Prow, VMC Direct Direct

There was another break in the weather over the last two days, so I went for it and had a big "weekend." Yesterday, Coz and I went to do the Prow at Cathedral Ledge. Although it's a 5.11d free route, it's a relatively easy C1-C2 aid route. There are six pitches. I led the first five, freeing the first and a lot of the third (aiding the rest), and Coz led the final "dreamy fingerlock" pitch. We moved a little slowly, but I thought it was a good time overall. We started around 9 and were done around 4. I actually thought things were moving well except for the fifth pitch, which has the notorious triangular roof. There was great gear in the roof, but I found the transition from below to above the roof to be very awkward. I also found it hard to test the pieces in the actual roof, because they were effectively behind me. I ended up giving them a mediocre foot test, and just going for it. I had bomber gear right below me, anyways. I brought a pretty light rack, considering, and it was sufficient, but I certainly would have liked more pieces. I back-cleaned a bunch. I never thought carrying 17 cams would be considered light, especially for relatively short pitches, but here we are... Yesterday's rack:

- 1 set BD standard stoppers
- 2 sets BD micro wires
- singles: BD C4s, 0.75, 1, 2, 3
- doubles: BD C4s, 0.5, 0.4, 0.3
- doubles: BD C3s, 00, 0, 1, 2
- single: BD C3 000

Yup, I'm a BD guy. I definitely could have used more...everything. Anyways, I climbed with Bayard today. He told me that a buddy of his and him did the route in a startling 39 minutes, using a mixture of aid, french-free, and free techniques. Shit. I guess I have a way to go. Coz did really well on the route, although it certainly seemed like it would be quite hard for a free climb. I won't be freeing the whole thing anytime soon, although I would like to at least work some of it.

Today Bayard and I went to Cannon. We did most of the VMC Direct Direct (supposedly a "5.10 route with a bit of 5.11 on it") and Sticky Fingers (another "5.10"). We did everything on VMC Direct Direct except for the third class stuff at the top. It was hard. Of course, I was tired from yesterday, but I think it would have been hard regardless. It's not super powerful, but it's technical in a way I'm very unaccustomed to. It's also got some spooky moves that would be very exciting on lead. There's a lot of smearing on insecure granite bumps, underclinging tight little pin scars, and tenuous stemming. I certainly need to get better at this sort of trad climbing, and I suppose the only way to do so is to do more of it. I hung a bunch, often to remove gear, but often because I was confused about what to do. It definitely wasn't my best climbing...my feet hurt from standing in my aiders with climbing shoes on from the Prow, so that wasn't helpful.


As if I weren't dead enough, we then went over to do Sticky Fingers, which is a two pitch route. The first pitch is a hard 5.10 finger crack. I liked trying to figure it out, but I must say I flailed all over it. I got a few good fingerlocks in it, but I had a lot of trouble figuring out where to put my feet. By this point, my big toe joint was killing me, so that probably didn't help either. The finger crack diagonals hard to the right so it's hard to figure out whether to put your feet in the little pin scars or on the little textured bumps on the face below the crack. I often found my feet crossed over each other very high, which seemed very awkward. Near the end I figured out you had to go between fingerlocking and gastoning/laybacking the crack's edges whenever possible (which is basically a mediocre sloper). It was cool, because it was all new to me. The second pitch is a sparsely bolted hard 5.10 slab. Well, I thought it was hard. I figured out a bunch of it, which seemed to involve smearing one foot on a mediocre bump and, with no handholds, just standing up very delicately. I thought I was good at slab climbing, but that pitch kicked my ass. I think I'm used to actual holds. Heh.


Anyways, it was a great weekend. Here's one random anecdote from today. We were taking a break at the base of the cliff before "cragging" when we saw four kids and two parents hike up. The kids didn't seem too psyched. Bayard gave me a look. Later he told me he had never seen kids up there before. I might understand taking your super-cool climbing protege/child prodigy up there, but these were definitely not climbers. I bet kids would hate the talus field. Plus they didn't have any helmets or anything. It was kind of like seeing a movie which vaguely involves a climber, but where the director had to skimp on the budget for hiring a climbing consultant. The dad had a BD pack on, with Petzl ice clippers on the ice axe loops. Why? I have no idea. He said things that sounded approximately climber-like, but made little sense. I'm a little baffled by all that, to be honest. Oh well.