Mike had mentioned that he and Dawn were planning to head to the 'Daks

Mike said earlier in the week that Leemouse from Gunks.com might join us but I didn't get a real name until the last email. Starts with an H, ends with a Y, definitely not Henry. Damn.

to do a 3 pitch slab climb, 5.7 or so. "Would I like to join them?" Given the predicted weather and the fall colors, I decided that I could escape from work for the day and make the trip. As we got closer and closer to the departure time, the details of the trip began to emerge. The hike in would be 3+ miles,

Somewhere along the 3.9 mile hike to Big Slide Mountain

What kind of an idiot walks almost four miles each way to climb three pitches of 5.7? Count three idiots on this trip - one for each pitch as Mike would futilely point out later.

so we needed to head up the night before and camp out. Of course Mike had room in his tent for both Dawn and me (hmmmm). Mike and I met in Kingston and drove to meet Dawn outside Albany. Once we spotted her "sea foam" green car and piled in her bags

She introduced herself, of course. It just went by too quickly. Started with an H, ended with a Y, but I already knew that much. I was going to have to call her "hey you", as in "hey you, you're on belay." Great.

(thankfully, she had even larger bags than me for the overnight - Mike had made fun of me but it turned out I was the only one who hadn't brought a pillow from home), we were on our way north. We located a comfy campsite with headlamps

No one told me to bring a headlamp. Mike said something about sleeping in the car or pitching a tent by the side of the road - not 100 yards into the deep, dark woods - and we were only climbing three pitches the next day. Why would I bring a headlamp? Besides, I don't have one. I got pissed at my Petzl Zoom because it never works because the batteries are always dead because it's impossible to keep it turned off and when we got back from Cannon I pitched it in the trash in a fit of anger. Helmsley (Henley, Hennessy?) and Mike had to keep turning around to point out rocks and sticks for me. Finally, I was put between them like a small child who has to hold onto Mommy with one hand and Daddy with the other.

around midnight, and quickly fell asleep. Breakfast as planned at the Noonmark,

and Dawn left her fleece jacket as a tip

and then we were on the trail. Big Slide Mountain is 3.9 miles and 2800 vertical feet from the trailhead, and the spot where we would break off the trail and bushwhack to the base of the climb was just a few tenths of a mile from the summit. Mike tried to set a quick pace (assuming I, the smoker, would lag behind) but Dawn and I kept right up,

After hiking for approximately my entire life we stopped for some water and a view. Mike pointed out the Big Slide, somewhere in the next county, claiming that it was closer than it looked. Don't let the photo fool you - that was taken on max zoom.

Big Slide Mountain looms in the distance on the approach

and we made good time. We entertained ourselves along the way

The last mile of the trail was a bit wet, and where it dipped over to the north side of the ridge there was up to 2 inches of snow from the previous weekend's cold weather. We threw our ceremonial first snowballs of the season. C'mon winter!

(not what I was thinking)

trying to name routes in the Nears alphabetically: Alphonse, Birdland, Criss Cross, Disneyland, etc. Think it's easy? Name a route starting with an N (in the Nears!). The trail at the base of the slab was treacherous,

I took my only fall of the day before I'd even put my harness on, an 8 foot tumble down the fern-covered slope

OK, I laughed. I'm sorry. But if you'd seen him sliding down that grassy slope like it was a greased kiddy slide, you would have laughed too.

but the bushwhack was quick. We immediately spotted an obvious line of bolts leading up the slab (which really is more accurately described as a low angle face, not a slab). But after much consulting of a grainy photo,

Mike at the first bolt on the first pitch of Slide Rules (5.7)

I really gotta learn how to see bolt hangers on gray stone!

we determined that the bolts were on Freudian Slip (a supposed 5.9) and not the route we had intended. Our route was a little less obvious,

I kept insisting that the route with the nice bolts every 10 feet wasn't ours. "If Mike wants to lead the 9, that's fine with me," I said, "but he should know what he's getting into."

but after lots of peering, we spotted two bolts

There are three principal routes on this face: the 5.5 friction route that Fritz Wiessner climbed nearly half a century ago on the left side of the face, which according to the old guidebook suffers from poor anchors; and two more modern, i.e. bolted, lines on the steeper right side of the face, Slide Rules 5.7 and Freudian Slip 5.9. Being my first visit to this face, I opted for the easier of these, but Mellor's descriptive "two bolts per pitch" was never far from my mind.

waaay up the route we were looking for. Armed with an alpine rack,

4 TriCams and a fistful of wired stoppers

Mike, our fearless

ha!

leader, headed out. Such creative gear use! Mike placed nuts in opposition and behind creaky flakes

I'll say. Watching Mike lead I thought he'd gotten a decent amount of gear in. Following the pitch, I realized that none of the gear was decent. Every flake creaked, every hold crumbled beneath my hands. Even on toprope I weighted the holds nervously.

Dawn and Hensley at the second belay

to supplement the two bolts on the first pitch. I followed up next, and Dawn cleaned the pitch to join us at a hanging belay. Mike continued to place creative gear

I think fear, not necessity, is the mother of invention

on the second pitch, which continued up nice clean, knobby rock. All the while, we kept looking left at the line of Freudian Slip. Once at the second belay, which is shared with FS, we couldn't help but admire the line. We all agreed that we had the time and the interest in trying it out. A full 60m rope length allowed us to lower to the base again and each of us climbed the two pitches of Freudian Slip. Absolutely outstanding

This was the best face climb I've ever done in the Adirondacks.

climbing! Never too difficult,

And it's 5.8 not 5.9. This was subsequently confirmed by Ed Palen of the FA party.

but almost every move was interesting and fun. A terrific climb,

I should have shut up and let Mike lead the 9.

highly recommended. We had planned to rap back down to our packs,

The Mellor guidebook shows the route finishing straight up from the second belay. While only 30 feet, it was hopelessly plastered with moss and grunge.

Mike leading his variation of the third pitch

but Mike was interested in leading out a traverse under a flake for a good photo op, and so set off from the belay. Once out at the end of the traverse, he looked up, and made a snap decision to continue upwards to the top of the slab. Neither Dawn nor I could see where he was headed. When he had only 20 feet rope left, I called up to him to let him know. A mere ten seconds later, he called back "off belay." We looked at each other and shrugged -

The ever-increasing rope drag, due mostly to the dead spruce tree I climbed around three sides of, was bringing me to a screeching halt. (Fact - the name "spruce" comes from the Latin word "sprucae" which means "rope drag".) It was all I could do to pull myself up into the woods and throw a loop of rope around the first tree I came to. At that point it didn't matter if I had 20 or 120 feet of rope left; I wasn't going any further.

"guess he knew he was out of rope." I headed up across the traverse, easy but airy, and up the knobby face where he had gone. Once I turned the corner, I was a little confused - the rope led up and around another corner, but I could not see Mike anywhere. Once I got around the final corner, I could see why - Mike had squirmed up a mudbank into thick pine scrub

Without a doubt the most manky bit of climbing I've ever done, easily beating out the upper pitches of Maxine's Wall (5.10, Yosemite).

to set up the belay. Ugh! I grabbed a tree, mossy wet rock, finally got my foot on a spongy tuft of grass,

Welcome to the Adirondacks!

and heaved myself into the thicket. As soon as I was there, Mike headed off through the brush to scope out a likely spot to rap from, and I started hauling up the rope to belay Dawn. I could hear Mike cursing as he snapped through the brush, periodically calling out to Dawn

Hensley following the third pitch traverse

I'd confessed to Halley (Henskey, Homily?) that sometimes I get a little nervous about following traverses. When Mike yelled down to find out where I was along the traverse, I thought he was showing a really touching concern for my psychological welfare,

to try to get directly over the original anchor

but he wasn't.

(why did we do another pitch again?) When Dawn joined me, she headed off in Mike's direction while I cleaned the anchor. Although they later claimed to have broken trail for me through the brush,

"I don't think my butt's going through there," I said to Mike, looking at where he had, for no comprehensible reason, run the rope between two trees spaced about eight inches apart.

Hensley rapping out of the jungle

it was no picnic. I think I still have twigs in my hair! It was fun to emerge from the brush into thin air over the slide. Two raps got us to the ground and our packs, and with only a couple of hours of light left, we decided to forgo the hike to the summit (after all, we had been within 100 feet) and head back to the car. The hike down

I told Hominy (Heresy, Hershey?) that she wasn't at all like what I'd expected from the nickname Leemouse and she told me that she'd always wished people would shorten her name to Lee instead of Hens. I could see that, hens being a bit like chickens. Yes! Chickens + Leemouse = Hensley! Too bad the trip was almost over.

was faster but certainly harder on the knees

Hensley (got it!) complained on the way up that her right knee has no cartiledge or something so she has a hard time on the downhill stuff. I was smugly sympathetic. My knees have never bothered me going downhill. Of course, I'd never walked downhill for 3,000 feet in a row. By the time we got to the bottom, Mike and Hensley had left me in the dust and I felt like an 80 year old arthritic grandmother.

and feet. We were all glad to reach the car. All told, a fantastic trip - a great hike, terrific climb, amazing weather, good company, and no one snored (well, too loudly, anyway).

I told you she makes it sound simple.

Mike and Hensley, half way back down