Two pitches into the day, it started to rain. It could have been a waste of time. Instead it was a day to savor.<\/p>\n
The idea was for me to lead Proctoscope. Since it’s 9+ and I was only on it once so long ago that I remember nothing about it, that would have been a good lead. To warm up, we decided to start with Steve leading Hans Puss, a 5.7 in the area.<\/p>\n
When we walked up to it, we found someone leading Feast of Fools. This is unusual in itself, but, even more unusually, he went on to lead the second pitch. I’ve been on Feast of Fools lots, but always on toprope and never on the second pitch. I’ve vaguely considered that I could lead it. I know people who have<\/i> led it. But it’s not a gimme 10 (do they make those?) and I certainly wasn’t considering the second pitch which was a complete unknown.<\/p>\n
But Steve is more inclined to go up than to come down, so I joined him at the fixed anchor that’s shared by Hans Puss, Proctoscope, and Feast of Fools. The second pitch of Hans Puss is non-obvious and the second pitch of Proctoscope is dirty and unappealing. The second pitch of Feast of Fools didn’t looks so bad. The second from the party above us had made it through the crux and Steve said she hadn’t struggled much. She had struggled on the first pitch, so this told me the second pitch was easier. The crux seemed short–just a couple moves in a somewhat blank corner–and it looked like I’d have gear to start the sequence.<\/p>\n
And that’s how I came to onsight what is only my second 5.10 at the Gunks. If I hadn’t been so far above a brass nut, it might not have happened. But I stepped up to check things out, got committed, and kept moving in search of the stance-to-come. Turned out the corner was a few moves longer than the a few moves. <\/p>\n
Often after an ego-swelling climb like that I jokingly announce that “we can go home now.” Never has the joke come more immediately true. No sooner had we de-racked after hitting the ground than the deluge began. We cowered into the Hans Puss corner for thirty minutes watching and listening to the stranded climbers. Above us was someone safe but soaked, screaming obscenities as he tried to recover all his gear on a slanting lower. On the other side was a woman leading the first pitch of something on the right side of the Arrow wall. Her situation looked much more dire (none of those first pitches are rolling in gear), but she held it together.<\/p>\n
I hope everyone got down OK. As for me, I had a good day. Short, but sweet.<\/p>\n
Hans Puss P1, 5.7 (Steve)
Feast of Fools P2, 10a (Dawn)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two pitches into the day, it started to rain. It could have been a waste of time. Instead it was a day to savor. The idea was for me to lead Proctoscope. Since it’s 9+ and I was only on it once so long ago that I remember nothing about it, that would have been… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gunks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dawnalguard.com\/climbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dawnalguard.com\/climbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dawnalguard.com\/climbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dawnalguard.com\/climbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dawnalguard.com\/climbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dawnalguard.com\/climbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dawnalguard.com\/climbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dawnalguard.com\/climbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dawnalguard.com\/climbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}