was open. Since I’d never been on the route before, I led both pitches. The first pitch is easier but I got a tiny bit off-route near the top when I stepped up to the right of a pin rather than to the left and ended up with the pin a bit below my feet, no sign of gear anywhere, and unhappy with the slopey holds under such humid conditions. I finally put in a poor blue/green hybrid alien as a piece of psychological gear. Steven suggested I clip it with the Screamer, so I did, even though I was pretty sure it would pull at forces well below what it would take to activate a screamer.

The psychological gear did the trick. I made a simple step left and found that it was all alright again and the pitch was over.

The second pitch is the crux pitch. I once saw Todd making whimpering sounds there and I got to see it right close up too. I was leading the second pitch of Annie Oh, which is not the crux pitch, so I could appreciate his runout misery from the safety of my protection.

The book said the second pitch started in a corner and I thought I remembered that Todd had in fact started way over there where I could see a corner but Steven convinced me to stick to the clean rock above us, though the line between Annie Oh and Three Doves gets pretty blurry up there.

I meandered around and put in gear where I could. Not much and sometimes a move even felt a tiny bit hard but it wasn’t clear where I should be anyway. Likely there was more gear and easier moves somehwere over where I wasn’t, or on Annie Oh at least. Finally I got up to the tree from which the Three Doves line becomes more distinct. I was approaching it from very much to the right, whether that’s right or not, and had to sling it with the whole length of my cordelette, making it questionable but welcome gear.

From there, the real meat of the route began and it was ironically better protected for all its reputation. I got a couple of pieces in at the horizontal above the tree and then one more at the horizontal above that, and then a purely psychological blue/black hybrid Alien above that (although I stubbornly maintain that at least one lobe of that Alien was bomber). From there I made the step up to the pin, which I’m pretty sure is the move Todd was feeling stuck on the day he led it. The step up isn’t so bad, but it would be a longish fall (unless that hybrid held).

Then you clip the pin and make a big step up off bomber hands to a huge foot with the pin at your wasit, so if that’s the move people have been crying about, I don’t get it. Then you don’t get gear, which is sad, so I placed some off-route and put about four feet of sling on it before stepping up to the roof and finishing the thing off.

Someone came up right behind Steven so he was pulling around the roof as I was rapping off. I said he was cruising it and he said I’d made it look easy; he hadn’t realized how hard it was till he got up there. That was a nice exchange. I felt good about keeping my head together, getting plenty of gear, and not hesitating much at the hard parts. I finished the rap and said something to his belayer about him cruising it and his belayer said yeah, he’s not climbing that well right now. Bzzz. Wrong answer. Turns out the leader was some 5.13 climbing hotshot, but note that he wasn’t the one showing off. I like 5.13 climbers who can see that sometimes 5.9- is hard.

It rained for a while, though not hard, and we hunkered down at the start of Hans Puss under the huge roof. When the rain tapered off, Steven led Hans Puss and I followed and set up Feast of Fools, which I flailed on miserably. Then it rained really, really hard, so we called it a day and went to the swimming hole. It seems like an odd thing to do in the rain but, hey, we were already wet. Besides, it stopped raining again pretty quickly. The swimming hole was lively with climbers who’d given up on the day, as was Rock and Snow later. I didn’t mind the short day because I’d led Three Doves. What more could I have asked for out of such a miserable day?

Three Doves (P1: Dawn, P2: Dawn)
Hans Puss (P1: Steven)
Feast of Fools (TR)

Now that I’ve led Trapped Like a Rat and Pink Laurel on the same day, I’ve decided that not only is TLR the hardest seven at the Gunks; it’s the hardest nine at the Gunks.

TLR is slimy. It’s a dark corner that tends to stay wet after a rain but today it’s more slick than actually wet. The smears feel terrible, every hold is less bomber than it should be. I waver and waffle and go up and down a couple of times but utlimately get it cleanly. At least the roof never bothers me much anymore. Of course, I’m the only one who feels that way. Michelle following me has trouble at the roof, not at the start. I wonder if they’d all feel differently if they were leading it.

Then Michelle does a fine job of leading Rhododendron and I promise to take her farther away from the Uberfall today and get as far as Pink Laurel before breaking that promise. Well, Pink Laurel is a fine route and I’m a leading machine. I do it to prove I don’t mind doing it.

I warn her I’ll be going up to the cave before putting in gear, then teeter my way up the opening moves. I know I have to solo them, but I don’t have to like it. Then the cave and the solace of a finely placed cam.

I swear it was the red cam, but it won’t go in today. Maybe it was his red cam, the HB one. What would that be equivalent to in Camalots? It’s a great piece. Todd knows just how it goes. But Todd’s not here (and if he were, he’d probably be leading this, not me), so I’m going to have to figure it out on my own. It’s not like I’ve never placed gear before.

I stop obsessing over what color cam he’s told me to place in the past and place the cam that fits. Then I obsess over whether to clip it short or long. Short because I might fall on it; long because it’s under a roof. I’ve fallen on this piece and I can’t remember how I clipped it. That shows you what happens when someone’s telling you what to place and how.

I decide to clip it long. I think I’ve probably clipped it short before but you can’t really go wrong with long and I know I’m going to step up and put another piece in right away. I pull through the moves to escape from the cave and they feel more straightforward than they usually do. I find the hole for my left hand and go about the business of placing a nut.

I don’t love the nut placement here. It’s one of those where “you can see the whole nut” as I sometimes say. I like the nut to be a little behind something, not having complete faith in those ones that are held in only by the taper. They’re so easily kicked out unless you set them hard and it’s always the worst stances where you want the best nut. So you tread that fine line between really setting the nut hard and risking toppling over backwards when it comes out in your hand.

In the past there’s been a fixed nut here. On my first attempt, the unsucessful one, I clipped the fixed nut but wanted one of my own too. By the second time (the sucessful one), the fixed nut was gone and I placed two nuts of my own. Today I place one and call it good. I’m tempted to hang on it. Even with the hole for your hand, it’s a pumpy stance.

I’m tired and nervous but I’ve got a piece in and the least I can do is step up, so I do. I look for the feet that are there on my good days, not rushing anything, make another move and find a stance good enough to place from and do. Another move and I’m done. I shout out “woo hoo” and something about being Superwoman and run through the rest of the route.

The belay ledge is a madhouse. I build my own anchor away from the bolts and bring up Michelle. The good part about climbing with a beginner is they fall on your hard leads. The bad part is they don’t know when to say “nice lead.” But she says “nice route” and that’s good enough.

Once the masses on the ledge go up or down as they desire, the way is clear for her to lead the second pitch of Jackie/Classic, which she does in fine style. I tell her “nice lead” then notice that out of an entire forest (c.f. rec.climbing and blueberry bushes) she’s chosen to attach herself solely to a baby tree about two and a half inches in diameter. “Michelle,” I say, “have you anchored yourself to the smallest tree on the cliff?” She blushes and says she was hoping I wouldn’t notice, so at least she figured it out herself.

We get all the way to the hairpin before I bail on my stated purpose of going to the Mac Wall. I look up and think I see Shockley’s free. It turns out I’m wrong but Strictly is free so I take that one.

I’m nervous about the gear at the crux because a couple of people have told me that the placement seems to have changed this year, like something must have shifted or expanded over the winter. I’m hoping I can find a good piece because there was an accident here a couple of years ago and I don’t want to be involved in the next one.

That’s my excuse for not checking to see if Michelle was tied in or not. Luckily, as it will turn out, she was. I’m glad she was listening.

I place very little gear on my way to the crux, too concerned that I won’t have exactly what I need when I get there. Once the crux is in sight, I start cramming in gear like mad. The result is possibly the most over-protected ascent of Strictly from Nowhere on record. At the crux, it turns out that Todd’s new gear beta works beautifully. I slide a nut in and love it. Nothing to worry about, I pull through to the bolts at top speed.

I guess I have a short 60 meter rope. And I’m worried about Michelle a little, so I put a piece in above the bolts, so she won’t be looking at a bad swing if she comes off on one of those last moves. My line seems as straight as it can be, so I can’t blame that. But whatever it is, I don’t make it back down to the ground. When I’m fifteen or so feet shy, Michelle tells me she’s run out of the rope. This is the part where I realize how stupid I was not to check that she was tied in. I know Strictly is a rope stretcher. This is also the part where I’m eminently grateful that she tied in without my checking on her. Or I’d be in a hospital about now.

So I climb back up to the ledge and belay her from there. This causes a lot of confusion with the next party to arrive. They don’t seem able to understand that once the line is straightened out we’ll be able to hit the ground with one rope. Finally I tell them we’ll be doing a two rope rappel. Where the second rope will magically appear from, I don’t know, but it quiets them down.

Finally we make it to the Mac wall where someone talks me into doing Something Interesting up to the Higher Stannard belay. This is supposedly legal, according to certain postings on gunks.com, but its legality is apparently not well known. Everyone who walks by has a nasty word about closures and bird attacks. I find myself explaining my position mid-move, more concerned with the people below me than the moves above me. The route feels easy enough today, even the crux, but I’m sorry I ever got on it by the time I get off. I don’t like feeling like a villian.

The traverse to the Higher Stannard anchor is simple and TR’ing Higher Stannard is interesting. I try to imagine myself leading the route and it’s not that hard to do. I could lead this. Maybe.

Trapped Like a Rat (Dawn)
Rhododendron (Michelle)
Pink Laurel (Dawn)
Jackie (P2: Michelle)
Strictly from Nowhere (Dawn)
Something Interesting (P1: Dawn)
Higher Stanndard (TR)

Jean: The Life-Cycle of a Route

Eyesore (Dawn)
Ken’s Crack (Dawn)
Bunny (P1: Michelle)
Horseman (P1: Dawn, P2: Michelle)
Jean (Dawn)

Following up on my refusal to lead any more 7s, I dived right into Broken Sling on Saturday. I’ve led Broken Sling a few times before and although those opening moves will never feel trivial, the route doesn’t scare me as long as I stay off the second pitch. I’ve led the second pitch once and I’ve followed it once and I don’t see any need to ever do it again. But the alternate finish intrigues me.

A couple of years ago, the fixed anchor at the end of P1 moved higher. I’ve got the idea now that you’re a good part of the way through the direct finish by the time you’ve clipped the anchor. It seems worth investigating. At least the fall wouldn’t be a swinging fall. The new location of the anchor actually manages to make the second pitch more dangerous for the second. Best to clip the anchor and lower, which is what I did.

Aside from Broken Sling, I led the second pitch of Yellow Ridge which is a cruiser and the first pitch of Layback, which is not. Slimy chimney thing, no pro. Freaky. I didn’t layback any of the top though. There’s no such thing as a 5.5 layback and if you’re laybacking up there, can I suggest that you try stemming across the corner? It’s less than vertical, there’s featured rock on both sides of you. The crack is huge. Why would you layback that thing? I think people do it because the name tells them to.

While I was belaying Steven up on the first pitch of Layback, we got to witness an epic on Grand Central. The leader took a nice whipper. Good to know the fall’s clean. We ended up dropping a rope down to him from the top when he decided he’d just as soon not try it again. I can’t blame him. Even though he came out fine it made me less happy about leading it again someday just from watching him.

Then we rescued some gear off of Te Dum for some guys who had just about the funniest epic story I’ve ever heard. It’s hard to imagine how you could get yourself so flummoxoned on a route with a nice fixed anchor. But then we sent Marc up there and he somehow missed the fixed anchor too. It must be protected by an invisibility cloak.

To end the day we TR’d Swingtime (or Slingtime, whichever the 10 is). It took me a few tries but I finally managed to pull over the roof. I can’t remember if I’ve been on it before or not. Todd used to try Slingtime (or Swingtime, whichever the 11 is) every once in a while, but I’m not sure I was ever on the other one.

On Sunday I dived straight into Directissima. I had tried to lead the second pitch once before and ended up hanging when I felt like I didn’t have the strength to pull the last move to the pin and was too scared I’d swing into Todd’s head if I fell. Even the first pitch has always frightened me a little, but inspired by the fact that none of the pitches are rated 5.7, I leaped right on it. The first pitch fell easily and the second capitulated as well. Although I hesitated before moving up, I had a little more gas left and my belayer was tucked away safely on the ledge, not down on the ramp where I had to worry about his head meeting my feet.

The crux of Directissima has never bothered me. It’s nearly the easiest move on the route. Once I had that pin clipped, I knew I was golden. We let Marc take the stellar third pitch while I basked in my accomplishment. Before the rain began we managed to knock off Groovy and even get Marc a ride on someone else’s TR setup on Bonnie’s, so it was a pretty full day even with an early ending.

I knew there was something wrong with the Gunks. It’s those 7s. Just skip ’em, I say. Tain’t worth it.

Saturday:
Broken Sling (P1: Dawn)
Yellow Ridge (P1: Steve, P2: Dawn, P3: Marc)
Layback (P1: Dawn, P2: Marc)
Te Dum (P1: Marc)
Swing Time (TR)

Sunday:
Directissima (P1 & 2: Dawn, P3: Marc)
Groovy (Marc)

It was open. (It’s always open.) I put a lot of work into taking the fear out of Trapped Like a Rat (the hardest 5.7 in the Gunks) last year, nearly got the thing wired. But today it’s all gone and I step up to the opening moves, the moves I like least, feeling as nervous and unhappy as ever. I sink the usual bomber nut, but nothing else seems right. The rock feels slick and my feet are skating. Brand new resoles. Maybe I should have scuffed them up on something else. I don’t trust the smear and try the opening moves a different way. Mistake. As my feet slide off I grab the rope. (Also a mistake, but I don’t pay for it.) Two weekends in a row falling off a 5.7. Sometimes I really hate the Gunks. That’s it for me and 7s. I think I’ll work on 8s and 9s, where I have a shot.

The rest of the route goes smoothly enough, though I end up more pumped than usual at the end of the roof because I’m nervous and overgripping. I can wire this again. I just don’t know if I want to. There must be a reason no one else ever does Trapped Like a Rat. Too hard. The new guidebook hasn’t upped the rating, but that doesn’t bother me. It should forever be the hardest 5.7 at the Gunks.

There are days when the Gunks feel very small. It seems like we know every person in the parking lot. Hello, hello, keep walking. More friends appear just as we’re packing up from Trapped Like a Rat. We try to sandbag them into doing it but they demur. Walking down the carriage road we run into Todd and Laura. Walking back out at the end of the day, people we know keep sliding down the ups towards us. There’s Lisa and Jeff. Hey Brien and Dagmar. We all congregate at Ken’s Crack. I shake my head. I’d be slow and whiny, I tell Steven. I’ve had it with those 7s. He runs up it and everyone takes their turn while Dagmar urges them to climb faster so we can get to dinner.

We have a loud, fun dinner at Bacchus, eight of us surrounding the table, swapping stories. On the way home I’m reminded of the standard climbing wisdom: that you’re more likely to die driving to the crag than you are climbing. I have to keep the cold air on and sing along to the radio to keep myself awake. I’m forced to sing along to “I just called to say I love you,” something no one should ever have to do, but it’s that or die. It’s 11:30 by the time I get home: tired, happy, and thinking that there’s nothing in driving that’s the equivalent of a bomber nut.

There’s something wrong with the Gunks.

Somebody recommended the upper pitches of V3. No one will admit to it now, of course. There’s always somebody recommending the upper pitches of something or other. Let me tell you, when there’s a nice fixed anchor at the end of pitch one and most of the people you ask say they didn’t know it had a second pitch, there’s a good reason for it.

My first day back leading at the Gunks after a longer than usual winter layoff was going well. A poor forecast had kept everyone at home and I led one classic after another, hesitantly at first but with increasing confidence. I thought it was about time Steven led something and he said he always enjoyed V3 and I said I’d never been on the upper pitches but had heard they were worth doing. It’s important to note that Steven denied nothing at this point.

So he leads the first two pitches in one long one to the GT ledge. The second pitch, a lineless expanse of 5.2, would almost be nice if it weren’t so dirty. It’s a mystery to me why this should be, but there are two types of rock at the Gunks: pretty pink, white or yellow stuff that stays clean and juts forward in sharp-edged jugs, horizontal cracks, and blocks that will probably stay put; and nasty, pebbly grey-black stuff that grows lichen and moss and undulates in lower angle but holdless waves. P2 is of the latter sort.

When I arrive at the belay, Steven confesses that he doesn’t actually know where P3 goes, having only ever done it once a long time ago. This despite his having earlier described it as a “short, pleasant roof pitch.” So there’s a roof up there, not more than 20 feet over our heads and barely more than 20 feet wide. It’s clear that we can escape the roof on either side, but if we’re going to do a “short, pleasant roof pitch” there’s not much to choose from.

The roof is made out of pretty white rock and it’s split up the middle by a crack. We have no guidebook but everyone knows that you pull a roof at its weakness, so I shoulder the rack and climb the 10 feet or so to the roof and check it out. It’s a double roof really: a roof and then, almost immediately, a deeper roof. But it looks like it will go. So I put two cams in below the first roof, pull myself over it as far as I can go before hitting the second roof, and stuff two cams in below that one for good measure.

Above the second roof I find my last pair of hand holds. After those the rock turns abruptly from pretty and pink to grey and gritty. Below, I’ve run out of feet, at least horizontal ones. The combined depth of the two roofs is considerable. I smear a foot up the wall, resulting in a position that might be comfortable for watching television but without a couch beneath me for support and with nothing to see except a sea of lichen, I’m not feeling relaxed.

What I have to do is put my foot up there. There. Up. There. Ooph. I climb up and down a certain number of times before Steven points out that with the amount of gear I have in I’m really going to have to take a fall before I’m allowed to give up. So I make a half-hearted try and take a half-hearted fall. Then, since I’m not dead yet, I try really, really hard and fall a really, really long way, or 18 inches, whichever comes first.

Now falling off a 5.7 is funny because I happen to be climbing better than I’ve ever climbed in my life. I mean, I don’t like to brag, and I can’t help knowing that a lot of people who live in Colorado and California wouldn’t find this anything to brag about, but at the gym I’ve been climbing 11s.

On a third try I get it. The end of the pitch is approximately five feet away. Short, indeed. Roof, certainly. Pleasant? Hmmmm. Steven has no trouble with it but see, he’s taller. Flexible too. Once we’ve found our way down I head immediately for the guidebook, mumbling about being sandbagged and people who claim they know where routes go when they don’t. I only wish the story had a punchline, but it doesn’t. Except that the line we climbed is labelled as a variation (V3 Direct), the guidebook tells a sadly familiar story: pull the roof at the crack, 5.7.

There’s something wrong with the Gunks.

Sunday was climbing with Stephanie. It was supposed to be Saturday but the weather changed things. That also meant that we drove with her whole crew. On Saturday some of them had to be back earlier so Stephanie and I were going to meet and drive separately. It was quite the crew. Stephanie, Lou, and Grant, who I knew plus this guy Olay (I’m making up the spelling but it sounds like Oil of Olay or like a bull – ole). Plus they were meeting someone there named Peter.

Stephanie and I climbed separately from the group but the drive there and back and dinner were very social. Olay drives like a madman though. It was terrifying being in the front seat with him. I think I’ll try to avoid that in the future.

Stephanie led a few things. Her gear isn’t bad but she climbs very poorly when she’s leading. You’d never believe she was a 5.11 climber to see her try to lead Dennis. At one point she had the rope behind her leg and was going to flip and crash her head against the ledge if she came off and the worst part was that it looked like she might actually come off. This wasn’t even the crux roof on the first pitch – it was the tiny roof that starts the second pitch.

It makes me realize why people are hesitant to teach someone to lead. I don’t want to kill the girl. Later in the day I led Classic and she hadn’t tied in and I pulled the rope right through the gear. She wanted to pink it and I felt like, my gear was good enough for me but I didn’t place it for someone else. Like, I don’t want that on my head, you know? But she did pink it and did it with much more grace than she’d led Dennis earlier so it worked out.

She seemed to have a great day. She listens to everything I say like I know it all. It’s a good feeling. She did get one of my nuts stuck on Trapped Like a Rat but since I’m the only one who ever climbs that route I’ll probably have a chance to get it back again. On Dennis I cleaned a cam for someone, so I would have been way ahead in booty scoring except I gave it back.

So I led Trapped Like a Rat, which was very wet, especially over the roof where I’d never encountered water before. I did a good job considering. I think I can cross that off my list. I also led Classic, both pitches (second pitch is easy but nice as it turns out – I’d never done it) and City Lights in one pitch.

Sunday was climbing with Stephanie. It was supposed to be Saturday but the weather changed things. That also meant that we drove with her whole crew. On Saturday some of them had to be back earlier so Stephanie and I were going to meet and drive separately. It was quite the crew. Stephanie, Lu, and Grant, who I knew plus this guy Olay (I’m making up the spelling but it sounds like Oil of Olay or like a bull – ole). Plus they were meeting someone there named Peter.

Stephanie and I climbed separately from the group but the drive there and back and dinner were very social. Olay drives like a madman though. It was terrifying being in the front seat with him. I think I’ll try to avoid that in the future.

Stephanie led a few things. Her gear isn’t bad but she climbs very poorly when she’s leading. You’d never believe she was a 5.11 climber to see her try to lead Dennis. At one point she had the rope behind her leg and was going to flip and crash her head against the ledge if she came off and the worst part was that it looked like she might actually come off. This wasn’t even the crux roof on the first pitch – it was the tiny roof that starts the second pitch.

It makes me realize why people are hesitant to teach someone to lead. I don’t want to kill the girl. Later in the day I led Classic and she hadn’t tied in and I pulled the rope right through the gear. She wanted to pink it and I felt like, my gear was good enough for me but I didn’t place it for someone else. Like, I don’t want that on my head, you know? But she did pink it and did it with much more grace than she’d led Dennis earlier so it worked out.

She seemed to have a great day. She listens to everything I say like I know it all. It’s a good feeling. She did get one of my nuts stuck on Trapped Like a Rat but since I’m the only one who ever climbs that route I’ll probably have a chance to get it back again. On Dennis I cleaned a cam for someone, so I would have been way ahead in booty scoring except I gave it back.

So I led Trapped Like a Rat, which was very wet, especially over the roof where I’d never encountered water before. I did a good job considering. I think I can cross that off my list. I also led Classic, both pitches (second pitch is easy but nice as it turns out – I’d never done it) and City Lights in one pitch.

Sunday I went climbing with Lisa. We had a good day. I led Ken’s and Drunkard’s and Trapped Like a Rat all, no hanging, no whining. I was nervous starting them all but did pretty well once I got off the ground, only minor shaking here and there and only piece of gear placed that was panic gear (around the corner on Trapped Like a Rat – I can’t stop placing that one).