3/3/2001

Keith Hoek sent in this link about a second (and sucessful) attempt on Thor's Hammer at East Peak in Connecticut: Conquering Thor's Hammer (5.9)

3/15/2001

Mini-TR: A season starts
by Julie Haas

6:58	Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Ugh. Light enough in the room to know the sun is out; dark enough to encourage thoughts of how nice it would be to stay in bed. The cat weighting my feet does't make it any bit easier.
7:02	Beep-beep. Click.
7:06	Beep-beep. Click. Groan. Was this really my idea?
7:10	Beep-beep. Click.
...
7:42	Click. Enough of that. I'm up. Pull on dark, sun-absorbing fleece and hope I'll be warm enough. Munch on a banana while the coffee brews. Packed last night, so I know I haven't forgotten anything, but my pack still looks bare somehow, without the ice tools. They're sadly waiting in the corner until next winter, already.
8:04	Traffic flows like molasses at this hour. At least I'm not in the minivan in front of me, shuttling 2.4 kids to school!
8:15	Base of a crag. It's sunny, and warm despite the snow I'm standing on. Hammond Pond's wall may only be 40 feet tall, but its face is split by decent cracks. My objective this morning is to shoot them out one by one, to stand above my gear and get in touch with my lead head, before The Trip next week. I head up & around to set up long slings for easy clipping on top.
8:45	Kim's late, so I practice throwing anchors together in record time. I'm bouncing on a nut when she walks up, "School buses" she says. My sport-climbing boytoy has declined touching trad gear in favor of doing taxes this morning, so I'm just glad she's here.
9:19	Crack 1 flew by. Crack 2 too. I feel good, pleased with efficiency so far, no wiggles from the Scared One inside. Kim leads through my gear; she's feeling fine as well, getting back into climbing after a thru-hike last summer. Sunshine, dirty fingers, life is good.
9:21	Ok, a little less good. Crack 3 is streaming inside, and is large enough to demand the cams that I'm worried about slipping in the slime within. Footholds feel pretty slippery too, thanks. But the new shoes (Anasazi velcros) are finally feeling better, nicely precise edging on this puddingstone that I usually loathe.
9:45	Break down the slings, re-rack, pack up, area check, done!

 
Spring is officially here.

4/14/2001 & 4/15/2001

Saturday, first thing ("first thing" being a relative term that in this case means approximately 10:30): We wander down from the Uberfall, looking for an open route under 5.10 and finally settle on a short wait for Birdie Party, the first pitch of which is 5.8 but scary 5.8. Todd's jittery enough to place the purely psychological brass nut that theoretically protects the opening moves, something he hasn't done since the day he had me hang on it to see if it would hold. It did. For a minute. Above the piece and safely on the ledge from which he usually starts placing gear, he whips the rope with enough force to dislodge the nut. He does love a nice straight line.

Saturday, mid-day: I desperately want to get the first crux on MF clean but I don't. Hanging from the rope I start to cry from frustration then realize I can't breathe. I'm hyperventilating, great gasps that procure no oxygen. Perhaps I was holding my breath; perhaps I'm simply psyched. For a minute I think I'm going to throw up but I don't. I find a better-than-usual way to do the second crux. One step forward; one step back.

Saturday, the end: I dyno for that hold on Try Again like I mean it. On one attempt I even get it - quickly sorry. Damn but real rock is sharp. Ultimately I take the detour. My fingers have been rubbed raw. I come so close to pulling the roof on the first try. If only . . . "Don't give me beta!" I scream. It takes me three tries but I do it myself. Try, try again.

Sunday, first thing: What would a weekend at the Gunks be without doing Apoplexy and Coronary? It's not likely that I'll ever find out. We do Apoplexy and Coronary. Thank God I actually like these routes.

Sunday, mid-day: Pink Laurel feels easy today. Is it because I'm not leading it? Probably. Have I found a great new way to do the moves? Maybe. Will I remember this great new way the next time I try to lead it? No.

Sunday, the end: We con Andrew into leading Maria Direct, where the crux is placing the gear and the gear must be placed. He's standing at the upper limit of where he can still hope that the rope will catch him, fiddling with gear, looking pumped. Todd steps away from the rock, eyeing the line he'll take if Andrew falls. I move into place to spot Andrew. The fall, not so far, a boulderer would do it, has some serious tip-over-backwards-and-open-your-head potential. I've got no idea what I'm doing. Andrew places two good pieces and finishes the route cleanly. No one is happier than I am.

I pull through the opening moves of Maria Direct with something approaching confidence and then fall from the higher crux. The opposite of how I usually do. A good summary for the whole weekend. One step forward, one step back, nothing where it should be, everything in place.

4/21/2001 - 4/28/2001

We're the worst boulderers in the world
On a dreary Saturday Todd and I head out to find the bouldering mecca so frequently touted on Gunks.com: Ice Pond (ice, ice baby). We go "just to look" but bring our shoes and a chalk bag. We don't bring a crashpad because we don't own one. This turns out to be unfortunate when Todd jumps off an attempted "send" and thwacks his heel on a rock.

All in all, we don't make it to the top of a single chalked problem through a combination of fear and lack of skill. I can't help but wonder why we're willing to climb the first 20 feet of a route before getting protection but unwilling to top out on a 15 foot high boulder. Well, I said it already. A combination of fear and lack of skill.

I've decided on a new bouldering rating scale.

D0 = Dawn can do it
D1 = Dawn can't do it

I put up several D0 first ascents. If you're interested, just look for the chalk on the easy side of boulders under 6 feet in height.

Back on the sharp end
I had been saying and saying (and saying and saying) that I wanted my first lead of the season to be smooth and easy. No fear, no falling, no whining, no hanging, no backing off. So why the hell am I racking up for my old nemesis City Lights? After I finally led it cleanly last season I vowed to never go near the thing again. It's not just the hideous 5.10 crux right off the deck; it's the runnout 5.6 above the crux to the first belay. I hate this stinking route.

So here I am, one piece in (one piece! I'm feeling brave), stepping up and stepping down, just knowing that I'm going to have to either back off or fall. I thought I remembered how to do this move but I didn't remember it being so tenuous, which is why I hate this route.

As usual, I'm pelted with beta.

"Try this," says Todd.

"I do it this way," says the woman racking up to lead Pas de Deux.

"That's not how I do it," says her partner.

"I know how to do it," I mutter.

At least I learned one thing last year. I learned that I can go up and down without falling. I can try to do it. Each attempt brings me closer and then bam! I've got it.

"Hey! I wasn't looking," the woman next door says.

"I did it a totally different way," I tell her. It's my theory that you get style points deducted for doing the City Lights crux the same way twice or for using any method previously used by any human being at any point in history. It's like a parlor game.

Then I'm dashing up the runout stuff above, remembering why else I hate this route. And then I'm nearly at the belay and Todd is yelling at me to go for the top, which is another reason I hate this route because he always wants me to go for the top which means being run out due to both lack of protection opportunities and a dwindling number of slings.

"The hell with him," I think and then I get to the belay and remember that I also hate this route because the belay is crap, especially if you're trying to share it with someone else which you always are. And so I go for the top.

At the top I remember that I also hate this route because the belay at the top is also crap, especially if you're trying to share it with someone else which you always are. Oh well, at least I have the dead tree all to myself. The other leader hasn't clipped it - the fool!

While I'm at the top fiddling in a nut behind a flake that certainly won't hold, Todd is on the ground trying to reason with the next party.

"Wow! Is that the first belay?"

"No, she's on top."

"She can't be on top, dude!"

"Trust me; she's on top."

Finally I'm off belay (thank God for the dead tree) and he's on belay and climbing. It's a beautiful view from this ledge and beautiful day to be on it. But I still hate this route.

Andrei puts a hex on me
"You should lead Bonnie's," I tell Andrei.

"I'm really careful pushing my leading limit," he says.

"Bonnie's is cake," I argue. "Plus you can put gear in wherever you want from practically a no-hands stance."

"I don't know," he shrugs, "I've always found it really awkward to clean gear under the roof."

"Oh sure," I waffle, "the roof."

So now I'm wildly stuffing gear in under the roof from some sort of sqrunched up position I've never achieved before and with good reason. The first piece I throw in is a nut so bomber that the cliff would have to disintegrate around it before it would pop.

Any reasonable person would now pull through the next couple of moves with equanimity. But I'm no longer a reasonable person. I'm now a terrified sport-climbing weenie who can't make a move without a bolt at her waist. I grab the sling from the nut and lower myself down onto it. I look sulkily over my shoulder at the crowd below (why is there always a crowd?).

"Sad," I say. "I've never had to hang on Bonnie's before."

"Don't grab pieces until you're below them," Todd tells me. It's probably a good rule of thumb but he doesn't know that you'd have to turn the cliff over and shake it to get the nut out so I just pout at him.

"I'm coming down," I say. I don't mean it yet; I'm just testing the waters.

"Then put in two more pieces," he says. Well, sure. If I could hang up there long enough to put in two more pieces I could pull the move, couldn't I? Which is why he's always saying that, I think. He knows that once I have another piece in I'll just pull the stinking move. I put a cam in near the edge of the roof and pull the stinking move. It's just one move to the left. This is why Bonnie's is cake. Once you get to the part where you think it's going to be hideously hard, once you grab that first nose, it's really all over. I used to know that.

Andrei's fault.

True to form
You'd think that after the Bonnie's debacle I'd spend the rest of the day top-roping quietly but when Todd mentions that Ant's Line (5.9) is about to open up I know immediately that I'm going to lead it.

There's no chance I'm going to get this clean - a prediction I make before even starting. But the point is to get it safely and Ant's Line is the best protected 5.9 in the Gunks.

I make steady progress up to the crux. At one point I think about the fact that I've just made the three best nut placements of my life all in a row. The roof itself I plan to protect with a cam. Todd has suggested the Camalot Juniors. For once Todd is wrong. I try cam after cam in the corner at the far edge of the roof. Nothing will go in. As with the Bonnie's roof, it's a bad stance from which I have to place gear. I'm seriously considering the possibility that I'm going to come off just placing the crux gear and have to step down several times to rest.

Finally I give up on placing anything at the outside edge of the roof and stuff a cam in directory overhead.

"Good," I say.

"Does that mean the pieces is good?" Todd asks and I can hear the relief in his voice.

I step back down to clip it and gather my strength as best I can. This isn't exactly a rest down here. Then I start pulling around the roof, quickly, desperately. I know I've had it at one point and start looking down and back, trying to figure out how to get back to my gear.

"The next hold is good," Todd yells up. And somewhere in me I find the fortitude to go for it. I snatch for the hold, feel my fingertips against it, understand that I'm not going to get it.

"Falling!" I yell, surprising myself. I've never managed anything more than a scream before. I fall down and into the corner. It takes a moment and it takes forever. I hit with a bump and then everything is still. I start to laugh.

I don't know why it's funny now except that I'm alive and not terrified anymore. I've tried so hard to avoid this, falling, that it's unexpectedly easy to hang from the rope and look up at the cams and the crux and know that I came from there and that I'm going back up there.

I pull through easily on the second try. Better rested, moving smoothly, knowing where the finishing hold is, I make the crux look easy this time. I mantle onto the ledge, stand up, and throw my arms in the air.

"I'm alive!" I shout.

"Did you say off belay?" Todd asks. I think he was kidding.