Getting to know the local crag: Mission Gorge

This past Sunday was "getting to know the local crag" day for me. Simone, a fantabulous and super smooth local climber, took me and my gym partner of late, Julio, to Mission Gorge to show us around. Julio had never climbed outside before, and I'd scared off his previous climbing partner when I took him outside. I, on the other hand, had been to Mission Gorge only twice before, once with Julio's previous partner and once with Ben, so I still had (have, really) a lot to learn about the Gorge. We played around the leftmost end of the main wall, always on topropes, and mostly on harder stuff than I would have elected to get on had I been on my own.

I very inelegantly groveled up Knob Job (or Nob Job, depending on which guide you look at), which I hated. Simone said it was the climb that got her hooked, so now I'm waiting to find out what kind of pervert she really is. Then we got on Rock on (the right variation in the dihedral), which is Simone's favorite. Perhaps I should not say "we", since Julio and I only managed to flail and get about two feet off the ground on this 10c. We then did Suzie's wild ride, Hangman, and Crack of dust. I would have liked to have tried Mariah, but after seeing someone even taller than me struggle on it, I think maybe it's a good thing I didn't. All in all, I'd say it was a good day, except that Rock On really munged the backs of my hands, so now I'm hurtin'.

Lie detector is full of crap

This weekend Ben and I hit Mission Gorge and Mt. Woodson to take in the local cragging scene. At Mission Gorge we climbed close to Lunch rock, doing a 5.8 crack to the left of it (with a hilarious name which is now eluding me), and then moving to Lunch rock proper. I led Lunch rock left, then we toproped the crack that runs up its middle, then the arete and then Ben managed the face on the right hand side, while I only made it halfway up.

Yesterday we returned to Mt. Woodson to visit what's becoming a new obsession, the Robbins crack. It was initially occupied, so we sent a 5.8 off-width problem behind the painted boulder first. It was near there that I had an unexpected encounter with a very very large and very pissy rattlesnake. We returned to the Robbins crack, which Ben aided up. Then I toproped it cleanly all the way up, to my great surprise, and, of course, so did Ben. We threw the rope onto the other side, which features Lie detector, a crack that starts as 12b fingers (if that) and continues as a 10b fingers-to-hands. We aided past the 12b section and both toproped the top section. In the beginning of the top section the crack was chock full of bird or rat or something shit. It was really nasty, because it smelled, and there was absolutely no choice but to stick your fingers directly into it. I frankly found the whole climb really hard to do, because, after aiding up 15 feet, and sticking my fingers into shit, I just couldn't wait to get off the damn rock! We then moved up the trail a bit to the Baby Robbins crack, a 20 foot tall 5.9 thin hand crack. For whatever reason, I decided to lead the thing, this being not only my second trad lead ever, but also a grade up from any serious sport leads I'd done (excepting Malibu creek). The feet were really bad in the lower section, so I hung, thought about it, restarted it from the ground and eventually led the whole sucker. It wasn't led in great style, but it was a legitimately hard start, so I'm proud of it anyway. We wrapped up the day by free-soloing a couple very short 5.8 cracks around the corner from Baby Robbins.