Playing catchup on holiday posts -- Christmas

Christmas was unexpectedly awesome this year! Dan took 4 days off and we hit the Eastern Sierra. I was all for camping at the pinyon forest, but he doesn't have a winter down bag, and my 4 season tent is really a 1.5 person tent, which gets old if I run into real weather and have to not touch the walls. I have a plan for turning our 2-person 3-season into a 4-season, but in this case, we decided to be posh and get a room. After a bit of looking around, I decided we should stay at Tom's Place Lodge, halfway in-between Bishop (where my heart lives year round) and Mammoth, where Dan's interest in skiing was likely to be focused.

Dan wanted to get some skiing in. I, on the other hand, have never skied in my life. So I figured, we'd best get that out of the way and go on the first day. We headed up to Mammoth, rented skis, got lift tickets for three beginner slopes, and Dan taught me how to A-frame, make turns and all that good stuff. He started me out with poles, instead of without, which I'm told is the custom, and I think, in retrospect that was a mistake. When we tried a slope that was half a level of difficulty harder than the bunny hill before it, I got going too fast for comfort. Climber that I am, I figured I'd better fall. And fall I did, but I forgot one leg behind me and something on the back of my left knee (the one that messed up our trip to Bart Dome in summer? that one) popped. Nevermind. Got back up to try it again, same story. Fall I did, and this time my left wrist (the one that spent a few weeks in a brace over the summer? that one) got wrenched by the pole, which I tried to use to control my speed. At that point I decided I'd probably be paying for those two re-injuries for weeks, so it might be a good time to stop. Dan did a couple more runs and we called it a day, with me deciding that in skiing it's safer to keep going until you can slow down than to fall.

We had a great Christmas dinner and whole bunch more fun, which I won't go into details about. What does belong in a climbing blog, however, was the fact that I took us down the gully descent into Owen's River Gorge with snow and ice on the ground. We had no poles, and in retrospect, probably shouldn't have gone. It was quite slippery.

On our last day we decided to break up the driving a bit by stopping to climb at the Alabama Hills. We went to the corridors and did a couple really easy slab climbs on very very bad granite, and an arete 5.6 that I'd been warned was "spicy", but somehow hadn't registered the fact. It was a little worse than spicy, in my opinion. I'm pretty sure I've never had to take on a 6 before! In any case, it was a blast, and I'm stoked to have the "Bishop Area Rock climbs" guide book as a result!

New Jack City again

A couple weekends ago I hit NJC, planning to meet up with my friend Francis and his peeps. Indeed I found plenty of SD meetup folk when I arrived, but Francis was nowhere in sight. I proceeded to climb with Bob at the Boyscout Wall. I led an 8, and then we toproped 10d, 10b, 10a and 9. They were all great climbs. I flailed on the 10d, but didn't fall on the rest of them, although the 9 felt a lot harder than any 9 has a right to feel. Also I froze my butt off. Late in the day we headed over to Raven, where, lo and behold, Francis was. He put me on a toprope on Candy-O, which I had foolishly said looked cool during our previous visit. I found a way to bypass the lower crux (going left), and fought out the top crux. After half a dozen falls I made it to the chains! That's pretty good, given that I've never even been on a 11b climb in the past.

Gaps

It's incredible ... the gaps that sometimes gape open in this blog really make me think.

The last month has been a whirlwind of activity, as I moved from San Diego, land of awesome granite, to Santa Barbara, land of shitty sandstone. I haven't had a chance to climb in 3 weeks, and I'm sure it will show immediately when I next try to climb. Santa Barbara has three, but really two, climbing walls. There's the one at the Rec Cen at UCSB, which is newer. There's an outdoor wall at the Goleta Valley Athletic Club, which I fully intend to check out, since Dan has a membership there through work. Then there's one at my favorite store in town, Santa Barbara outfitters, but I've never seen a proper route set on it, ever. This third one makes me sad and I wish I could do something about it...

So the gaps I was talking about, they're not even ones in the last three weeks. I'm referring to two or three climbing trips in October and November that went altogether un-logged. First there was Halloween in JTree, with the San Diego meetup folks. Then there was the #jtreetweetup, with my new internet friends. Both were different from the sort of trip I'm used to taking, and I think both went un-logged and un-remarked largely because of that. I haven't digested them, and they feel a bit fragile and special, and I don't want to go there. So I won't. The second trip, in any case, has been "reported" on by the aforementioned friends.

In other news, I finally caved, and during last week's Metolius promotion I ordered the set of free TCUs. That gives me a fairly complete rack, except for the mega sizes. I can't wait to use them!

Emergency New Jack City send-fest

Today Francis, Cecilia and I made a quick jaunt out to New Jack City. Francis led before me, so all the draws were placed for me, but I led everything. We climbed in the Raven area:
Custom Tailored (5.7)
Step Across (10a)
Welcome to New Jack City (10a)
Love On-Sight (10c)
I'd led the first one a couple times before, and TRed the second. The third was new to me. The last one I took a fall on while at the second bolt. I lowered and restarted, finishing it clean. The start is a bitch! Overall a really fun day, and great start to my "leading 10 in 2010" campaign.

At Crag Full of Dynamite with Dan

This Sunday Dan took some time out of his busy schedule and we went climbing. This was technically his second time climbing ever -- the first time was bouldering at Lizard's Mouth a couple months ago.

He'd picked up shoes before our last outing, and last week I'd outfitted him with a helmet and harness package. Hilariously, he was most excited about the chalk bag!

I threw the climbing gear into the back of the Porsche and we drove up Gibraltar road to West Camino Cielo and Crag Full of Dynamite. CFoD is where, just over a year ago, I'd done my very first lead, and it's an uncomplicated spot, with zero approach and routes whose top anchors you can see. However, I did not remember quite how crappy the rock was. In any case, I instructed Dan on the basics of lead and TR belaying, commands and all that good stuff, and then led "he who double-crosses me and leaves me alone, he knows nothing about Tuco, nothing", a 5.7. It was harder than I remembered, mostly because of rock quality. It seems the more experienced I get, the more perturbed I am by chossy rock. In any case, Dan jumped on it and did really really well. He had all the normal issues with not knowing how much to trust friction and how exactly to use the shoes, but he's got mad balance, and a clear head and he made it to the top. His Achilles tendons were bothering him at the end, but he totally escaped the standard beginner issue of over-gripping and pumping out. I then led up the Ecstasy of Gold, the 5.8 that's two routes to the left of Tuco, and Dan followed about half of it, with a harder start than I'd done. Pretty damnn good for a beginner.

We had a really good time. We were in the shade, and there was nobody there but us, and we took it really slow and easy. I only wish we'd taken pictures...

Replacing the harness, completing the rack & outfitting the man

This month has been one of climbing-related expenses, and it's a little scary how much money has gone into this.

After much hand-wringing I decided to replace my years-old Mammut harness with a BD Chaos. I tried it out at Owen's this weekend, and it's fantastic for sport climbing, but, obviously, the real test is going to be trad multipitch.

I also decided it's time to start building a more respectable rack. Technically, I have everything I need: #1 and #2 C4 camalots, a series of 7 forged friends, a set of nuts and pink, red and brown tricams. But the forged friends are a bit ... shall we say antiquated? And until now I've been relying on Ben's gear to supplement my camalots, nuts and tricams. So it's time to replace the forged friends with something actually usable. To that end I've ordered camalot C4s in the #0.3-0.75 range. I'll need a #3 at some point, but for now I can use my largest friend for that.

Finally, I wanted to outfit Dan with rock climbing gear, so that he'd be able to belay me and follow on basic multi-pitch. So I got him a harness package and helmet. I'm super excited about teaching him!

Owen's River Gorge, version 2.0

I spent this Friday + weekend climbing at Owen's River Gorge with Ben. It was my first time back since last winter, so I was really looking forward to this visit. I've been training both endurance and strength in the gym, and climbing alongside some phenomenally stylish people, so I think my technique has improved a great deal, too. My objective this time around was to convince myself I'm a solid 5.9 sport leader, and maybe try to probe my limits on lead a little. I succeeded at the first, but not the second. Oh well, next time!

Here's my ticklist for this trip. Everything was onsight, on lead, casual, except the very last route on Sunday, which was clean on TR.

Friday: High Seas (7), Crowd Pleaser (8), Clip Jr (6), Welcome to the Gorge (9)
Saturday: Enter the dragon (8), China Doll (8), Heart of the Sun (9), Drill Sergeant (8)
Sunday: 5.8 not in my book, at Solarium between Sendero Luminoso and Menace II Society, Child of Light (9), Low Octane (9), High Octane (10d, TR)

Low and High Octane are variations on one 40-50 foot route, really, and they're a little obscure, so I want to call particular attention to them. They're at the Pit Stop area, in the Lower Gorge, at the top of a sand/scree slope. The sun never sees these problems, so they're good for hot days, and they see very little traffic. Being a no-chalk climber myself, I was especially excited to find these problems completely un-chalked, totally virginal. I led the 9, Low Octane, which is the variation on the right. It has some wonderful balance-y moves. Then we toproped the 10d, which is really a slightly longer boulder problem start, on the left. I think it's overrated as a 10d (indeed, the new edition of the guide may have re-rated it, I don't know for sure), since I wouldn't rate it more than a V2. In any case, I TRed it clean, and given that I was able to shake out at big juggy holds, I think I would have no problem leading it. So it can't be 10d. Either way, great problems, both of them, on great, un-slimed rock.

This weekend was a blast!