Steep enough for you? Todd leading Going to Cayman With a Snorkel in My Jeans, 5.10c

"All overhanging, all the time," I insist to Lisa, my gym partner.

"Really?" she asks doubtfully. My aversion to overhanging routes isn't exactly a well-kept secret.

"I'm going to Cayman Brac," I tell her. "Steep. When you lower, your belayer has to pull you in fifteen feet to the belay so you don't fall into the ocean." I've been reading the propaganda on my own website with serious dismay and am now passing on the details with macabre exaggeration.

My strategy evolves.

"Laps," I declare. "These routes are 140 feet long." More fearful perusal of the guidebook has ensued.

Eventually I can do four laps, about 120 feet, of overhanging 5.7. Or 2 ½ laps of 5.8. Or one lap and barely getting off the ground again on 5.9.

"This is great," I moan to Todd. "I'll be able to climb any route there as long as it's not any harder than 5.7. Too bad Cayman Brac starts at 5.10"

"120 feet of overhanging 5.7 is 5.10," he reassures me, but I have visions of never getting more than 10 feet off the ground the entire trip.

Monday at Orange Cave

Which is why I approach this first 5.8 pretty nervously, despite the fact that it doesn't really look overhanging at all. Just a tricky sort of move to get the first bolt clipped, and then some steep sort of moves to get past it, and . . . Ack! I'm going to die here. I shake my way through the route and lower off, glad to be alive.

And now I'm supposed to lead a 10 b/c? Chum Buckets looms up above me, the draws, pre-hung, don't touch the rock but are reassuringly close together. I clip the first two and get as high as the third but can't find a way to clip it. Scared by my proximity to the ground, I start downclimbing.

Mark leading Going to Cayman With a Snorkel in My Jeans, 5.10c

"Take," I say, as soon as the second bolt is at my waist again. Well, I didn't die. From around the corner John explains where the clipping hold is and I gather my resolve together and start up again. Ah, the trick is to clip this one from pretty low. I climbed past the clipping stance the first time.

Now that we've all done the 5.8 (La Orangerie) and Chum Buckets, we gather together at the base of Going to Cayman With a Snorkel in My Jeans (5.10c) and ogle the start. Todd stick clips the first bolt and ties in. He refuses to climb past the first bolt. This is really seriously steep if Todd won't even lead it. I know this route is beyond me, but I'm also fascinated by it and dying to give it a try.

John leads it and then Mark. I insist that Todd pull the rope and try again but when my turn comes I cowardly take the TR. Now I find out first hand what everyone's been griping about. Someone has climbed up there and covered half the holds in soap.

Well, not really, but it certainly feels like it. Not only are the soapy holds hideous in themselves, but they immediately remove all traces of chalk from your hands, leaving the draws, the next hold, anything you touch, feeling just as bad. With a dramatic array of heel hooks, knee bars, and just plain scumming of any part of my body against any available bit of rock, I pull through the moves cleanly.

Hooray! I'm going to be OK here. I can just feel it.

Mark finishing the tricky start of Ick, Theology!, 5.10b

So I'm not at all scared of Ick, Theology! (5.10b), which doesn't look that overhanging except for the bizarre starting move and a small roof at the top. This is where I get my comeuppance. After cruising through the starting move (made off a teetering stack of rocks piled as high as you can balance them), I'm feeling pretty good about myself. And then . . . soap! And steepness! And scary roofs! and I forgot to wear my helmet, so I'm psyched out too.

"Falling!" I yell. Again and again, only eventually arriving at the top after an epic battle, not to mention a race against the setting sun.

All overhanging, all the time. I'm so screwed.

Tuesday at the Northeast Point

"It's more like bulges," John says, trying to reassure me. I'm nervous because we're heading to The Point today, the place where the routes are long and steep and you start from the top so you have to be able to climb out. "You get rests."

That makes me feel a lot better, so I even agree to lead the first route, No Problem, Mon, which is only 5.10a. Although it feels like it takes Todd and me about an hour to get everything set up before we can climb, the route itself goes smoothly.

"You get faster at it," John assures us, and it's true that our setup for Walking the Plank (5.10 b/c) and Blackbeard's Revenge (5.10b), which share a bottom anchor, goes much faster. All the routes are enjoyable and hanging above a sharp drop-off into the sea to belay is fantastic.

Todd following No Problem, Mon, 5.10a

"Turtle!" people keep yelling, but I can never see it. Finally, while belaying Todd from the top of Blackbeard's Revenge, I look down and see a turtle, huge and unmistakable, floating in the water below him.

"Turtle!" I yell, but no on can hear me. I watch the turtle until it dives and then go back to belaying.

Wednesday at Dixon's Wall

The unusual thing about Dixon's Wall is that it's inland. The relaxing thing about Dixon's Wall is that there's nothing on it easier than 5.11. That means I don't have to lead anything today.

I don't mind the psychological rest and the routes here are amazing. They start on a surprisingly hard vertical wall and climb up to a fiercely overhanging headwall. With a lot of moaning and groaning, and a certain amount of hanging and falling, I make it to the top of both the 5.11s John sets up for us. The first, a 5.11b, has had a crucial hold break off and John says that it's probably at least 11c now, but it's not really so bad. What's cool about overhanging stuff, I'm finding, is that the moves aren't that hard when taken individually. So with the occasional rope-rest I'm able to do all the moves on, and actually enjoy, routes with ratings that would normally be way over my head.

The other route, a 5.11a, I very nearly get. My emotional compass has swung the other way again and I'm starting to believe that I'm going to be OK here in the land of the sharp and the steep.

Thursday at Wave Wall

"You look a bit uncertain," John says, offering me the lead on Old School, a 5.8 warm-up.

"It's the approach," I say. "I just need to sit for a bit." Sometimes a sketchy approach takes up my entire stock of courage, leaving me without enough left over for the sharp end. The approach to Wave Wall is wild, traversing across low-angle but wet slabs in hiking boots with jagged rocks and a pounding sea below you. Still, it's certainly worth the effort now that we're here. You can hardly find a more gorgeous belay setting.

Mark leading Dixon's Delight, 5.11a

The route description for Old School reads, "If you're not on a jug, you're probably off-route," something that could be said about most of the routes on the island. I'm getting used to the rock now and know to look around for the jugs sometimes camouflaged as pockets, aretes, or just clumps of convoluted sharp, black rock in which secret edges can be found.

Old School lives up to its billing as a good warm up. John has a project on this wall, Unsuspecting Remora (11d/12a). We belay him on it in between other routes. Todd leads a 10d called Hang Ten on which the crux is getting the anchor clipped. Not liking the sound of that at all, I choose to follow it. Then I lead a 10b called New Wave that shares the same anchors but with a much better clipping stance.

Me leading Old School, 5.8

By now John has successfully redpointed Unsuspecting Remora and Todd just has to try it. Unable, or perhaps just unwilling, to use John's sequence, he tries everything under the sun, including a dyno to a mud-filled pocket.

"That'll go," he insists. I just shake my head and turn down the opportunity to try it myself when he finally gives up and lowers off.

Friday at the Northeast Point

The scene of my disgrace. Yes, I was supposed to bring a rope down, and yes, I was supposed to double check before leaving the top that I had everything, and, yes, here I am halfway rapped down the route without a rope.

"Got your prusiks?" John asks.

Yes, I have my prusiks. Berating myself the whole way, I prusik 15 feet or so of Shiver Me Timbers (5.10b) until I'm over the crux bulge and can yell up to Todd what the problem is. Todd sends me down a rope and I finish the rappel. Then Todd rappels part way down and I look up and realize he doesn't have a rope either.

"Oh," he says. "You forgot your rope. I thought you wanted mine for some reason." Sigh. We rearrange our strategy for getting three people down and up a route at The Point, perhaps not the ideal location for a three-person party. By the time I get around to actually leading the route, it feels like a cake walk in comparison. After all, I've already done the crux, albeit on prusiks.

Once we've finally managed to get ourselves and our belongings back on top again, we shift over to The Devil Wears Flippers, 5.11a.

John finishing the first crux on Unsuspecting Remora

"Do you want to lead it?"

I shake my head ferociously.

"I've only ever climbed three 11s cleanly, you know, all on toprope and two of them were in the gym." Plus with the low crux and all, though it turns out later I'm mistaken as to where the crux is.

Todd leads the route, pulling through what I think is the crux fairly easily and then lingering a bit to fix a backclip at the spot where John now tells me the crux actually is. He gets that too and is out of sight when John further adds that the top is pretty hard.

"He saw that," I say, unconcerned. One advantage of climbing at The Point is the opportunity to preview the route as you're rapping it. Todd had been checking out the top moves while waiting for his turn to go down, so I figure he'll make it through OK.

But he doesn't. There's some sort of muffled yell from above us. John and I look at each other. "Did he say take?" Todd pulls up more rope. "Guess not." More rope, more rope, then a tug. John locks off. Another indecipherable syllable floats down to us. This one sounds a little like "fuck!". When Todd starts climbing again we notice that he goes a long, long way before he starts taking rope. One big disadvantage of climbing at The Point, and indeed many places on the Brac, is the almost total inability to communicate with your belayer. It turns out that Todd has downclimbed/fallen quite a ways in an attempt to get us to lock off after saying what was, after all, "take."

The plan is that John will now lead the route again and then I'll follow him. This is to avoid my having to trail a rope and clip as I go.

Me following The Devil Wears Flippers, 5.11a

"I want you to get this clean," John says. It's a common theme with my partners, and I wonder why I'm so often blessed this way, that they're almost more interested in my successes than their own.

I've now watched two people climb through both the opening moves and the stated crux but when my turn comes I'm surprised by how hard the moves through the first few bolts are. Perhaps a bit of a reach problem, I think, and certainly this section is pumpy. I struggle through it then relax until I hit the double draw that marks the middle crux.

It's not like I haven't been warned. With my hands on not-so-great holds I commit to moving upwards and realize, too late, that I don't have my feet high enough to reach the next hold. My only hope is to bump one of my feet from this tenuous position. I'm on the verge of slumping onto the rope right then and there, tired and convinced that I can never hold this position with only one foot on, but I silently urge myself to at least fall trying, bump the foot, find myself still on the rock, though desperate, and grab for the next hold.

Mercifully, it's good enough to hang off of and a few more thin, powerful, and, yes, painful moves find me through the crux and at a resting ledge.

One more hurdle to go.

I approach the top moves so cautiously you'd think I was on lead with my last piece twenty feet below me. I so don't want to blow this. Someone has removed the draw from the bolt where Todd said "take" after pumping himself out trying to find a good clipping hold, another sign that my partners are doing everything they can to get me up this thing. I study each move, planning ahead, knowing each time before stepping up that I can step back down if I don't like what I find.

Surprisingly, it's not really that hard. But then I didn't have to clip from there.

My second ever outdoor 5.11. I feel like a champion, the more so because of how close I came to giving up.

Todd leading Shooting the Curl, 5.10a

Saturday at Wave Wall

"I want to lead it," I say, referring to Parrot Preserves on Rye, 5.11a.

"OK," Todd says.

"So we have to do it first," I insist. Our gear is in front of a 10c and 10d that share a common anchor, but if we start with those I know I'll never have the strength left for an 11a.

We grab just what we need and teeter farther down the Wave Wall traverse to the route in question.

"But you have to go first," I tell him.

"You want me to hang the draws, don't you?" he laughs. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'll take any advantage on this, my first 5.11 lead.

I'd like to say I'm stronger now, and more confident, having arrived at the top by hook or by crook on an amazing three 5.11s here on the island, but mostly I just liked the sound of the route the way John described it.

"It's 5.8 to a rest, then a 10d power crux, then a slabby technical crux." Yes! A technical crux, for God's sake.

Me leading my first 5.11, Parrot Preserves on Rye, 5.11a

"The bolts aren't a long ways apart because it's a slab, are they?" I ask doubtfully. No more long slab falls for me, thank you very much.

"There's a bolt everywhere you need one," he says cryptically. Then takes pity on me and verifies that they're every bit as close together as I've gotten used to them being here. Indeed, aside from a few run out sections at the very easy tops of some routes at The Point, there is absolutely nothing to complain about with respect to the spacing of the bolts, except perhaps the possibility of actually being able to Z-clip in a few spots.

I've promised myself that I'm not going to beat myself up over my performance on this route, that my triumph is in being willing to try it, that you can't lead a 5.11 cleanly until you've led a few 5.11s sloppily.

I run through the 5.8 start, past the midway anchor placed so that 5.8 leaders will have a few more routes to do, and into the start of the 10d power crux. I take it one bolt at a time, aiming for the little cave below the roof that will mark the end of the overhanging section. I'm expecting to rest in the cave, which was spacious looking with a ledge-like floor from below, but the cave turns out to be not much more than a notch in the rock. No room in here even for a little person like me.

I'm uncomfortable enough to decide that I won't bother trying to rest here. All I have to do is pull this roof and I'll have all the rest I need. John said, "It's not as hard as it looks, is it?" and Todd agreed. Why then is this hard? Because I can't reach the next good hold. I find and reject a couple of intermediates, my right hand in a bomber undercling and unwilling to relinquish it. I work my feet up but because my arm span, between the undercling under the roof and the next jug over the roof, is the limiting factor, it doesn't help.

Getting desperate and wishing I'd tried to rest after all, I jiggle my right hand farther out, to the very edge of the incut hold, and make the reach. Now it's as easy as was promised and I'm over the roof, breathing a sigh of relief.

Indeed the bolts up here are plenty close together, and nicely tagged by the draws hanging from them, but it's a slab only by the sport climbing definition that a slab is anything that doesn't overhang by very much. Approaching each move cautiously, as I did on The Devil Wears Flippers, I find similarly that this section isn't so hard at all. Which I guess demonstrates once again that the vertical realm is a much more comfortable one for me. I clip the anchors and then monkey about with trying to get even higher. I want to prove that I could have hung the draws myself. Todd and John are getting restless, wondering why I haven't said "take" already. Finally I find a stance I'm happy with and reach over and casually tap each bolt. Now I say "take" and lower off, one seriously happy camper.

"What did you guys think about the rating?" John asks.

Todd between the first and second cruxes of Unsuspecting Remora, 5.11d/12a

"It might be a little soft," I admit, then immediately berate myself for it. I did the damn thing and I'm not going to knock it down. "Maybe 11c/d, " I say, taking the opposite tack. "I hesitate to actually call it 12 . . ." We all smile and agree that it might be just a little soft, but who the hell cares. I was told it was 11 and I stepped up and led it. And that, as I promised myself, is the only victory I need.

Things are winding down on our last day here. I'm happy and don't need to climb another thing, maybe as long as I live, but Todd wants to take a stab at Unsuspecting Remora again. On lead this time.

He dreamt about it, he claims, and now he knows how to do it. I've had those nights myself, tossing and turning and working through what I'm sure will be the magic sequence for some route that's haunting me. And just as Todd does, I always find out that I'm terribly wrong.

Things aren't looking good as once again he's unable to work through the low crux using either John's sequence or his own. He tries the dyno thing again, on lead!, something I wouldn't dream of doing in a hundred years, and John catches him when it doesn't work any better on a third try than it did on the first two. Then, like magic, he does some small thing different with one of his feet and casually, statically, reaches through and pulls it.

So it's smiles all around as we pick our way back across the beach and into the Carribean sunset. John got his redpoint, Todd found a way to do the lower crux of Unsuspecting Remora ("I could walk it now," he tells me confidently later) and I led my first 11. Not all overhanging, not all the time, but all good.
 

Me leading New Wave, 5.10b

Me at the crux of Shiver Me Timbers, 5.10b, with my chalk bag closed