Dawn's Climbing Blog

“Well, it was 5.9 minus,” I qualify. “5.9- is easier than 5.8+.” This isn’t just a one-liner. It’s the honest truth as I’ve lived it today.

We started with Triangle because I was looking to try leading some 5.9s that I hadn’t ever been on before and Triangle was 5.9- G, which seemed like the perfect sort of 5.9 to start with. I chose to take the right side up to the top of the triangle, because it seemed both easier and more esthetic. Now, standing at the top of the triangle, with a pin and something else at my feet, I’m confused.

“There’s pins everywhere up here,” I yell down to Todd.

“That’s good,” he replies with an obvious lack of interest.

“But they go different ways,” I explain. “I don’t know which pins to follow.”

“That’s not really something I can help you with from down here,” he says, an attitude he’s been taking more and more lately, which I suppose is both good for me and grounded in reality.

So I must find my own way out. This is what I know:

1. I can’t reach any pin from where I’m standing now.

2. There’s no gear in between me and any pin.

3. My last piece is at my feet.

4. It’s hardly a clean fall.

So much for G, is what I’m thinking but my survey has decided me on one thing at least. The pin on the left is only one move away off a bucket whereas the pin to the right is at least two thin moves away. I’m going left.

I step up, clip the pin, and step back down. I hang the rope and resolutely step back up again. Only problem is, there’s no move up there. Honestly. I swear. It’s not just a matter of my being afraid to fall, which I am, there really isn’t a move up there.

So I step back down.

I’ll spare you all the ups and downs. I’m becoming more and more convinced that the route goes to the right but I like having my friend the-pin-on-the-left clipped. I don’t wish to unclip him and chance the moves to the right. Ultimately Todd suggests that I just go check it out to the right and I do, find myself committed but climbing, and pull through the whole thing, clipping several more pins along the way but never unclipping the pin to the left.

I pester Todd about it the whole way home: what would you have done. He says he would have done the same thing I did–clipped the pin to the left and then gone right. I still feel a little like I cheated but when I give beta to a friend a few weeks later, that’s exactly what I tell her: clip left, climb right.

For all that, I didn’t really have any trouble with the moves themselves on Triangle, so later in the day I step up to lead Absurdland, 5.8+, with something like confidence. For one thing, it’s only 5.8, not 5.9, and for another, I’ve been on it before once when Steven led it. I remember that Todd and I were, well, I hate to use the word snickering, but underwhelmed let’s say, by the route’s difficulty that day. What with it’s reputation as an ankle-breaker and the way Steven had sewn it up, we were expecting something that was at least a little bit hard.

Why do they keep taking away all the easy routes at the Gunks and replacing them with harder ones? That’s what I want to know.

At least I know where the hard part is: close to the ground. It’s an ankle breaker, after all. So I put some gear in from the ground, then put a second piece in, then take it out cause it’s in my way and sucks anyway. I sketch around and go up and down and whine and complain.

“If that gear will protect that move, and it’s good gear, then why do people keep breaking their ankles?” I ask doubtfully.

“They probably don’t bother to place anything,” Todd answers. (Later we get a glimpse of why else they might be breaking their ankles. Listen guys, if the leader places a piece that close to the ground, it might behoove you to stand up and take the slack out of the rope. “You weren’t belaying me like that, were you?” I double-check. But of course he wasn’t.)

Eventually I make the move and place a piece from a shaky stance. Todd wants me to place a second piece, but I’m feeling good now. Through all the hard stuff on a 5.8+, pulled off a 5.9- earlier, I’m cruising to victory. Just this one kind of pumpy move. Then this next one, then this next one, really bad stance now, place gear, burning out, place another piece, shit, scared, pumped, downclimb, bad stance, bad stance, how far do I have to go?, dammit, take!

And I wish Todd wouldn’t argue with me when I say take. I wish that. I really do.

Somewhere up there the route did get easier, but not until it whipped my butt. By the time I lower off there’s folks racking up to take their turn.

“You looked smooth up there,” they say.

“You weren’t here for the ugly part,” I tell them. We exchange the story of our days. I tell them about hanging on Absurdland, about the other routes we did, about getting Triangle clean.

“Well, it was 5.9 minus,” I qualify. “5.9- is easier than 5.8+.” This isn’t just a one-liner. It’s the honest truth as I’ve lived it today.

I literally hate this route. It brings nothing but failure and disappointment to all who climb it. And what’s worse is that it’s getting worse. Let me tell you about my enemy: Criss Cross Direct.

It all started because of a friendly wager as to whether or not Steven could lead a 5.10 cleanly before the end of the season. I don’t know why Steven picked Criss Cross Direct particularly except that it starts with a crack and he’s always trying to prove that there’s jamming at the Gunks.

To make a long story short, Steven didn’t get it cleanly and neither did I following him, but on my second attempt I discovered the “trick” to pulling through the crux. After that I dismissed the route as easy. I think Steven even did it a second time on TR to try out my trick, and we both walked away feeling certain that we’d never have any trouble with that route again.

Steven aiding over the roof on
Criss Cross Direct – the only way to go
if you ask me.

I did it with Todd shortly thereafter and my confidence by then was palpable. I quote from the TR I wrote about that weekend:

I figured I could probably do the route cleanly – once you have it wired it’s maybe 5.9 – and I did. Todd thought I should lead it next but I thought that would just be a gimmick. I wasn’t ready to lead 10s, even if I could do this one, so why bother?

Ahem.

So now all three of us were set with the route. Todd onsight flashed it so smoothly that he couldn’t even pinpoint where the crux was. Steven will lead it cleanly on the next try, thus winning his wager with something like 6 months of season left to go, and I’ll probably make Criss Cross Direct my first 5.10 lead, perhaps before I even get around to my first 5.9 lead.

Ahem.

It’s not like I remember every time I’ve been on Criss Cross Direct individually. It’s more of a general pattern, a descent, a disintegration. Steven did not lead it cleanly on his next attempt, nor his next, nor, I’m pretty sure, even his next. In fact, in the end he won his wager with a different route altogether. As stressful as it got to be to belay with my fingers crossed, what was harder for me to bear was that I was no longer following the route cleanly either.

At first it was just a foot-slipping sort of thing, a moment of carelessness, I-could-have-done-it-if, but eventually I had to admit the truth. This route was better than I was. It wasn’t just the crux that was getting me either. There was something below the crux, that dark ugly crack in the corner, that had it in for me as well.

It got worse for Todd too.

“That was kind of hard,” he would say, puzzled, after his attempt and before mine which would end with a temper tantrum. He would run laps. I would refuse to climb the route at all if I fell off even once. Different strategies with the same result. “I think this route is getting harder.”

A couple of Saturdays ago, after what had been a good day so far, Todd says he wants to lead Criss Cross Direct.

“But why?” I whine. “I hate that route.” I hate worrying about falling off of it, I hate falling off of it, and most of all I hate the fit I throw after I’ve fallen off of it.

Somehow we go do it any way and, get this, Todd ends up hanging on it. Then I fall repeatedly, and I do mean repeatedly, trying to follow it, in brand new places even, and then Todd decides to run up it on TR and he still can’t get it clean. And so I ask you, what the hell is up with that route?

Never again. Never, never again. Todd thinks we should keep fighting till we conquor it but I say it’s time to admit defeat. If we had any sense we’d have quit two years ago while we were still ahead.

It’s a nice day and the three of us, Todd, Andrei, and I, are walking along trying to decide what to do. Andrei doesn’t want to do anything pumpy, which doesn’t exactly explain what happens next, except that it’s sort of my day to choose and what I want to do is lead MF.

MF has been on my to-do list, though not in any immediate way, since my first lap on it two and a half years ago when Steven led it on a misty but warm day in January. From the trip report I wrote about that day:

The move around the corner was terrifying, even on TR. It was burly, blind, and exposed. I pulled through it and moved up to the second crux, where I fell while trying to substitute brute strength for footwork, and then I finished the route. What a great route that is. I’m going to be pretty proud of myself the day I lead that one.

Burly, blind, and exposed. That pretty well sums up MF even all these climbing miles later. I have a goal this season of leading the following routes: Ant’s Line, Roseland, Directissima, Jean, and, of course, MF. In short, all the reasonably well-protected 9s I’ve already been on. So far I’ve done Ant’s Line.

But I learned something leading Ant’s Line that’s going to stand me in good stead. What I learned is that, when you’re leading, the crux isn’t always the crux. Sometimes when you’re leading the crux is getting up to the crux, and often the crux is just making yourself leave the ground in the first place.

That’s why I’m leading MF today, even though Andrei specifically said he didn’t want to do anything pumpy: because I told myself I would and because it would be too easy to tell myself I don’t have to.

I’m slow like molasses leading up to the crux, particularly trying to force myself to solo the start, which Todd always does. Really, it’s just faster if I put in gear, which I eventually do. Some guy walks by and says, “This is what’s so great about climbing today – more women. And more women leaders!” which thoroughly embarrasses me because I’m on the verge of wigging out.

Me giving up on soloing the start of MF, 5.9

Eventually I get to the crux and get the pin clipped and grab the jug and try to haul myself around the blind corner, but I can’t seem to find a thing over there to haul myself with, so I downclimb back to the pin and hang, arms crossed, sulking.

Me sulking while I hang on MF, 5.9

Todd offers up beta: get your right foot more right, get your left hand more right, in short get your whole body more right. Eventually I decide it’s about time to start climbing again, so I put my hands and feet on the rock and start to pull back in, but I can’t go anywhere. Todd has me so tight I can’t move.

“You’re pulling on me!” I scream at him. The situation doesn’t change, so I slump back down on the rope. At that very moment he gives me slack after all. “Now you’re dropping me!” I screech.

The crowd goes wild. I have the idea that they’re laughing at his inept belaying, but his idea is that they’re laughing at me: Give me slack, damn you! Shit, you’re giving me slack! He’s probably right.

“You’re supposed to say climbing,” he says by way of explanation. I think he’s supposed to be watching me in my monumental struggle against the great 5.9 and shouldn’t need to be told that I’m climbing.

Realistically I never watch him when he’s hanging either, but to be further realistic, he never says climbing. At least, he rarely says climbing and then actually climbs, so who listens to him? I puzzle the situation out while I continue swinging gently on the rope, a little lower this time after the slack incident, and eventually figure out that this situation is different because I’m hanging in space and need slack just to get back on, whereas normally the process of getting back on creates slack, alerting the belayer that something is about to happen.

“Climbing!” I say emphatically. I try the sequence again, this time getting my right foot more right, my left hand more right, etc. I can feel the rounded, pebbly edge that I’m supposed to use to pull myself the rest of the way around the arete but I don’t have enough strength left to do it.

Me trying to pull the crux on MF, 5.9

Naw. It’s probably more true to say that I don’t have enough courage left to do it. If I could believe that I could do it, I could probably do it, but since I can’t, I can’t. I have further to downclimb, which makes it a lot harder, so eventually I slip and swing. Wheee! If only all falls were this clean, falling wouldn’t be scary.

Hanging even lower this time, I go back to swinging and sulking. It seems I’m getting farther away with each attempt.

“I’m so thirsty,” I moan.

“If you backup the pin, you can come down and get something to drink and then either you can go back up or I’ll do it,” Todd answers.

I’m insulted. I only mentioned being thirsty because it was the God’s honest truth, not to use it as an excuse to bail. Have I been so long leading this route that my time is up already?

“Let me try once more anyway,” I say. I get back on again, get my right foot even further right and my left hand even further right and fondle that bumpy undercling and slowly, very slowly, start to pull myself around the arete until I’m standing, barely breathing, on my right foot.

Now for the hard part. Luckily I knew I’d feel panicked here, so I don’t actually feel so panicked. As badly balanced as I am, I have to clip the pin to my right. This is a rule. We don’t know why it’s a rule, why one should not simply step up a few moves to a good stance before trying to place gear, but there you go. A rule’s a rule. Everyone stands in this same spot, delicately trying to pull the rope across their body without dislodging their body from the wall. I’m no exception.

Around the arete but not quite done on MF, 5.9

Once I’ve got the pin clipped, I’m hugely relieved. To me, the challenges of the route are over, even though Todd is more worried about the upper crux than the lower one. The reason I’m not so worried about the upper crux is because it’s kind of slabby and I know I can step up and down as many times as I need to. The reason Todd’s worried about the upper crux is because it’s kind of slabby and he thinks I’m going to deck or something if I come off. I have to explain to him that it’s no more slabby than the 7s and 8s I normally lead. That’s the kind of fall we moderate leaders are always looking at.

Calisthenics

“Two pink, two red, one brown, one purple,” I insist to Lisa. “All sane Gunks climbers carry two pink, two red, one brown, one purple.” And then I tell her the story of Calisthenics.

“This is Calisthenics,” Andrei says. “5.7”

“Five seven!” I squeak. I’ve actually seen this route before but don’t believe in the so-called 5.7 start any more this time than I did the last time. The route starts with a dyno from the ground, about a foot for me, to a rail, then your feet must be heaved up to about waist level for a long move to a jug. Then it’s pretty much over.

“It’s a clean landing,” he points out.

Andrei and I throw our packs down and try the start. He goes through the first two moves casually. I surprise myself by hitting the rail on my first try.

“It’s a little run out after the start,” Andrei warns me, “but it’s like 5.6.” Run out 5.6 slabby face moves don’t scare me. After all, I’ve led City Lights ever so many times. So what the hell. I’m wicked strong these days. 5.7 though it may not be, still I’ll give it a shot. I take Andrei’s rack, array myself with runners, tie in, lace up, make sure Andrei has given me plenty of slack, position myself beneath the dyno, and jump.

Oops. This is the ground. Jump again. This is my butt on the ground. Hmmm. Why was this so easy before and so hard now? Oh yeah, it’s because I’m wearing about 20 pounds of gear.. I keep missing the rail, or just snagging it with my fingertips, and toppling back over. This is getting silly now.

Finally Andrei gives me a boost.

OK, then. All difficulties behind me I begin the process of wandering around the face above looking for the line of least resistance offering the best chance of gear. I do very badly. After clawing my way through mud and a series grass hummocks, I gain a big ledge whereupon I traverse far to my left to sling an enormous tree. This tree gives me immense satisfaction as a truly bomber piece of gear. It’s to be the last one.

No matter which way I go, tempted by the lure of gear, I am disappointed. When the chance of gear does arrive, it is very poor. At my first opportunity after the excellent tree I’m stumped by not seeming to have the piece I need. I have a cam that’s too big and a cam that’s too small. But I haven’t placed any gear yet, right? Leading on an unfamiliar rack can be so exasperating. I cram in a too big cam and carefully balance a too small tri-cam and trudge onward.

While the moves aren’t hard, the lichen coated slab is unpleasantly slick. Twice I have a foot skate off beneath me. City Lights is a bit run out, yes. It may be 20 feet between pieces and not every piece is as bomber as you might hope it would be. But I’ve never soloed 100 feet of climbing before.

In time the lichen-y slab tapers off into the other kind of Gunks rock, the pretty orange, sharp chunky stuff. Although it’s a bit too broken up here to feel really good about any piece I place, I at least feel good about having positive holds to grab onto and clean rock under my feet. Towards the end of the pitch is a nice corner, attractive from the ground but only about 20 feet long in reality. At the top of the corner I place my second great piece. I’m 3 feet from the belay.

“Todd’s here,” Andrei yells up. “We’re going to do the second pitch.”

I pull up the slack for Andrei and put him on belay. I’m looking up at the second pitch with its classic Gunks roof and I’m thinking about not being able to find the cam I wanted early on the first pitch and I’m also wondering what I did with the purple tri-cam. I remember placing the brown one. Did I drop the purple one while I was fiddling with the brown one? That’s a move I’ve pulled before.

“Todd?” I yell down.

“Yeah?”

“Bring up the Camalot Juniors with you.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m already off the ground and I don’t think I can reverse those moves.”

Really! The number of times I’ve told him not to leave the ground before he’s on belay !

“How many times have I told you not to leave the ground until you’re on belay?” I yell down. His answer is unintelligible, which is probably just as well under the circumstance. Fine then, let him lead the second pitch.

“Now Andrei,” I ask as Todd racks up. There’s this cam and then there’s this cam. But what goes in between them?”

“That’s the one I don’t carry because the trigger wires are broken.”

I see.

“Well, where’s the purple tri-cam then? Did I drop it? I know I placed the brown one . . . “

“I don’t carry the purple.”

I see.

From the belay we can tell that there’s water running down the side of the second pitch crux, but it’s clearly running down the side of the crux, not the actual crux itself, so Todd marches himself up there. He moans the whole way. Loose blocks this, and mud that, and blah blah blah. He should try 100 feet of dirty slab where the only pieces you can place are the ones your partner doesn’t carry.

When he gets to the crux he says something about having a good piece of gear at last, which is all very nice for him, having a good piece at the actual crux. He pulls through the corner/roof system with the water running to his left. He needs only stand up above the roof and he’s done.

“Water,” he gasps..

Well, yes, we could see that.

“Like a lake,” he insists.

He’s right. The entire ledge is on a flood watch. How it doesn’t all run over the lip, I can’t quite figure. Even the cam he placed in a crack above the ledge is swimming in a half inch of water.

“It was either that or put it behind a loose block,” he says later. “The only decent piece I had on the whole pitch was the one below the crux. I sure could have used those Camalot Juniors.” Which only serves him right.

“That route had nothing to recommend it,” he declares emphatically. “Nothing.”

“The start is interesting,” I argue, feeling defensive even though we only picked the route because nothing else was open. “And those crux moves on the second pitch would be nice if they were dry.”

“Nothing!”

And so we learned two important lessons that day: “don’t recommend Calisthenics to anyone” and “all sane Gunks climbers carry two pink, two red, one brown, and one purple.” And a set of Camlot Juniors, of course.

Today something wonderful happened, something scary and mysterious but, in the end, wonderful.

It was one of those days when no one seemed to have a plan, so after Todd led Columbia, not for any reason in particular, we happened to walk past Hyjek’s Horror (8- PG) and Steven suggested it for me.

The problem with Hyjek’s Horror is that all the hard moves come before any of the gear. Some slabby little start off small holds leads eventually, perhaps as little as 15 feet off the ground, to easier climbing. I don’t know that the route has anything to recommend it. About the best I can say is that for a route calling itself Hyjek’s Horror you get what was advertised.

The something wonderful that happened didn’t start out that way. It started with me clinging to a couple of small holds about 10 feet up the wall wishing I could find something that would work to further my progress other than a balancy high-step. But ain’t that just slab climbing for you?

Eventually I made the move, using my patented “one small step for Dawn” method, where I transfer my weight to the new foot but only barely lift the toe of the old foot, leaving it poised for a quick retreat. Since I didn’t start sliding down the rock immediately I lifted the old foot, I went ahead and stood up on the new foot, which happened in this case to be my left foot, my right hand on its miniscule edge meanwhile rotating into a sort of mantle.

At first I felt that I had made it, my left hand finding the next hold, a sort of a sidepull thing to further my standing up, and then the something scary happened. My left hand lost its grip and I started to fall off, backwards worse yet because I had been pulling against that left hand so.

I had time to think about Todd beneath me and the rocky landing beneath us both. I wondered if he could spot me or if we’d both tumble down the slope behind him, wondered if his standing there so close between me and the particularly large rock had been such a good idea.

And that’s when the something mysterious happened, which was simply this: I didn’t fall. One moment I was falling, hand away from the wall, center of gravity swinging dangerously, the next moment my body was still and my hand was back on. I finished standing up, said “that was really close” which Steven denied, shook for a minute or two, and finally put some gear in.

The something wonderful took a while to develop. For one thing, I had to finish leading the route, and then Steven kept insisting that I hadn’t fallen off at all, which was just making the waters muddier. It wasn’t until Todd and I were alone together and I was going through the post-mortem One More Time when the truth came out.

“I saw your hand come off,” he said, like I hadn’t been trying to get somebody to admit that I’d nearly fallen off that route for the last 6 hours. “The worst part is, I thought you were going to come off backwards.”

“I was going to come off backwards,” I shrieked in triumph, overjoyed, like my first ascent of Everest had finally been recognized after all these hundreds of years. “But why didn’t I?”

And then I was struck by the obvious. Todd had pushed me back on.

“Did you push me?” I asked. I would have been grateful if he had – the situation was far too serious to worry about ethics – but he denied it.

“You were too high to reach.”

And so the mystery remained a mystery and so I continued pondering it. I played the tape in my head; I tried to feel it again. I couldn’t feel a push in my back. What I could feel was . . .

Could it be? Could it be that my right hand, that poor forgotten fellow left fingering a tiny crimp at waist level as I moved up, had pulled me back on? Could be it be that I had saved myself?

I tried out the suggestion on Todd.

“Must be,” he said. He didn’t sound like it mattered much, because for him it’s always been that way. He has always hung on, fought through, not fallen off when the falling got ugly. But for me! What a novel idea, what a first, what a marvelous thought to contemplate. I had hung on! Even as I wondered whether or not Todd’s spotting could save me, I had saved myself.

And that’s the something wonderful that happened that day. For the first time ever, I saved myself.

For my second attempt at leading Ant’s Line (5.9), I did have a certain strategy as follows: Climb easily up to the crux, place two pieces, downclimb to the rest, pull the crux, and finish quickly on the easy ground above.

It’s always good to have a plan.

Step one. Climb easily up to the crux.

Is it just me or is this move hard? I don’t even have gear in yet. Has there always been a hard move here? Has anyone besides me noticed that I’ve hardly even left the ground?

Todd suggests that if I’d climb the crack directly instead of trying to step in off the ledge I could have gear. Despite the fact that climbing the crack directly is rather obviously harder, thank you very much, he has a point. I get some gear in and climb through to the corner that marks the start of the route proper.

Step two. Place two pieces.

Ack! This is a godawful stance and I’m going to fall off before I even get so much as one piece in. What was I thinking, climbing up here with nothing but that tiny nut below me? Sure, it was a great tiny nut, but still. I’m going to die and I’m not even going to do it on the crux.

I scurry back down to the tiny nut and augment it with a bigger nut, higher up. Then I lean my forehead against the rock and breathe deeply. Maybe I don’t want to lead this route after all.

Step two, take two.

This time I come prepared. I hang the piece I’m pretty sure goes in under the roof on the front gear loop. Fortified by a brief rest and my second placement, I charge back up to the crux. I fire in the piece I’d selected. Success! Probably the first instance of my ever remembering what the crux gear is. But then, the last time I tried to lead this route it took about five minutes hanging out in this miserable stance to get something in. I’m not likely to forget that.

And the second piece? Yeah right. I’m going to hang out here long enough to figure out where I can place a second piece. This one caught me last time. It’s going to have to do.

Step three. Downclimb to the rest.

Been there. Done that. Twice.

Step four. Pull the crux.

This part goes surprisingly well. I guess all that work on overhanging stuff in the gym has finally paid off. The holds feel bigger and more postive, the feet more plentiful and useful, than the last time I tried to lead this route. I love it when a plan comes together!

Step five. Finish quickly on the easy ground above.

Um. It used to be easy up here. I swear it did. Through the crux and wanting a real rest, I find only a poorish stance and poorish gear. I place the gear, a bomber nut behind a pitiful flake, and climb on in search of the Stance That Is To Come. I never find it. Eventually I look up and realize that the top is tantalizingly close and there are jugs all the way. I abandon my attempts to fiddle in another half-assed piece of gear and aim for the end. Victory is mine.

I wouldn’t have chosen the Nears today, a day that’s only barely gorgeous for February. The Nears get more wind and less sun than the Trapps, but today is Todd’s day to choose, so here we are. There are an awful lot of scary-hard 7s and 8s in the Nears. Maybe we ought to walk over here more often.

We start with Disneyland, a classic and usually over-booked 5.6. I’m pretty sure I’ve led it before but don’t remember. I certainly don’t remember doing the “crux mantle move” and am fairly sure I won’t be doing it this time. I make my way up the pitch slowly, approaching the move, then do nothing like a mantle, or at least nothing like a mantle that any real climber would admit to doing, more of a squirmy wiggle up onto the finishing ledge. We walk off from Disneyland, triumphant and only a little cold.

Todd wants to do Yellow Belly next, a two-pitch 5.8. The first pitch, rated 5.7, will be mine. It seems ideal, nothing too terrifying for either of us this early in the season. But upon looking at the topo we see that the first pitch goes up the corner to the roof, then detours under the roof around to the left, pulls around that corner, goes up, pulls back around another corner, etc. I can feel the rope drag already. We check the topo in the other guidebook and find something completely different. The other book shows the first pitch pulling the roof directly. It also rates the first pitch at 5.8.

“Look,” I say. “I’m just going to pull the roof. It’s well protected, one move of 5.8 roof and then it looks like 5.4 climbing to the top.” When will I ever learn? We don’t rate routes 5.8 because they have one move of 5.8 roof and then 5.4 climbing to the top at the Gunks. Those we rate 5.6.

I dance easily up the opening corner, drifting right onto the face below the roof as the crack in the corner widens into an off-width. I reach the roof feeling smooth and confident with only a couple of pieces beneath me.

Ouch. Damn helmet. I can’t get close enough under the roof to place gear. Bang, smash. I’d like to take the friggin thing off. Bump.

“Damn it!”

When I finally manage to get a couple of pieces in, I’m excited about the idea of pulling this roof just so I can get out from under it. I reach over the roof as high as I can and find a bomber finger lock for my left hand. I bounce my feet, can’t find a good place for them, finally put my left knee up, not that that helps. The next holds, the horizontal above me, seem just out of reach, but I make a final push and snag the horizontal with my right hand. Uh oh. Not bomber, dude. Not bomber enough that I feel like taking my left hand out of that finger lock, not without any feet anyway.

Scurry back down. Hide under roof. Bang. Damn it! Breathe hard.

“I think a bit of height might help here,” I tell Todd, remembering the thing that looked like a jug over my head and off to my right.

I take a second stab, worse than the first. Knee hurts now. I know I’m not supposed to put it up there but my foot just won’t go.

Scurry back down. Hide under roof. Smash. Damn. Breathe hard.

“Can you get some gear in over the roof?” Todd asks. Of course, the old gear in over the roof trick. Why didn’t I think of that?

“Maybe,” I tell him.

For the third time I put my pinky finger into the finger jam that is becoming less and less apprecicated for its bomberness. Where could gear go? Not where that finger jam is but maybe in the horizontal where it curves around to the right. In fact, if I could just grab that jug . . . Somehow it’s not as far away as it looked. Jug, mama, jug. I wrench my fingers out of the finger lock, almost believing they aren’t going to come out this time, and put my other hand on the horizontal and now I can get my feet over the roof. I’m here!

Smash. Ouch. Bloody helmet. There’s another roof over this roof.

I’ve got just about my whole arm sunk into the horizontal. My head might go in if it weren’t for the helmet. My back against the side wall, both feet under me, up to my butt. There isn’t enough room in this alcove for me and my helmet and the rock and the rack. The rack. Yes, put a piece in. First piece goes in, hallelujah, just have to clip it. Seriously consider clipping it straight to my belay loop. No, hang a runner. Should clip it long here. Can’t do it. Might want to hang right now. Draw then. Consider clipping straight into it again. No, pull up the rope. Won’t go in. Slipping down, just friction keeping me up here, had to let go of the jug to place the gear, sliding, I can tell. Clipped. Safe.

Immediately I want to get out of here. A simple escape to my left and I’ll be standing, standing like a normal human being stands, just standing. I want it so bad.

I move to the left, just need to grab the edge of this big crack up here and pull myself into it. I don’t believe I can do it. I’m exhausted, my hands are numb from fishing around in cold, damp cracks, the pinky won’t regain feeling for two weeks, my gear is all the way down there at my feet. I crawl back into the alcove.

“Why did you go back in there?” Todd asks me later.

“I needed to rest,” I tell him.

“I didn’t find it very restful there,” he says.

“Neither did I,” I agree, “but it was close to my gear.”

Somehow I manage to warm my hands up and sally forth from the alcove once more. This time, all goes well and before too much longer I’m slumping down on the belay ledge, wishing I could just lay here but knowing that I have to set an anchor, pull up the rope, put Todd on belay.

I’m flattered when Todd pokes his head over the roof and retreats back down before pulling it, then know he’s in the alcove when I hear him laughing to himself. He makes quick work of the rest and now it’s his turn.

From the belay we can see that someone has bailed from the tree (twig!) above us. Hmmm. Must get hard up there or something. With a few false starts, Todd gets up into the crux of the second pitch, stuck in an alcove below a roof, where else?

“I think you want to go left,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I think so too,” he says with deep regret.

I don’t know what to tell him except that from down here it looks pretty easy. When he commits to the moves he makes it look easy too.

My hands have gone numb from the cold while belaying, I’m glad to be climbing again. At least I’m glad until I crawl into that alcove.

Smash. Damn. This route ought to come with a no-helmet warning. It’s cozy in Todd’s alcove, a lot more comfortable than mine was. I could stay here all day. I ponder the possibility that I will stay here all day since it’s totally unclear how I’m going to leave here. Have to turn around the other way (bang). Okay. Nasty little horizontal, no feet. This is one of those stinking fingertip traverses is what this is. I decide that I’m going to use the one foothold the wall offers, way up and off to the side. I undercling the horizontal, yanking myself up and over onto that foot.

There, sitting on my foot. Just like the pros do it. Only now I have to somehow leave this position. I grope blindly with my left hand, must be something around this corner to hold onto, and finally wiggle and jiggle my weight off that foot so I can actually move again.

The rest was easy, by the way.

It’s such a beautiful day for February that it would be a beautiful day for April. There’s no reason why we can’t climb anything we want today, even multi-pitch, but for some reason I have my heart set on bouldering.

Perhaps it’s just stress-avoidance, to not have to lead for the day, but I like to believe that bouldering is good for me, unlike a day of TR’ing, which is also stress-free but does nothing to ease my worries for the next time I step up to lead. Besides, I need to get strong again after my annual January layoff and the routes I’m capable of leading don’t exactly challenge my strength (physical strength, that is).

So I put my foot down, claim that it’s my day to decide what we’re going to do, and we load Todd’s mattress-sized bouldering pad into the car and set off for the Gunks.

We start with the 5.9 variation to the left of Keyhole, a route I have some history with in that it was the scene of one of my less forgivable temper tantrums. I should be able to climb 5.9 and the fact that I couldn’t that day, even on TR, caused me to pitch a fit of disproportionate proportions.

On our first-ever day of bouldering we also started with this route. On that day, it wasn’t clear if I couldn’t make the last couple of moves or wouldn’t make the last couple of moves. Ah well, it was only practice that day, learning to land on the pad and to spot each other.

Today I have to get used to dropping onto the pad all over again. I get a move higher with each attempt until I reach that point where it’s all or nothing. Todd has done it by now, ready to move on to the next problem, it only remains for me to finish. I jump.

“I don’t really have to go any higher than that,” I explain to Todd from the ground, “and I’ve already dropped from there. If I move my hands and don’t make it, it’ll be the same fall.”

He agrees, not that there’s anything to agree with. I’m stating the obvious in an attempt to talk myself into moving, instead of freezing, the next time I’m up there.

I climb back up to my high point, place my left foot on the edge Todd’s found for me, higher than the one he uses but probably better, carefully move my right foot so that it’s against the crack instead of in the crack so that I won’t flip if I fall. I pause. I look up. Funny, the top seems easily reachable from here and I feel so stable. I think I can just take my right hand out of the constriction and calmly put it right up there on top. I’m sure I can. It really feels like I can. Yes, certainly I can.

I do.

Now for the bad part – I still have to jump. It’s not like my feet are any higher, but my head is, so it feels higher. Ugh. I don’t like jumping.

This is why I imagine that bouldering’s good for me – the steady pushing forward, one move at a time, with no promise of sudden safety if I make it, and then the intentional fall. I can hang there as long as I like and unless someone comes along with a ladder, sooner or later I will have to fall. There’s no slamming in an emergency piece to hang on, no specter of the stance to come if I can only pull through this next move, no asking Todd to take over the lead for me. Do the move, take the fall, black and white.

Triumphant on this route at last, we move on. The Gill Egg next to us is empty. A ridiculous dyno problem I have no hope of ever sending, we give it a try for the sheer bouldering-ness of it – you don’t have to be able to do it to try it.

“Why don’t your feet slam into the rock when you fall off?” I ask Todd petulantly after striking my soles against the slab beneath the roof yet again.

“Because I swing them out before I let go,” he tells me.

“If I could swing my feet without falling off, I wouldn’t be falling off,” I complain, but on subsequent attempts I do somehow become more capable of getting my feet under me before I hit the ground. I guess it just needed thinking on.

Before too long we’re joined by about a hundred other people, psyched by the meatiness of our pad. A lot of them can actually do the problem, including one guy who manages to do it statically, to great applause from the spectators, including me.

Although the atmosphere is social and entertaining, we eventually reclaim our pad and shuffle off. I’m too intimidated to step up for my turn at the plate when it takes me five moves just to get into the starting position, especially considering that getting into the starting position was actually kind of my goal for the day.

Note: it turns out this next problem is called the Middle traverse. No wonder it didn’t seem low!

So we move under Doug’s Roof and start the Low Traverse. I’ve seen people on this before, often without a pad or spotters, but I’ve never tried it. So far Todd and I have stuck to problems with simple, obvious landings, where the pad can be placed once and then forgotten till needed. The Low Traverse is, well, a traverse. Todd sets out first and I struggle to keep the pad beneath him, he moves so fast. I’m terrified that he’s going to fall while I’m looking down and either a) land on me, b) miss the pad because I don’t have it positioned right, or c) topple over backwards and hit his head because I’m not spotting him.

Todd arrives at the end of the traverse without incident. Now it’s my turn. I’m moving too slowly, that’s the obvious problem. The holds aren’t really bad, though they have that soapy feel that chalk-caked holds under roofs at the Gunks sometimes get. If I swung confidently between them, crossing through instead of shuffling, smearing my feet instead of looking for that perfect foot hold, I might have the endurance to get through this.

I’m too cautious, too hesitant. I get to about the middle of the traverse where the feet disappear altogether and can’t go on. My God! I’m so high up. Low Traverse, indeed.

The High Traverse, which Todd works next, having mastered the Low Traverse on his first try, is absolutely no higher at its highest point. It is scarier though, because in order to make those first few traversing moves you’d actually have to get horizontal. Todd is unwilling. He jumps.

I try the Low again, then try the High for jollies. The moves up to the start of the High are delicate and slabby, a nice change for my tired arms. I enjoy working out the intricate body position options, so close to the ground and so much more my style, but then I’ve succeeded at last and am up to the two-finger pocket where the real fun begins.

I grope around the horizontal crack that starts the hairy traverse, trying to decide if I can hold on long enough to at least bail safely. I have absolutely no desire to fall on my back from this height and no delusion that I can actually do the traverse. It’s only a question of whether or not to try the next move.

This is why bouldering is good for me, I remind myself, and make the next move, swinging out under the roof proper. I throw a hand up for the next hold and get it. Even Todd didn’t go past here. I lower my legs and look at the pad way down there beneath me, nothing but air between us. I’m glad it’s so big. I don’t know how those boulderers with pads about the size of Crazy Creek chairs do it.

That’s enough of the High Traverse for me. I make two more attempts at the Low, one starting from the other direction, but never manage to get through the blank area in the middle. On my last attempt I call down that I’m going to jump and Todd exhorts me to continue on, to try at least. I make once last hand shuffle and come off, not jumping this time but really falling. To my surprise, I make my best landing of the day, square on the pad and upright. Surprised, dizzy from the adrenaline rush, I lean back to lay down and fall off the edge of the pad. A perfect landing and I failed to stick it!

By now my arms are like rubber and my fingertips are raw. Even Todd can’t make it through the Low Traverse again. We assemble our light, though bulky, belongings, and totter off down the carriage road. Just a couple of anonymous boulders out for another high-fun, low-commitment day.

I really didn’t want to be here, stuck like every other newbie 5.6 leader at the beginning of the wide stuff on Baby. Todd said I should go back to the car for the #4, but I was too cool. After all, I’ve led Baby before, which I don’t even remember it was so easy. According to Steven’s recounting of the tale, I slung the chock stone, didn’t bother to back it up, and face climbed around the offwidth section.

The chock stone is long since gone, but it’s the part about backing it up that led me to believe I could do this without the #4. I certainly wasn’t carrying a #4 that day. Steven must have thought I had another option available to me.

Now, standing here stuck like . . . well, I already said that part . . . I don’t see another option. With a #3 in at my feet, as high as it will go, I have all the gear I’m going to get. And I’d like to know how I ever face climbed around this section. I can see chalk on the flake to the right but I can’t see how climbing the flake would be anything like 5.6.

It’s only later that it occurs to me that a chock stone is more than just gear. It’s an extra hold as well.

That stupid #3 is so in my way and it’s not even a great piece. Every time I put my foot in the crack in the hopes of actually starting the next move, my foot slides down until it’s resting on the cam. This is unsatisfactory. Cheating issues aside, I don’t want to lose my one foot hold and my one piece of protection at the same time.

“I can tell you how I do it,” Todd offers, “but maybe you don’t want to know.”

“I know how you do it,” I tell him. He laybacks the whole section. I fondle the edge. “It’s a good edge for laybacking,” I admit, “but I really can’t see myself laybacking that far.” What is it? 6 feet? 10 feet from the gear before you’re done? I’m actually pretty good at laybacking. At least, it’s not one of the things I know I need to work on, like dynos and slopers, but I’m not keen on laybacking on lead. My confidence doesn’t run that high. No, it’s either offwidth the crack or face climb the flake.

I paw around the inside the offwidth a bit, looking for something better than a full-on arm bar, and find only the smallest of sidepull edges. Unsatisfactory. I finger the face holds to my right again. Unsatisfactory. I try once more to put my foot in the crack. This is ridiculous. I’m coming down.

Much whimpering and clinging later I’m finally below the #3 and ready to remove it. Funny how easy the stuff above me looks from here. Why you simply stand up there and . . .

I climb back up and resolutely stuff my foot in the crack – below the cam this time. It sticks. I throw my right arm in the offwidth and re-find that microedge and step up. Yes, I’m up. That was a mistake. I really don’t know if I can get back down now. I shuffle the other arm up, find a much better sidepull in the depths of the crack, and stick my whole other leg in. Squeak, squeeze, scrunch. Up I go, more committed with every inch.

I can almost get my foot on the slopey edge that marks the finishing point for this section. Briefly I high step to it, then change my mind. If I’m going to fall, I really don’t want to fall upside down. Instead, I squeegee up a little higher and then step on it.

For a moment, I think I’ve had it. I need to pull just slightly higher to reach a real hand hold, but I can’t get there. I’m teetering, groping blindly inside the crack, looking for anything. Finally I find the smallest opening in the cap above me and the last six inches are mine.

With great relief, I cling to the holds above the offwidth and strew gear about madly.

“That didn’t look so bad,” Todd says.

Next time I’m bringing the #4.

We’re at the Gunks today practicing. Maybe cheating’s a better word. Next week at GunksFest 2001 we’ll be climbing in this area, from Baby to Jean. I’ve just led Baby. Now Todd leads Jean (5.9). We learn that the old blue thing that used to mark the start of the crux has been replaced with a new red thing. I learn that just because I made it over the roof the last time we did this route doesn’t mean I’m just going to sail over it like nothing today. Despite the fact that I know where the good holds are now (yes, I swear there are some), I still have trouble getting my feet over the roof.

At one point, I find a knee bar. Oh blessed, blessed knee bar. On a subsequent attempt the knee bar is gone. Why hast thou forsaken me? Eventually I go over the roof three times, never the same way twice. You know, if I could find that knee bar again I really think I could lead this route.

We finish the day with Maria Direct (5.9) and Maria Redirect (5.11). I actually get through the lower crux on Maria Redirect without falling, reaching what Todd calls “the rest.” I fall off of the rest. Perhaps he meant “the rest of the route.” Eventually I get started on the second half of the route and manage to get to the top in one push. So, I can do the lower crux and the upper crux; I just can’t do “the rest.”

“If I can do Maria Redirect at the GunksFest,” I tell Steven by email, “pretend that I’ve always been able to do it.”

It’s going to be the best GunksFest ever!