Friday, November 19, 2010

A Good Season

Every year, well before the actual end of the rock season, I erroneously think that it's going to be way too cold to keep climbing, and I claim to throw in the towel, only to bring it back out when an "unexpected" bit of nice weather shows up. Well, this year I'm being slightly smarter and making the more restrictive statement that it's mostly over, and more importantly, it was awesome. It started out with a trip or two to Rumney. I don't remember much, except that I did Niki's Crack first try. It's weird, because, by technical grade, it was by far the hardest thing I led all season, but by sheer subjective difficulty, the easiest. But I knew I was sick of sport climbing. So I picked up trad instead.

I hadn't really done trad in any serious way before this season. Oh, sure, I had plugged in some gear, followed some routes, and even led a thing or two before, I always viewed it as a sort of mysterious adventure where I really didn't want to fall, never really knew where I was going, and felt I would turn into a pumpkin if I got caught out after dark. Most of that is still true. But what changed for me, oddly enough, is that I learned how to aid climb. Mark "Scrappy" Synnott showed me how to do it last year, and he made me bounce test every single piece. Vigorously. If I gave the piece what I felt was a violent tug, he would shake his head sadly, give my bounce test a 2 out of 5, and probably make some remark about my grandmother being able to do better than that. So I learned a lot about gear placements and when to trust them. In fact, when we went out to Yosemite in June, I was leading on the South Face of Washington Column and really failed to test a piece (a blue Metolius) properly, and it pulled out and I took a whip!

I started with small steps. I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd get to do one 5.10 or something at the end of the season. In April, I went to the Gunks with Dave (pre-injury; I'm trying to forget that particular misadventure) and we did some "easy" climbing that was nonetheless hard enough. I was pretty slow, and I felt pretty pleased with myself when I did Son of Easy O, which was, I think, my first real Gunks roof. Well, later, I went to Acadia with the Engberg crew and associated acts, and climbed a bit with Mike and Sarah. I remember being at the Precipice and one of their friends told us they had bailed off Fear of Flying (10a) 'cause it was scary and hard. So naturally I decided I had to climb up there and find out if it was actually scary and hard. Well, they were right. I plugged in a nice green C3, went for a move, and took a huge whip. I climbed back up there, whipped again, and finally got it. After that I felt good. I guess I found out why the route got that name!

I went to Yosemite for a few weeks, and learned about crack climbing. I learned about how awesome but scary it is to be up high on a wall. I found out that pro-climbers are grimy dirtbags who live in the Caf even if they're rich (and most of them aren't). I learned to be a grimy dirtbag myself. We ducked the bears (and lineups) to seek the "alternative accommodations" in the talus fields behind Camp 4. When I came back, I practically moved to the Gunks. I started on Retribution and Bird Cage and moved from there. Sometimes I'd have a target in mind. But then, I'd wander up and down the carriage road, squinting ineffectually at the rock, and cursing the "guidebook" for having pictures which were only slightly higher resolution than say, an Etch-a-Sketch. Most of the time I'd just abandon all pretense of having any plans or notions of where I was, and just try to climb whatever looked good where I was. Sometimes this would mean climbing something bad. I nearly squashed Jaclyn with a microwave-sized block I pulled off of Beetle Brow Bulge. (I don't really like that part of the cliff anymore. Or the area around Limelight. Everyone says it's awesome there, but I think it's really run out.)

Sometime over the summer, I got to take a break from the Gunks and meet up with Dunbar, Karen, Gil, and Rikka at the New River Gorge. I did sport the whole time. I even onsighted an 11c. I don't know what got into me. That's certainly unusual...maybe the grades are soft there or something. I also floated on a log in the lake at Kaymoor. The log was slimy, but the water was refreshing. It was bloody hot.

Last weekend was particularly good (and much colder). I wasn't sure if I was feeling that good, but it turned out I was on my game. The days are short now, so we didn't actually do that many routes, but Jaclyn and I got on Grim Ace Face. Allegedly "9+," this is kind of a scary, run-out thing that's more like 5.8 R on the first pitch and 5.10a or b on the third. I was told a hold broke, and now it's harder, so hopefully this isn't just my usual after-climb grade inflation. And anyways, everyone knows the 5.9+'s at the Gunks are top-heavy and probably harder than a lot of the easier 10s! As my belayers will undoubtedly tell you, I like to chalk up a zillion times and work the moves of tricky sections up and down before I commit to them. Well, there was a huge roof that involved me doing a pullup, plugging in a piece blind, then coming down, doing another pullup to check the piece out, and repeating this process a few times until I was satisfied I wasn't going to crater if I fell. I finally psyched myself up for it, and I gunned it over the roof with a cool little heel hook. That was a fun onsight. I tried Doubleissima on Sunday, but I hung on it. Guess the fire went out for that one. But I watched Dave and Lauren shoot up High E, which was awesome.

Well I've rambled enough. I'm lying low (doing a lot of work, actually) for a while, and then hoping for an amazing ice/mixed season. Come climb with me in the Daks! I mean, sure, you can go vacation like the rest of the dessicated-looking gasbags in tropical climes, or you can do some awesome ice climbing and skiing in the Daks. Rock climbing in the winter? What? But that's just me.