X-Man

I should preface this by saying I’ve been a rock climber since 1997 or 1998 (I can’t remember exactly when I started. I tag the start as the time my friend Bryan dragged me up Ecstasy at Seneca Rocks); and I’ve never (except possibly when I was grossly underemployed and living in New Paltz in 2000-01) felt like I climbed enough. I’ve also never really had a steady, primary climbing partner who climbed at my level.

That said, right now I feel very much like an ex-climber.

4
Land of the Giants (P1 only, onsight) 5.7
Fat City (P2 only, follow Rob)

I climbed a half-day the weekend before last (May 3). I led the first pitch of Land of the Giants (5.7), which was a pretty cool pitch, and it’s not all that often I get to onsight a pitch in the Gunks. Then I followed my friend Rob up the top pitch of Fat City (5.10), which is of course really wild, but much more wild for the leader than the follower. It was great belaying Rob and getting to see him figure out and execute the moves though, and I got a few good pictures. Then I stepped up to the plate and tried (for a long time) and failed to get of the ground on Transcontinental Nailway (5.10). The crux is low and scary, and tricky, and a guide I know broke his back on that crux a few years ago. I also had an audience. But it was also a climb that I had more-or-less wired back in the day, a few years ago.

So no climbing at all in April. Didn’t climb this weekend (weather, issues); and the next two weekends I’m in New Mexico dealing with Family Stuff, so that is it for climbing in May. My summer is looking psycho… 6 day work weeks all of July and Aug.

It’s funny, all winter I train for climbing season (when I’m not dying of the flu). When I’m jogging on the treadmill or doing pull-ups or whatever, I visualize leading Exit Stage Left or whatever. And when the season rolls around, I’m almost always disappointed and depressed. So yeah, right now I feel like an ex-climber.

p.s.
I’m taking a 4 day weekend in June (the 12-15th). I wanna do a climbing trip, but I don’t have a partner (C has to work and can’t really climb these days anyway) Any takers?

stuff

This has nothing to do with climbing. Pretty much. I rode my bike to work yesterday, first time since late last October. It was fun, and it felt great! (And, in theory, it was $4 cheaper than taking the subway. I say 'In Theory', because I ended up taking 3 subway trips to the tune of $6 during the day for work. Bah.) It was also fairly terrifying. I had to run an errand for Christine after work which took me down through midtown and back again. Riding in Manhattan is always intense, especially in the afternoon. It was a little more intense than I had imagined my first ride of the season being: I was pretty well convinced that I was going to get car-doored. (I didn't.)

From what I hear, the guy who fell to earth on Saturday is doing somewhat better: I hear he is conscious and there doesn't appear to be any brain damage, and that he may not in fact have fractured C2 (we can only hope!). He's still on a respirator, and I honestly have no idea what his prognosis may be, but it sounds more hopeful to me than the initial reports. Hope and pray.

C is doing better, we went for a hobble round the block yesterday that took about 2 hours. She started PT the other day. Therapist is saying she may have also torn her labrum. I really hope not!

I just found out the other weekend that another friend of ours, Rich, took a really nasty fall ice climbing and fucked himself up real good. Broke a bunch of ribs, collapsed a lung, skewered himself with an ice screw, impaling his kidney, and messed up tendons/ligaments in his arm. From what I hear he's doing ok-ish now.

Be careful out there, it's a dangerous world!

Pretty Fly (for a white guy!)

(last fall, me leading Proctoscope. wearing the same damn t-shirt I wore Saturday. Same pants too, I think!)
(Rob on Erect Direction)
(Rob on the lower section of Proctoscope. Gotta love offwidth!)

3
Proctoscope (5.9+)
Erect Direction (5.8) P1 only. Followed Rob
CCK Direct (5.9) P2
Nosedive (5.10) toprope

I may have said this before, but March is NOT a spring month. It is definitely still winter. As we say around my house: "Is your willy really chilly?" The answer on Sunday was a resounding YES! It was once again climbable (for the hardy), but colder than forecast: low 40s and mostly cloudy. These conditions are about as cold as I'm willing to climb in, and my willy was most definitely chilly!

Saturday was warmer, but Saturday was a cleaning/chores day at my house. I went up solo on Sunday (kicked out of the house by C who was tired of me moping!), and hooked up with my friend Ranger Rob and his friend Ben.

Bad things happened at the cliff on Saturday. When I heard, I almost bagged on climbing. (I am a superstitious climber) Someone took a nasty fall on Bloody Mary (5.6), hit the ground, and (from what I hear) broke his C2 vertebrae. Scary stuff. I guess they were giving him CPR on the way out. Also, someone dropped a #2 Camalot and clocked a guy I know over the head: 2 stitches; and I heard that someone slipped off Ape Call (5.8R) and fucked up their ankle. Bad mojo. But anyway...

So apparently at this point in the season, 5.9 feels exactly as hard and scary to me as 5.7. I suspected this might be the case...

We started out by me leading Proctoscope, a nice one-pitch 5.9+. Nice warm-up. (when guys climb together, we tend to do stupid things like lead 9+ off the couch). Actually I've done this particular climb about a skillion times (I think I've led the pitch at least a dozen times), and I kind of have it totally wired. Fun climbing though, and good for morale. And going into it, I definitely had NO idea how it was going to go. The old medecine still works. More or less.

Next, Rob led up the first (5.8, the easy pitch) pitch of Erect Direction. Which was fun, of course, and I took some pretty pictures.

Then, being as we were up on the GT (Grand Traverse Ledge: a more-or-less wide, grassy ledge about halfway up the cliff which traverses most of the length of the cliff band), and seeing as no-one else was on it, I led up CCK (Cascading Crystal Kaleidoscope) Direct. One of the most aesthetic climbs around, anywhere for my money. I hadn't done it in a couple of years. (For reasons I don't entirely understand, it scares the crap out of Christine. And there tends to be a line for it on weekends. Which is when I am allowed out.) Beautiful. Sorry, no pictures, I was busy climbing. But beautiful nonetheless. It was pleasurably terrifying, and I felt good moving over rock. Funny thing is, the scariest part for me was also technically the easiest. You have to move (ahem, layback) up a crack in a brilliant white face a couple hundred feet off the ground. The moves are easy, but intimidating. At least I was intimidated; I was intimidated as HELL. I sunk two ginormous nuts (Ben, the last guy up was unable to remove one of them, and sliced his hand pretty good trying) before trying the moves. Which went fine: the moves aren't hard, they're just scary as all fuck! What a fantastic climb. When I finally got up to the top (placing a #2 Camalot over my head at the last crux, suddenly turning a precarious dubious perch into a little toprope problem), I felt like King of the World.

Rob wanted to lead Nosedive, a very nice 5.10. Amazingly (maybe because it was getting seriously freezing!) there was no-one on it. He led it, in fine style. Ben tried very hard to get it on toprope, but couldn't make it up into the crux section. By the time it was my turn, my willy was definitely chilly. I lost my hands as soon as the touched the rock: it was like climbing as Captain Hook: just place that numb claw on a hold and pull! But that which does not kill me can only make me stronger, right? And at this point in the season (HA! Who am I kidding, I always want to climb more!), what I need is more mileage under my belt. So it was fun. If cold.

It was a good day of climbing. I feel bad for the fallen climber: his family and friends. If you're the praying type, spare a prayer for him. I'm not the praying sort, but I have the utmost respect for those who are. And you know what? It could just as easilly have been me. Godspeed.

Rites of Spring

2

Something Interesting 5.7 (pitch 1 +2 strung together)

March is NOT a spring month. It is still winter, and I always get fooled. Nonetheless, we've been having a spell of nice weather, and we got out again on Saturday. It was a lot chillier that we'd been led to expect; but (for me anyway) not uncomfortably chilly.

So am I a 5.7 leader these days? I'm not complaining (really), but that's kind of the way it felt... Ran it out ok up to the first crux. Then moved up and down, up and down.... placed some gear... clipped the pin to back up my (perfectly solid) gear. Could NOT remember how to do that crux move. Finally figured it out, moved on up. Not exactly terrified, but..... really felt (the lack of) core muscles and lockoff strength. Second crux, more or less the same story. Chicken, bwak bwak bwaaaak! It was fun and all, but I really LIKE being a good climber, and right now I'm not.


So...

After that pitch, C and I decided to bag climbing for the day and go for a little bike ride. (I would have been up for more, but C wanted a break; she finds early spring climbing very stressful, and it was kind of chilly) We went for a mellow 8 mile bike ride on back roads. It was nice and relaxing. And going around a corner getting back to our car, C's front wheel slid out on gravel and she layed the bike down and BROKE HER PELVIS.

I'm not going to share too much personal info; but... she's fine. Clean, stable fracture; healing nicely. Scary, and exhausting, but she should be up and at 'em again pretty soon. No fun at all though!

High Crimes!

1

Strictly From Nowhere 5.7 (pitch one only)

So we got out climbing a bit last weekend! First rock climb of the season. The juju still works!

It was surprisingly warm last weekend. We (of course) got a late start, and by the time we got up to New Paltz it was already lunchtime (mmm, tacos....) It was between going for a bike ride and going climbing. Climbing won (went for a nice bike ride on Sunday).

Let me just tell you, this has been an awful winter as far as my health... I've had a nasty upper-repertory infection-ish thing on and off all winter. Currently ON, though getting better; I was full of snot and coughing and weak on Saturday. But still...

We decided to do Strictly, a fun three-star pitch that I've done about a million times before. Hell, I've even soloed it, back in those days. I kind of wanted to start with something harder, Christine wanted to start with something easier, so we compromised. (I am deeply superstitious about my climbing: I have a deep-seated belief that the first climb of the year is a portent for how the rest of the season will go. There for I wanted to do something hard and horrible to start the season off right)

I placed gear fairly sparsely over the first three-quarters of the pitch, running it out, enjoying the sensation of moving over rock. Then I got up into the steep stuff. The last 20' or so of the route is vertical-to-overhanging. And definitely awkward: the trick is to keep moving. I pulled up onto the little pedestal that marks the beginning of the crux sequence (for the sake of argument, yes you can have a crux sequence on a 5.7); and immediately felt the rock pushing me out, off balance. Became very aware of the nut I had placed maybe 10' below; thought about what would happen if I fell and that (perfectly good) nut blew out; I'd be hitting a ledge HARD. Had to step down to place an alien. That made me feel better. Moved on upward.

The next move is the start of the REAL crux. You are standing on a tiny little platform, about 80' in the air; the rock is pushing you off balance, and the rest of the climb is overhang. I know from experience that there is (kind of tricky) gear in the overhang there; and that the hand holds get nothing but better as you move up. Fished in a nut, and two aliens into the weird little crack at chest level. (started off with just one nut: added a green alien, didn't like that so much and added a yellow-red alien hyrbid. SOMETHING's gotta hold, right?) Moved on up through the harder climbing above: it was about as easy as I remembered, and not particularly hard or terrifying. Just HYPER-aware of the fall potential, and not feeling incredibly confident about FALLING on my gear. Sigh. Scrambled up and over to the belay without incident.

Belayed Christine from the bolts on the little ledge, 100' up, next to a tiny, long-suffering little tree. (she climbed it with flying colors, no whining, no crying, no yelling at Lawrence)

Before Christine was even up to the crux, the next party started leading up. Leader was a hippy kid who had come by before when I was racking up and asked if we were on this climb (YES). Mildly annoying, but no big deal. Christine rapelled down first. I rapelled down just as hippy-leader-dude topped out. Man, I thought I ran it out! He basically skipped almost all the gear on the lower part of the climb, only put in one nut at the crux where I put in three pieces. Made me feel old and wimpy. Which is of course, silly, but there you have it.

That was all the climbing we did... it was already starting to look dark and threatening to rain. Did a bunch of socializing at the Mac Wall (I was tempted by MF, but opted for discretion as the better part of valor. Next time.) Then it DID start to rain, and we high-tailed it back to the car.

Lamest Climbing Blog EVER

Well. We appear to have blown the whole ice-climbing thing this season. Between one thing and another (weather, illness, laziness) we never made it out. I have kind of an ambivalent relationship with ice-climbing anyway; I enjoy the fuck out of it when I'm actually doing it, and I'm actually pretty good at it; but I don't feel nearly the passion for it that I do for rock climbing (which I'm probably less talented at, when it comes down to it), and I have a really hard time getting motivated to go out and DO IT.

So there you have it. I HATE climbing in a gym, especially the local gyms, and frankly there isn't much to write about climbing in a gym anyway.

Warmer weather is coming. Soon, but not soon enough (and too warm by half after that, I'll warrant!). More interesting posts will follow.

Lame

I'd like to state right up front that I'm a pretty lame ice climber. I'm actually quite good at it; I believe that the nature of my work lends itself to me being good at ice climbing: standing on an I-beam, drilling over your head into steel with a heavy, high-speed drill that could seize up and break your wrist at any second is not totally unlike balancing on front-points on a frozen waterfall trying to get a pick in over your head. So yeah, I climb ice pretty hard. On top-rope.

Ice climbing is more of a pain in the ass than rock. In terms of getting geared up and out there. Hard to motivate, especially for the first time in the season. Hey, it's like a 3 hour drive from where we live!

So I have to confess... We decided that it is TOO FUCKING COLD to go ice climbing this weekend. Yes! We are lame!! Try again next weekend.

And yeah, I'll definitely post pictures!

Welcome!

So this is a project I've been thinking about doing for a long time now: a years worth of Climbing Journal. I've been a climber for over 10 years now (!), and the experience is deeply intense and at the same time very ephemeral. I've done a little writing about it, but I'd like to try to document a year of my climbing activities: mostly rock, with some ice and steel.

Writing about climbing is tricky. It is easy to slip into the trap of numbers and jargon (Dude, I was stemming up this rad 5.10 dihedral and I was really sketched out but I placed a #1 Camalot...) Very few people (in my not very humble opinion) write about climbing well. Jon Krakauer is one, but he is mainly a mountaineer, which (to the befuddlement of non-climbing friends and family) I am emphatically NOT. Anyway, I'll do my best to make this journal well-written and interesting even to the non-climber. No promises. Screw it, it's mainly for my own consumption anyway. Though you, gentle reader, are of course welcome to read too. Maybe I'll even post pictures!