Book of Solemnity

I did the Book (10a) with Danny today. It was hard. "5.10" is a different beast in the gym or at Rumney, and at Cathedral or the Gunks. I took some small whips on gear (a pin and a red C3). I pushed my mouth into a tree root, which was like getting punched in the face (ow). I dealt with a lot of horrible rope drag (argh!) and tricky routefinding (argh! argh!). I'm sure if you're a seasoned veteran you would probably laugh at me, but it's going to take some time for me to get up to a seasoned veteran's level of experience, I'm afraid. Some other bad shit went down earlier this weekend but I can't talk about it here. All I can say is climbing is dangerous. Like life.

Gunks

Dave and I met up with Dunbar and Karen, along with a host of other HMC lookalikes. Actually, I quite like these lookalikes, but I'm too tired to list them off now. It was my first time doing anything hard there, and certainly my first time leading any horizontal roofs in gear. Today we found ourselves rapping in the dark due to a "uh oh, this pitch is too hard" moment (not my fault!). I hate rapping in the dark or even climbing anytime near dark, but evidently others don't consider this much of a restriction. Nonetheless, I would declare the weekend a success. I'm going to miss Dunbar and Karen as they make their way to one of those strange states I've haven't visited. Karen is leading pretty well these days. She's come a long way. We were remarking today that we were impressed she's led ice now. And what can I say about Dunbar? He got a haircut, but still has the straggly beard. I told him that was precisely the sort of unkempt personal hygiene that would get him placed on a security watchlist. However, he assured me he would shave before taking up his new job, in a misguided attempt to convince people that he is, not, in fact a climbing dirtbag who lives in his car. As we were chilling out between climbs today, Dave and I chatted with some nearby climbers, and they asked if one of us was Dunbar because some crazy person had been querying the skies for Dunbar periodically from the bottom of the cliff at a considerable volume. I convinced them he was our spiritual leader, which I think they half believed. Climbing is no fun without a considerable amount of bullshit, as long as it doesn't involve tangled ropes.

Start of the Season

Despite its unusually early appearance, Dunbar and I welcomed Spring in a decidedly non-hippie way by going trad climbing at Cathedral today. We went up the first two pitches of the Prow, which was...humbling. The first pitch (10a) was fine, but then when I tried to lead the second pitch, I took a bunch of small whips, gave myself some rope burn, and generally dogged it. After a few more attempts by both of us to free it, Dunbar aided up, and I followed free. I managed to get the bouldery moves going left off the ledge linked up, which was nice, but then I was shut down by this "10a" slab above the "11c" section. I was relieved, however, when I talked to Coz and he told me that the 11c might be an 11d or 12a, and that the 10a was a bit of a joke, given that 10a slabs should usually have some holds on them. I think I'm missing something there. The rest of the climb looked wet, so we bailed. I'm not about to climb 5.11+ in wet conditions. Yet.

We went off to the North End to do some crack climbing, which I'm absolutely atrocious at. 5.9 crack climbing feels like 5.11 face climbing to me. Dunbar, though, is really good. He led a bunch of stuff handily that I dogged on top-rope. Damnit. I think we have a very different philosophies on climbing (and possibly life). He wants to climb easier things on alpine terrain (hard things too, I guess). I want to climb harder things next to the road. He'll live in a cabin for months. I get fussy if I don't get to take a shower. He wants to climb easier trad things onsight, and I want to project sport things. Actually, I'm upgrading to projecting trad things, too, which apparently is objectionable, particularly if it's not a single pitch. "Pff. What's the point in projecting a five pitch route?" Well, touche. One could replace "a five pitch route" with "Ph.D. thesis," eh? Lucky for me, I'm adding those three precious letters to my name soon. After all, that is why I came to school here. It's all about wearing pretentious red hats and meaningless abbreviations on business cards. Well, there's a lot of jibber-jabbering about chemistry, a lot less actual chemistry, and a decent amount of climbing.

[Caution: I've probably grossly misrepresented Dunbar. Too bad he's not here to defend his good name. Yes, indeed. He's quite the ghoul, or so I can claim here. Mwahaha.]