9/1/01 & 9/3/01

OK, this is it. It's time for me to take over the leading duties in deference to Todd's finger injury. One way and another, through toproping at smaller crags, climbing with other people, and muddy days at the Gunks, I've managed to mostly avoid it. But today it's just me and him and a beautiful day at the Gunks. So this is it. All me, all the time.

We start with Bunny because it's open and it's 5.4 unless you pull the roof, which I don't commit to doing before leaving the ground. When I get to the roof I know that I can protect it and pull it, so I do it. I lower off so that we can avoid a tangled rap situation with the next party. While I'm belaying Todd I listen to the next group get ready to go. A woman is going to make this her first lead and I smile to myself as she plans her placements and talks her way through the route.

Next we mosey on over to Horseman (5.5) because it too is open. What's with this day? The crowd at the Uberfall is strangely small for such beautiful weather. We do Horseman to the top and walk off. As we're cleaning up to move on I drift back over to Bunny. The new leader is nearing the top. I ask her belayer if she pulled the roof. She did! I'm happy for her and impressed by her nice straight line - better than mine.

I've got this funny urge to do Dennis (5.5). I guess because of its recent mention in R&I but also because it's one of those routes I've only heard about, never seen. The trouble with partners who can climb harder than you is that you don't often get the chance to do the easier classics. Todd's injury is a perfect opportunity.

Dennis isn't very far. In fact, it's right there, sandwiched in between a bunch of other routes I do all the time. I guess I just never noticed it before. And why would I have? That's a 5.5? Holy Cow. Gunks roofs are out of control. This one is humongous and right off the ground.

I place a piece from the ground. It protects nothing but I want the extra directionality because there will only be one piece between me and the ground when I pull the roof. Well, OK, two pieces, but they're right next to each other, so they kind of count as one.

"5.5," I tell myself, "5.5. Must be jugs, must be jugs." And actually the roof goes easier than expected. It's a cruise from there and I move quickly to the belay ledge with the tree.

"You just passed half way on the rope," Todd yells up.

"I'm almost there," I respond, making the last couple of moves to the ledge. Why is he telling me this? Oh, right. He wants me to run the pitches together. Of course. Always.

Grumpily I downclimb back off the nice cushy ledge with the tree and extend my last piece which is now out of line from my intended direction of travel. I head into the second pitch, labeled 5.4 in the book and punctuated almost immediately by a small roof.

Although this second roof is minuscule compared to the one on the first pitch, it feels trickier and scarier to me. Half way over the roof begins a traverse right. My last piece under the roof ends up being a pivot point. Damnable rope drag! Will I never escape you?

I meander up the remainder of the second pitch, not really knowing where I'm going but happy if I run into a bit of chalk or an old pin every now and then. It's pleasant climbing but not very memorable.

Back on the ground we figure on doing one more route. Continuing the oddity of this day, both Jackie (5.6) and Classic (5.7) are open. I realize how much better I'm feeling after all this leading. Still, I've had enough trauma on Jackie to last a lifetime and I don't care what the ratings say, I'd rather lead Classic.

But wait. The rest of the dead tree is gone - this changes everything. I used to unashamedly step up onto the dead tree until I could clip the first pin. Who didn't? But now I have to do actual moves to get there. Luckily, the last time I followed this route half of the tree was already missing and so I did the route without using the tree as practice, envisioning that this day would come. I make two shaky moves to get the pin clipped and then concentrate on the two crux moves above that. Funny how different Classic feels from day to day. Today it goes well.

At the end of the day I look back and realize I've led 6 pitches without any major trauma, feeling stronger as the day went on. Perhaps Todd should get injured more often.

On Monday, feeling a new confidence, I easily agree to leading Eyesore, a 5.6 with a typical so-NOT-5.6 start that I've led before. The route starts from the top of a sloping block with the crux being to leave the block. It takes a while for me to get in two pieces that both Todd and I can agree on. That is, he's perfectly happy with the lower piece but I don't want to tumble halfway down the slopey block and insist on finagling something in higher up. This might be an ideal spot for a slung hex, which we ain't got none of. Finally I work in a cam that looks like it'll hold and like it won't cause the rope to cut over the edge of the diagnolling crack.

Once I'm off the ground the route is fun and just the right amount of challenge but so much for yesterday's burgeoning confidence. I'm knocked back down a peg by the terror of starting this 6. Too afraid to fall these days, that's the problem.

We toprope a couple of nearby 10s and then decide it's time to put Todd's new bouldering pad to some use other than as a cush spot to lie around on (although that seems to be the main thing boulderers use crashpads for).

Unfortunately, the V scale starts at V-too-hard-for-Dawn so we confine ourselves to routes with cruxes near the ground. Other requirements: they have to go straight up, no overhanging parts that necessitate being horizontal, and nice, flat landings. In other words, the kinds of problems that most boulderers would do without a pad. But we're new to all this and I know neither how to fall nor how to spot.

After a few practice jumps off successively higher moves on a 5.9, we switch to the Gill Crack. Todd can do this short route/problem on toprope but I've never even gotten through the first move. We work it and work it. Our hands have worn spots from the necessary finger locks. I get higher then ever before but can't commit to the crux. Finally, knowing I'll fall, I commit. I fall. Not so bad, really. Not any worse than jumping was. I fall and fall, each time with more aplomb, but I never get it and eventually we have to quit before my fingers are worn all the way down to the bone.

We move our pad to Junior (5.9). The one time I was on this route before it took me half a dozen tries to get the tricky, reachy, balancy crux move. Now, with a pad beneath me rather than a rope above me, I ace it the first try. Uh oh. Now I have to jump from up here. Wheee! I know the rangers are laughing at me.

Laurel is next. Ever since the pin disappeared I've been loathe to lead this route, but I have no trouble "bouldering" it. This is kind of fun. I still don't like the long jump back down but I have to admit that it's painless. Now I'm thinking of leading Laurel again. With a bouldering pad beneath me, of course.

9/9/01

Tequila Mockingbird/Dry Martini: This is the third time I've been on one or the other or both of these routes and I don't think I've ever actually been on either one of them. The intertwining lines with shared belays are too indistinct. Even Steven didn't get it right.

Todd leads the first pitch of one, ending somewhere on the second pitch of the other, just below the bolt. I lead through to the top, doing the crux of the route with the bolt - this is easily identified by there being a bolt at the crux - and finishing on heaven knows what, but not bad climbing.

We're somewhere in the vicinity of Snooky's and what the hell? I'm tired of this route hanging over my head ever since I backed off it more than a year ago. Nemesis be gone.

I've already led the second pitch and with a three person party above us we don't really feel like going to the top. This means stopping slightly below the end of the first pitch where there's a fixed anchor, which I know means Steven won't give me full marks for leading it (and indeed that last short section is a thinker), but I'll be satisfied just to get the crux near the ground.

What a difference a year makes! Or maybe it's just having Todd's rack instead of Steven's. I get a nut in, small but not hopelessly small, that I actually feel pretty good about and with that confidence booster I step up slightly and find that I'm able to get another small nut in.

"Don't clip that till it's at your waist," Todd says.

Huh? Why in the world wouldn't I clip this nut over my head? By the time it's at my waist the move is over and I'm done. He thinks it's not good enough to clip - just psychological gear unworthy of the rope out.

I look at it twice. I'm very happy with this piece. I clip it. I make the moves and sail through to the ledge, feeling good, great in fact.

There really used to be an anchor here. I'm sure of it. It's going to be annoying if we have to go to the top, although the party ahead of us is moving quickly and we could aim for the line they're taking instead of making up our own. Maybe they actually know where the second pitch goes.

"Is there a fixed anchor up there," I call to the guy who's been left behind. There is. So I lead the last section of the first pitch after all and poke my head over the smooth white rock to see a pair of bolts. Excellent.

"You cruised that," the guy who's been left behind says.

"Once I got past the sticky part," I declaim modestly, but I feel victorious.

9/29/01

Keith Hoek sent in this trip report from the Gunks: Hungoverhang

10/11/01

I was in the Dacks with Mike Rawdon and Hensley Evans. Read the trip report: The Big Slide

10/14/01

So we set out to do Limelight because it has a reputation for being somewhat hard and scary for 5.7 and I need to face my demons, in that I should be able to lead 5.7 even if it is hard and scary, but Limelight is booked solid and so I end up on a 5.7 that's a little harder and a little scarier: Silhouette, 5.7+ PG/R.

Ouch. PG, OK, but R? No thanks. Best part is that it's PG/R at the crux, still I figure I can go up and look around. Sometimes these PG routes are actually pretty well protected with modern gear.

Me leading the first pitch (5.6) of Alphonse (5.8)

It take me about nine years to get there because the blocky start I picked as an alternative to the 4th class ramp turns out to be trickier than it looked and I have to make this hideous sideways, humping, mantle-off-my-butt move to get up onto the slab beneath the route. Totally lacking in grace, and Todd is laughing at me, and I'm saying "no laughing until I'm safe" and he says that he's very worried and really it would be an ugly fall if I came off here but when you're actually sitting on the rock it's hard to make your position look all that precarious.

Finally I'm on the slab and with that behind me I'm wondering if anything on the actual route will seem as challenging. I climb casually up the corner to the top of the flake where I have to start traversing left. I place two pieces here as they're the only things between me and the ground and make the easy walk across the narrow ledge until I'm just below the crux.

I can't get gear here, not even the smallest, ugliest brass nut. It looks like one hard move to get to solid holds and there's just no way I'm willing to risk it. My last pieces, at least 15 feet to my right and at my feet, will keep me off the ground but they won't keep me from slamming back into the blocky corner or the slab beneath it. I shuffle slowly back over to my gear.

It's easy to get down from here, some straight-forward downclimbing and then I can walk back down the 4th class ramp I eschewed on the way up and clean the gear I placed at the alternate start from the ground. But I have an idea.

"I think I can place gear at my feet," I tell Todd. I lower myself down until my hands are where my feet were and make the traverse again. It's only slightly trickier at this level and when I'm directly under the crux again I'm able to put in one very good cam and one OK cam. Good enough.

Twice more across the void. I go back to the corner and clean the gear there. The rope drag would be too hideous otherwise. This means that I must have complete confidence in these two pieces. Do I? No, but I know that it's only mental, so I forge on. Now back across, for the last time, I hope, to my crux gear. Stepping up onto the small ledge is tricky but the gear is right there for that move and then, coming up from below this way, I find a hold I'd missed on my first pass. If I'd found that hold before would I have gone for it? Maybe, but I'm just as glad to have the gear at my feet as I keep moving up.

Sure enough, the holds are solid and a few moves brings me to a stance and some gear. Definitely no worse than PG if protected this way.

Since I've lived so far I decide to do the 5.8+ roof variation, which I swear is nearly as hard as the roof on Jean, which everyone knows is a sandbag at 5.9, but it's well protected (aside from wishing that I could put a piece somewhere other than on top of that flake) and goes with only minor hesitations. The climbing above the roof is very nice indeed, up disjointed vertical cracks, the last one of which is a real kicker. We skipped the rest of the route above the GT ledge but I can definitely recommend the first pitch (first two pitches according to the Swain guide).

10/20/01

We go bouldering at Ice Pond and find a nice big boulder that is pleasantly vertical with flat landings, unlike most of the stuff there. The boulder is chalked, so we're not the first ones to find it but we have no idea what any of the problems are - just pick a likely looking line and start up it.

Got Milk? Todd totters along with bouldering pad in tow

After a warmup problem that is neither too hard nor too scary, we move the pad down to one that turns out to be a lot harder and scarier than it looks. Todd sails right up to the sticking point. It takes me a lot of trying, encouragement, and beta to get there, but once I'm there I find a way to push the line a little higher.

All I have to do is stand all the way up on that slopey right foot and I'll be able to reach the lip of the boulder. I stand up, but only to the point where I need to let go with my right hand, which I can't bring myself to do. I jump from that point a couple of times, thinking that jumping will give me the confidence to let go, but it doesn't. Then I try downclimbing, which I can do but that isn't so much of a confidence builder either - knowing you can downclimb under control doesn't help you face that moment of no return, the point at which control is lost.

Of course, this is the whole point of going bouldering - trying moves I don't know if I can do in situations where falling is safe. So I do it. I let go and go for the top. The next thing I know I'm sliding down the rock, then hitting the pad, then lying on the ground breathing hard.

Falling is different from jumping. Jumping is rock, air, pad. Falling is rock, rock, rock as you slide down it, then the pad, not quite square, then tipping over and leaves in your hair and a funny scrape on the back of your hand - how the hell did that get there? - but it's still safe.

I try a couple more times, shaking, refusing to let go again.

"Now that I've fallen once, you'd think I wouldn't be afraid to do it again," I say to Todd, wishing it were true.

Once again, this is the whole point of going bouldering.

One last try, I tell myself. We're both feeling the effects of the top, left hold on our fingertips. From the ground I think, if I could just get that hold as more of a sidepull, but once up there the best I can do is hook my pinky slightly around the crystal. I look my right foot carefully onto the high step. There's the tiniest bit of an edge there, which I need. Once I'm stood up the initial smear won't hold, as I learned while siding down the face. Rock onto the edge as you stand up, I tell myself.

I stand most of the way up. Do it, dammit. Let go. I do it. My hand is on top. I did it.

"Check your feet," Todd warns, but my feet are OK now that I've touched the top and I'm not scared. The finishing mantle is easy. I'm a champion.

P.S. Cam*Smasher says this was probably Afterthought, V4. Yay me!

Me starting up Alphonse (5.8) with Andrei belyaing

10/21/01

Keith Hoek sent in this trip report about climbing in Connecticut: Connecticut Rambling

10/27/01

Among other things, we played around on Trashcan Overhang (5.11-, aka Hudson Boulder Problem, V1). Check out the pictorial.

10/28/01

Am I going to lead Pink Laurel? Sometimes I think I spend most of my time at the Gunks beneath some route or other wondering if I'm going to lead it.

The problem with the Gunks is that every route has a story, a whole collection of associations, that goes along with it.

The first time I climbed Pink Laurel (5.9) was one of my first days out climbing with Todd alone, before we were dating. It was a cold winter day with snow on the ground and we had the place mostly to ourselves. As I was starting up to follow Todd's lead some guy wandered by.

"Where can I find a woman like that?" he asked Todd as he watched me pull smoothly through the crux. I've always figured that was the moment that Todd fixed his mind on me.

The next time I climbed Pink Laurel it was a little greasier, a lot harder, and I couldn't figure out how to move out of the alcove. Finally, after a bunch of aggravating flailing, I found an elegant low-effort chimney sort of way. My mood was salvaged by having the chance to talk another flailing second through it later in the day. The patient - but growing frustrated - leader called down his thanks to me. Unfortunately, she got stuck at the next move too. The move out of the alcove is the trickiest, but not nearly the hardest.

Who knows how many times I climbed Pink Laurel after that. The route is a favorite of Todd's. Sometimes it would be harder, sometimes easier. One day I decided to lead it.

At 5.9G, and as a route I was totally familiar with, it wasn't a bad choice for an early 5.9 attempt. Unfortunately, it didn't go well. After sketching my way up the unprotected easy start, I fell on the move coming out of the alcove - so much for my no-fail shoulder scum method - then got to the end of the crux, placed a crummy black Alien that came out when I pulled on it to test it, panicked, downclimbed back through the crux, hung, and eventually lowered. That was the last day I ever led anything with confidence.

Todd said that if I'd just put my hand where I tried to put the Alien, it would have been all over.

So am I going to lead Pink Laurel?

It's the other people who are with us today who make up my mind. No, they don't try to talk me into it. It's their presence alone. Barry's leading 5.6 and 5.7. Andrei's leading 5.7 and 5.8. Everyone is moving up but me. It's time I moved forward again.

With the bomber cam that protects the move out of the alcove in place, I'm ready to begin. How does this work again? The whole shoulder scum thing is a mystery to me today. I grab the edge and layback up, the way Todd always does it, the way I've never done it. Perhaps it's a better move, perhaps it leaves my body in a better position, perhaps I simply choose a better set of feet for my stem. Whatever the reason, the hand-swallowing hole for my left hand feels better than it ever has.

I place a nut.

"Can you place one higher?" Todd asks.

Certainly I'd like to, but the second nut doesn't want to go in. I'm getting tired here, occasionally giving my left hand a break from the hole by putting it on an edge over my shoulder, then shifting my feet to different holds as they start to ache. Finally, just as I'm contemplating hanging off the first nut, I get another one in.

Now what? Do I commit or do I quit? There's a good-looking foothold up by my knee. Have I ever seen that hold before? I think that if I just stand up on that foot I'll be able to undercling the edge of the crack up there and then I can put another piece in. I stand up on the foot and undercling the little flake. This stance sucks. But I see another good-looking foothold at my knee again. Have I ever seen that hold before? I think that if I just stand up on that foot I'll get a good stem and then I can put another piece in.

I stand up on the foot and stem. Now this is more like it. I could stand here and place gear all day. I put in a gorgeous nut, then, as I'm preparing to move up on it, I look to my left.

My God, it's true. There's the horizontal crack where I placed the black Alien. This is where I panicked. Why was I so stressed at this stance? Why was I even trying to place a black Alien when I had the option of slotting this bomber nut?

I don't know whether I even use the horizontal to the left as I make the last move to the ledge. I stand up and lean my forehead against a block and take several deep breaths, feeling the cool rock against my skin and the ground solid under my feet. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I just know that I've made it here at last.