Dawn's Climbing Blog

This is a TR about two days of climbing at the Gunks with Todd who is a rec.climber but who doesn’t post much. I met Todd a few weeks ago at our sparsely attended Rec.Climbing Winter Festival at the Gunks and he’s joined us every weekend since then, but I had never climbed with him alone prior to this weekend, so I thought he deserved a TR and to have it pointed out that he didn’t take the opportunity to murder me (Murdered: 0, Not Murdered: 4).

Steven was off for ice this weekend, leaving me partnerless for the first weekend since we met. I had Saturday available and Monday off from work besides, so I contacted Todd. He agreed to meet me Saturday (“It’s going to be cold.”) and said we’d talk about Monday then.

Saturday was, in fact, cold with the highs in the teens but it was sunny and not windy and we found ourselves more motivated than we expected. “Let’s find out how hard you can climb,” Todd said. To that end he led Apoplexy, a fun 5.9 (I think) and then we both did Coronary on top rope while we were in the area. This seemed like a good strategy, so we moved to an area where we could get three TRs for the price of one lead. Todd led/soloed (I believe I cleaned two pieces) Bunny with a diagonal traverse to the anchors we were after: Retribution and Nose Dive.

We started with Retribution. “You go first,” Todd said, “I want to see your problem solving skills.” If I was being tested, I passed that one. So far, so good. Next came Nose Dive. Although they’re rated the same at 5.10b, I found Nose Dive to be much more difficult because it was more sustained. I failed the Nose Dive test, falling at the crux a couple of times before figuring out the right places to put my feet so that I could pull through it.

Todd cruised both of these easily but next up was No Solution, the route in between Retribution and Nose Dive. “This one’s a little harder,” Todd told me. “I can’t do it, but I want to see how you do on it.” It boggles the mind. Obviously I would flail on it. Still, I’m willing to fall off anything, so why not?

“I’ll go first,” he said, “so you can see the moves.” There followed a lot of whining, hanging and cries of “take hard.” I figured out I could “take hard” by jumping off of the rock I was standing on to belay and walking backwards until he pulled through the move. Between the two of us we got him to the top and he lowered off. My turn.

“You know,” I said, “if I can’t climb this one of us has to climb something else to clean those anchors.”

“Yes, you do,” he said. “Why do you think I went first?”

“All right,” I told him. “But there’s going to be maximum cheating involved.”

And indeed there was. There are three cruxes on this route. I managed the moves in between the cruxes but not much else. There was no question of my being anything but hauled through the third and hardest one.

Todd decided that it was time for me to lead something. The sun had gone around to the other side of the rock and the temperature change was noticeable. We had our heavy-duty coats and gloves back on. He offered me the choice between a two pitch 5.5 and a one pitch 5.7. I had followed the 5.5 before and I remembered it as having colder-than-average rock and ice in the cracks. The 5.7, by contrast, had a tree at the top of it. Trees often meant rap stations which meant I could rig up to lower and belay him from the ground wearing the marshmallow (we call Todd’s 8000m TNF coat “the marshmallow” not because it looks like a marshmallow but because you feel like one when you’re wearing it – poofy, but toasty). I wimped out by choosing the 5.7.

Me in the Marshmallow

It’s a curious thing, but I’m never cold when I’m leading once I get through the first couple of placements. I don’t know if it’s adrenaline or if the rock is just warmer higher off the ground, but even my fingers stop feeling numb. In this case though, the route ended with a series of mantles onto successively bigger ledges, each ledge covered in snow. The mantle is not my best move. (Note to self: work on problem areas before being required to do them under adverse conditions.) Worse yet, the tree at the top did not have a rap station. Luckily I had worn my coat and carried my gloves and Todd followed me pretty darn quickly, especially considering he was wearing hiking boots.

It turned out we had to walk off. It also turns out that the phrase “sticky rubber” is not universally applicable. Rock shoes don’t stick to snow. Todd gallantly stood at the bottom of some of the steeper parts to catch me if my sliding descent got out of control. I finished with a full out glissade to the bottom, landing at the feet of a couple we had met earlier in the day.

“Rock shoes,” I said, pointing to my feet as I sat fully and damply in the snow. “Hiking boots,” I said, pointing to Todd, dryly and casually standing nearby.

“I understand,” the woman assured me.

When we got back to the car we discovered that it was only 3:45, making us officially wimps as there was plenty of time for one more route. But we had had a good day climbing and were happy to retire to a warm restaurant that served sensational clam chowder and nice, big helpings.

“So,” I said, “Monday?”

“It’s going to be cold,” Todd answered.

“So?”

Stumped, he agreed to meet me Monday. He called Sunday night.

“You’re not canceling on me!” I accused him.

“Nooooo,” he said. “It’s going to be cold though.” I waited him out. “Bring your ascenders,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just stay on the ground and watch you jug.”

As you all know (thanks, Rex), Geoff and I are doing a wall in March. My new ascenders and aiders had just arrived by mail and my homework assignment was to practice jugging. Todd doesn’t aid climb, so I figured I’d better learn how to rig everything at home if I was going to do it in the cold the next day. I fixed a rope to the top of my stairwell and carefully followed Geoff’s emailed instructions on how to assemble the whole rigmarole. Then I started up.

After a brief struggle of no more than half an hour, I arrived at the top of the stairwell. Hmmmm . . . What was my plan now? I couldn’t quite figure out how to “top out” over the “ledge”. I briefly imagined calling for a rescue and being found dangling in my stairwell wearing a harness, pajamas, hiking boots and 6 or 7 yards of webbing. Then I realized that I didn’t have any way to call for a rescue anyway, so I decided that it would be a good time to practice descending the rope. Amazingly, the trip down was even harder than the trip up. “Why is jugging so goddamn hard?” I asked myself. “It’d probably be easier just to go up the rope hand over hand.” To which I replied, “It’d be easier to just walk up the stairs,” which set me to laughing pretty hard. Honestly, sometimes I slay myself.

After five trips up and down the 15 feet of rope I felt like I was getting the hang of it, so I packed everything up for Monday, imagining how competent I would look.

Monday dawned bright but cold and with a strong, piercing wind. The bank clock said zero degrees Fahrenheit as I drove past it, but that wasn’t accounting for the wind chill. I kept repeating Steven’s suggestion, “Good things happen to those who at least try to get out” like a mantra. It looked like I’d get that jugging practice at least.

Todd and I discussed our options over breakfast and decided to head to the Nears where we thought we might get some protection from the wind. We were wrong. It was far too cold to think about climbing. And take off our gloves?? Are you kidding?? At least jugging is warm and can be done with gloves on. And so it was that Todd and I stood at the foot of the crag contemplating the age-old question: how does the rope get up there? One of us was going to have to lead something. Todd volunteered me.

“You can’t call yourself a 5.10 leader until you can lead 5.10 under any conditions,” Todd said. This seemed like a moot point since I’m not a 5.10 leader under any conditions and besides, I didn’t see him leading anything. He laid out my options: a two pitch 5.6- or a 5.7 with an anchor I could lower off at the end of the first pitch. Once again, I took the easy way out: “5.7 please.” Todd cautioned me to place a lot of gear.

“It’s too cold to place a lot of gear,” I moaned. Let me tell you: you might think rock is cold, but it’s nothing compared to how cold biners are.

“So, you’re more likely to fall because it’s cold, so you have to place more gear because it’s cold,” he reasoned. Fine. Todd’s idea of a lot of gear is more like Steven’s version of regular gear anyway. Once I was on the rock it turned out that our strategy wasn’t a complete failure. The wind stopped about ten feet up and I was, as usual, warm enough once I got into the rhythm of leading.

“Climb faster,” Todd yelled.

“You told me to put in a lot of gear.”

“Well, put it in fast. But good. Put it in fast and good and then climb faster.”

I was climbing plenty fast enough, considering, but belaying him from the ground a bit later I saw his point. It was like a wind tunnel down there and any exposed skin paid the price. Even the marshmallow couldn’t fully protect me.

Todd fixed the rope at the anchors and I set up to jug. I had memorized which loop of which chain to use for what, so I was ready quickly, looking pretty professional I thought. Ha! It was a travesty. Todd snickered at me as I floundered up the rope inches at a time. He hollered up the occasional helpful comment along the lines of “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”, “I don’t think you’re supposed to fall over backwards like that” and “Boy I can’t wait to see what happens when you get to that roof!”

But I showed him by not looking any more incompetent going over the roof than I had below it and once I had rock underneath me it was pretty easy going up to the anchors. Todd watched me anxiously as I repeatedly came within inches of killing myself in the process of switching from jugging a fixed line to rapping a free line, including dropping my belay device. Instantly, the following Lord Slime quote, which I had very recently run across on Deja, popped into my head:

“I’ve also seen climbers drop their ATCs for no apparent reason in mid-day and clear warm weather. Then I have to set up a biner brake for them since they don’t know how.”

Well, it wasn’t warm anyway. I vowed that when I got home I would actually practice setting up a biner brake and not just look at the picture. I wished Lord Slime was with me. (Well, maybe not Lord Slime exactly – I don’t think I want to know what he would have said to me at that moment – but I wished I had someone up there with me.) Luckily, I had a partner on the ground. Todd sent my belay device back up to me and eventually I arrived on the ground with all of my body parts and all of our equipment intact.

It was only midday, but we were done. We stopped by Rock and Snow where Todd found a book on Big Walls with a picture of a person jugging who wasn’t falling over backwards. But I found a passage that said it was hard not to tip over backwards while jugging an overhang, so we called it even and went to lunch. “Let me know when you want to get out again,” Todd said as we parted.

Todd bouldering in the snow

Steven said that good things happen to those who at least try to get out. I’ve been heard to declare that there’s no such thing as a bad day climbing. Still, I think you have to draw the line somewhere and that line is henceforth being drawn at zero degrees. But a good thing did happen and that was Todd. What can you say about a partner who gives up a day to belay you on a single pitch of 5.7 in sub-freezing temperatures? I guess I’ll just have to add him to the growing list of reasons why I’m probably the luckiest newbie climber in the world.

A few weeks ago, in response to the statement that climbing at the Gunks in December would be cold, Steven posted the following: “Good things come to those who at least try to get out.”

Yesterday was the proof of that. The day after New Year’s was warm but damp in the Northeast. Fog coalesced into mist and threatened to become drizzle at any moment, but for the 6 of us who met at the Bakery that morning there was no question: we were going climbing. We were pleasantly surprised to find that almost all the rock was dry so we decided to set up camp at the foot of MF and Mother’s Day Party. Todd ran through the climbs in the area.

“Something Interesting is solid 5.7,” he said, “so you shouldn’t lead it unless you’re really solid on 5.7.” He said this directly to me.

“Why are you looking at me?” I protested. “I’m solid on 5.7. My gear might not be, but I am.”

Steven wasn’t crazy about my leading Something Interesting though. There was a lot of talk about mud, and cruxes, and mud at the cruxes. Todd was arguing that the route protected well and Steven was arguing that the second crux was hard to protect. They didn’t appear to need my input, so I quietly took off Steven’s new Yates Shield (just trying it out) and put on my own harness. I hadn’t really even looked at the line yet, but if they were going to argue about it then it was clear that I wanted to lead it.

“Julie wants to climb it,” I said. “I’ll lead and she can follow.”

Surprisingly, that seemed to resolve the issue. I expected to be told that if I was going to lead it I at least had to have Todd or Steven watching me. My strategy was to negotiate from there. Instead, Julie flaked out my rope at the base of the climb while I got handed Todd’s rack along with stern instructions to sew it up.

“How much gear is sewing it up?” I asked. It’s a floating target that I never seem to hit.

“The route is 120 feet,” Steven said, “Put in at least 14 pieces.”

I started the route with great trepidation. They had made me nervous. I’d led 5.7s at the Gunks before. What was so awful about this one? Emmett watched me put in the first piece and made me perform shenanigans with it to prove that it was multi-directional. Then I was left alone. Steven was leading MF and I expect that that was a lot more interesting.

The day started to warm up even more and the sun made an occasional appearance. The rain wasn’t coming after all. When the sun broke through it gave the rocks an other-worldly glow, like in one of those paintings by that Painter of Light guy who sells stuff at the mall. This was January at the Gunks? It was a gift.

“You’re doing great,” Julie called up every once in a while. Otherwise it was quiet. I dutifully stopped every four moves and put in another piece. When I reached a big ledge I turned around and asked Julie if I’d made it through any of the cruxes yet. She told me I was past the first one–excellent, I hadn’t even noticed it.

Todd had pre-selected a piece to protect the second crux, the red cam. I was not to use it before then. Exactly how I was supposed to know when I got to the second crux wasn’t as clearly defined.

Two moves, three moves, four moves. It was time to place another piece. I didn’t see any terribly good placement opportunities but, not feeling very worried at the moment anyway, I slotted a small nut that obviously wasn’t going to hold any outward pull but that might hold a pull straight down. Unfortunately, this business of sewing it up had left me without any more slings, so I had to clip a draw to it. It rather looked like the red cam might go in a little further up, but I was saving it. I made a couple of moves and heard a clink. Sure enough, the nut was hanging from the piece below it. I looked at Julie.

“I’ll put in something in a second,” I said. I made another move. “There’s a pin here.” The last couple of moves had been hard and with the piece below me having self-cleaned I was officially runout. I was happy to get the pin clipped and then I saw that the red cam would go in too. “This must be it,” I thought, having grown accustomed to pins at cruxes at the Gunks, and I shoved in the cam. The next few moves didn’t feel bad at all and then it was just a run up to the anchors.

You’ve probably already guessed that the red cam should have gone in around where the nut did and that I was hanging from the crux when the nut popped, but it all worked out just fine. In the end I placed 11 pieces and clipped two pins, for a total of 13. Steven gave me the anchor as my fourteenth placement. I even got a thumbs up from Julie on every one of my placements (that lasted long enough for her to clean it).

“So,” I said to Steven once we were both safely on the ground again (him from MF and me from Something Interesting), “if that was 7+ then I must be ready to lead 5.8.”

“I told you so,” Steven said to Todd, but he didn’t really sound unhappy.

I went over to TR MF. I couldn’t believe Steven had led it. 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.

Next up was Todd leading Mother’s Day Party. Steven belayed him and I sat on a nearby rock, eating Shark Bites Fruit Chews, talking to Steven about our respective leads, and glancing up now and then at Todd. Todd appeared to be building himself an anchor below the second crux.

“I’m going to fall now,” I heard Todd say and looked up to see him push off the rock and take a relatively short, controlled fall. Steven caught him handily and, so it seemed, effortlessly. Looking at the gear was an education. I’d heard all the warnings about making sure the first piece was multi-directional, but I never expected what I saw. The lower two pieces were just about standing on end and every piece except the ones Todd was hanging directly off of were pulled straight out and taut. Every one of them held though.

Now I have to back up and tell you how Steven and Todd met (this is a refresher course because some of you might remember this story). One day Steven saw Todd take an intentional fall for the purpose of showing his belayer what it felt like to catch a lead fall. From Steven’s angle it looked like most of Todd’s gear had pulled and Steven posted something about the folly of it all on rec.climbing only to find out that Todd followed rec.climbing too. Now back to our story.

Since Todd’s gear had withstood the fall, one of them suggested that Steven and I trade places and that Todd take another fall so that I could catch it. Steven and I carefully negotiated the changeover, even though Todd was clipped directly into one of his pieces. Once I had Todd on belay, while he was still hanging and resting, Steven and I discussed whether or not I should be anchored. I mean, of course I should be, but I’ve lead-belayed unanchored before and I thought maybe I should get the full impact. For that reason, I didn’t even move to stand directly below the first piece, which I ordinarily would do when lead-belaying if I wasn’t anchored. Steven cautiously insisted on holding the rope about 4 feet away from me. I just smiled at him–I’m not going to drop Todd, silly bear.

Todd started climbing again. He muttered something I didn’t catch about setting an anchor at the top and kept climbing till he was higher than where he had been when he’d fallen before. It looked like he had made the hard move and I relaxed, thinking he’d pull all the way through the crux, set some more pro, and then jump.

He jumped.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. One moment I was seeing him fall and the next moment I was hanging four feet off the ground, mid-way between the rock and Steven who was the only thing that kept me from shooting all the way up to the first piece. I think we were all pretty shaken up. Todd sure was. He had fallen a little farther than he had expected to and had had long enough to think about it.

I let myself back down to the ground and Steven rigged up an anchor for me. Todd, who is obviously pretty fearless, went back up and fell off the crux twice more before sticking it. On both those occasions he was lower down, closer to where he was with Steven. But even so, and even with the anchor, I ended up completely off my feet each time, stretched tightly between the tree and the rock. It makes me shiver now to think of the times I’ve lead-belayed from the ground without an anchor (including for Geoff). It’s never happening again.

Then I got to follow Mother’s Day Party. What a fun route, with two great cruxes. I cruised the first crux but fell about umpteen times on the second crux before finally doing it so easily that I know I couldn’t do it again because I didn’t learn anything from it. Todd said it was 10+ and I was psyched about finally doing my first Gunks 10. No shame in falling off a 10+.

Later at dinner, Steven’s regular partner Mike showed us the guide book which claimed that the first pitch of Mother’s Day Party (we were mostly just doing first pitches on Sunday; it was a cragging kind of day) was only 9+, but I have chosen to disregard this piece of information.

Also at dinner, Steven and Todd talked over my head about which 8 I ought to do first. They came up with some good ones. I mostly left them to it. I was busy basking in the afterglow of a great day of climbing. I had only done four routes, and only led one of them, but it still goes down as one of my greatest days climbing ever, truly a gift from the Gunks Gods.

Bob, Julie and Emmett (left to right)

After my last trip report, Steven Cherry emailed me to say it was a shame that someone who lives less than two hours away from the Gunks went all the way to Joshua Tree for her first trad lead (actually, I think the word he used was “criminal”). In fact, I hadn’t been to the Gunks at all. He offered to rectify the situation and since we already know that I don’t say no to climbing, we pretty quickly had a date set up for Sunday.

I’m not sure I can put together a decent trip report for my Sunday with Steven. He’s a nice guy and I had a good time but one of the requisite ingredients is missing – no one predicted that I’d end up dead by the end of the day. This is not meant to imply any lack on Steven’s part; I’m sure he’s just as fearsome as the next rec.climber. But since I didn’t need anyone to drop me off at the airport or pick me up from the airport or allow me to take vacation days without 2 months’ prior notice, I just didn’t tell anyone I was going. Of course if my life were a movie the one time that no one knew where I was or how to arrest the person I was with would naturally be the one time I had picked an ice-ax wielding maniac to climb with. Nevertheless, the score currently stands at: Murdered 0, Not Murdered 3.

So on to the climbing. I wasn’t expecting to get to lead. I thought Steven was planning to work on my seconding skills for a while before letting me near the sharp end. So I was surprised when at the foot of our first route he asked me if I’d like to lead the second pitch. There followed a slight pause which Karl Baba and GeoffCJ would have recognized. You might think that I’m reflecting on the route, the protection opportunities, and my skill level as it relates to the above. Actually, it’s more like the hesitation of a child being offered a cookie jar. I’m always afraid that if I reach out for it, it will be yanked away. I said OK – slowly, hesitatingly, one eye on the cookie jar, one eye on the hand that might pull it away. It wasn’t a trick.

Steven didn’t get to lead another thing all day. He’s amazingly patient and dedicated to the role of teacher. I got a complete blow-by-blow critique after each lead, everything from placements to rope management. It was very helpful. I have a lot to remember for the next time and a much clearer idea of where my weaknesses as a leader are.

My best achievement of the day was leading Laurel, a 5.7+. I was pleased that in one day at the Gunks I managed to get so close to my best lead at J-Tree and also pleased that I actually placed a tricam on Laurel (Steven tells me I won’t be a real Gunks climber until I learn to love tricams).

It might not be a bad idea for someone to work on my seconding skills though. I managed to weasel out of almost all the cleaning at J-Tree as we had two other relative beginners with us who still thought it was a privilege to clean gear. I think I cleaned one pitch the whole trip. And now on Sunday with Steven I cleaned one pitch and then promptly switched into Trad Girl mode, sucking up all the leads. But Steven promises to lead some hard stuff the next time we get together, so unless I can convince him that I can lead the hard stuff, I guess I’ll be getting more work in this area soon. One thing’s for sure: once I get my feet under me and my own rack I’m going to have to find a partner who either a) has no interest in leading or b) is willing to wrestle me for the lead.

Steven, somewhere at the Gunks