“I must have done something good,” I thought, “to deserve this.” I hadn’t had a good climbing season, but I’d had a good climbing day. P38 felt easy. I led a 10, though not so cleanly. Then Mike put the rope on the 11 next to it and I walked up the thing. Though we were only TRing that day, Mike has led Country Roads before and when I came down I said I could see how someone would lead it.<\/p>\n
“You’d lead<\/i> that?!?” Mike is perpetually incredulous.<\/p>\n
“I said someone<\/i>. I didn’t say me<\/i>.”<\/p>\n
But the seed was planted.<\/p>\n
There’s a song from The Sound of Music that the rich guy and Maria sing to each other about what they must have done in their lives to deserve each other, and it was that refrain, “I must have done something good,” that was echoing in my head the next day. I was wondering what I’d done to deserve having my first trad 5.11 handed to me. My first attempt at 5.9 precipitated a lead head crash that lingered for four years. My first 5.10 took three tries (and I mean on three different days) despite it being a route I’d followed routinely for seven years. But my first 11? Oooh, baby.<\/p>\n
I thought maybe it was my reward for climbing with Mike that day. Climbing with Mike takes a certain amount of fortitude (the smell of whiskey at 9 a.m. is disconcerting) and a lot of patience. There’s going to be some major objective, THE LEAD OF THE DAY, that’s going to be slow and painful and involve endless apologizing and even more whiskey and, ultimately, it might not happen at all (which is how P38 went that day). <\/p>\n
But once through THE LEAD OF THE DAY, Mike is at your disposal. And he’s a guy who knows a lot of stuff. One thing he knows is some most excellent beta for Country Roads, a route I’d once-upon-a-time tried before and got nowhere on. Using Mike’s beta, I questioned the 5.11 rating. And it had fixed gear. Man, I love fixed gear. <\/p>\n
Another good thing I’d done was lose some weight. More believable than karma, weight loss makes a big difference when hanging off little holds. I wanted to believe I was just that thin, just that good. I plotted the moves in my head. Right hand, left hand, left foot, right foot, right hand, left foot, something magic happens, reach down and clip the tat. Done.<\/p>\n
So the next weekend I was out there with Steve and I knew I wanted to try it if I could only bring myself to do it. Those moments when you believe you can are the ones you want to cling to. Doing means finding out. With me and my impossible dreams, finding out often means the end of the dream. But you can’t put “believe” in the bank, so after five minutes of pawing the ground and trying to find a gear placement in between the shared start and the crux, I stepped up and said yes.<\/p>\n
Steve has two ropes. It’s annoying of him and initially I thought I’d only bring one but then I had the semi-brilliant idea that the second rope would make retreating, if necessary, considerably easier. So I led the shared City Streets\/Country Roads start on the blue rope, soloed up to the crux (indeed, there is no gear) and clipped the red rope into the fixed gear (man, I love fixed gear). I backed up the fixed gear because, as bomber as it looked, it was realistically the only thing between me and the ground and, figuring I might as well use both ropes, I clipped the <\/p>\n
You know what? You don’t need all that detail. In the end there was blood and carnage and ropes and gear everywhere and eventually we got it all back (except some of the blood) and everyone was safe on the ground and Steve even got up City Streets without any aiding, so it was nice someone got up something.<\/p>\n
The “something magic happens” move didn’t go so well. I still haven’t figured that one out, not even in my head in bed right before I fall asleep and I’m normally a really good climber then. I think I need a Mike consult.<\/p>\n
So my first attempt at leading 5.11 on gear was a lot like my first attempts at 5.10 and 5.9: a good story but a bad climb. But you know what? 9 happened and 10 happened and suddenly I believe that 11 is going to happen, and that’s a thing I never believed before. So I must have done something <\/i>good.<\/p>\n
10\/18
Trapped Like a Rat, 5.7 (Julia)
P38, 5.10 (TR)
City Streets, 5.10 (Dawn)
Country Roads, 5.11 (TR)<\/p>\n
10\/24
Drunkard’s Delight, 5.8 (Steve)
Son of Easy O, 5.8 (Dawn)
Bloody Bush, 5.6 (P1: Steve, P2: Dawn)
Country Roads\/City Streets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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