Twelve Days in the Northeast

Hi folks,

The most recent trip report is posted here on Climbing.com. I'm no poet, but I took a shot at writing a poem anyway. Because of the way the text wraps around the photos, it doesn't quite look as I submitted it, but that's OK. I really have no clue if it's any good or not. Here is the beginning to give you an idea:

Upon the passing of Hurricane Earl;
he flew in just before
we drove up to Acadia,
to climb the pink granite.

If I Could Have Just One Weekend...

The first words that came out of "Jello"'s mouth upon my late arrival last Friday night were both uplifting, expected and discouraging all at once.

Jello: Guess what I forgot this time?
Me: Harness?
Jello: No.
Me: Sleeping bag?
Jello: No.
Me: Gear?
Jello: No.
Me: Can't be important then.
Jello: Not really. Just my headlamp.
Me: Eh, that's OK. We've both walked down this path in the dark before. That shouldn't a problem.

Saturday

Our goal for the weekend was singular: to onsight They Died Laughing (5.9+) in the North End. We had already tackled Bird's Nest (5.9) during our previous stay in the land of sandbagged 5.9s, and had drooled over the seemingly easier-to-protect crack to the left before moving on to Toe Crack (5.7) later in the day. We vowed then to return, but we didn't know when. Saturday was to be that day, until...pitter, pitter, patter, pitter, patter, patter, patter, patter.

Me: Is that rain?
Jello: That's rain.
Me: Upper Left Wall tomorrow?
Jello: I imagine. The North End doesn't dry that well.
Me: Sigh.

When we finally rose (a good two hours after we had wanted to get up), it was obvious that the damage had been done. The rain had fallen hard enough that we knew that the tree-covered North End Wall would have to wait until Sunday. Our plans had changed, and we decided to see if Thin Air (5.6) was available. At 10am, it was clear that it wasn't. That's when I mentioned Recompense (5.9). "Jello" was instantly hesitant. He had heard my story of the last time I had been up there, and, even if that wasn't his only reason for being hesitant, he was cautious and steered me to Funhouse (5.7) instead. If he couldn't get on They Died Laughing, then he wanted to finish Upper Refuse (5.5) because he hadn't been all the way up. But first, we had to get up Funhouse.

Funhouse (5.7) - 2 pitches - trad - make your own anchors - "Jello" and Greg each led

There isn't much to say about this route, except that it's damn hard with a heavy pack on one's back. But hey, what route isn't? And what kind of story exists that doesn't tell about mine and "Jello"'s exploits without some kind of stupid inconvenience? Not much of one, to be sure. So, even though the pack didn't really make a difference this time around, I'll still say it was heavy and a serious pain in my ass. The good thing is that we both share the pain. That's why this partnership has worked so well.

Follow the crack / corner / dihedral (whatever you want to call it) up to the ledge, build an anchor and wait for the "uhhh"s and "arrgghhh"s of the second with the heavy pack as he brings up the rear.

Start the second pitch in the crack and follow that up until the trees at the large ledge come into view. Pick a tree and belay. Whatever you do, don't go to the same spot where "Jello" dropped a load a few weeks back at the top of Bombardment. Why? Let's just say that there are two loads there now.

As a side story, we were still deciding on which route to do - Funhouse or Pooh (5.8) - when a group of three folks came up from below and wanted to know what route we were getting on. We told them we hadn't decided yet, but also asked what they wanted to do. They said Pooh, so we took Funhouse instead. This, I believe, was the first moment of good karma we displayed that weekend. I have to say, it feels nice to do good things and not worry about ego.

Anyway, that group of three had one climber who was practicing for the day on his rescues. As it turns out, he was a guy from Seattle who was going to take his week-long IMGA (or is it AMGA?) climbing instructor's exam. Because we were on parallel runs, we chatted a bit and got to know them some. They were a nice group of folks, and fun to talk to.

Upper Refuse (5.5) - 2 pitches (3 if you want to break it out) - trad - 2 piton anchor at the top of pitch #1 and trees at various spots above that - Greg and "Jello" each led.

"Jello" hadn't done the top two pitches, so I led the first pitch. This route is on the large ledge that is a short hike and small boulder problem to the right of the top of Funhouse. Look for the obvious right-facing corner that is to the left of a crack and another, smaller dihedral that has a smaller roof about midway up. Upper Refuse is essentially the low angle face on the left of that ledge.

There are a lot of variations to this route, but basically follow the crack on the left until one gets about a third of the way up to the ledge with the tree about mid-way up the cliff. At that point, fade right onto the easy face and climb up to the start of a block system that could also be called a short notch. There will be two pitons here, and you can use those as an anchor.

I led this pitch, and while I was belaying "Jello", I was leaning out on my anchor and checking out the route below: Book of Solemnity (5.9+), which is the other, smaller-looking dihedral to the right of Upper Refuse. I don't know why this is so, but for some reason I was feeling strong on Saturday, and wasn't intimidated by my history on climbs such as Recompense or potentially difficult climbs such as Book of Solemnity. I kind of wanted my first 5.10, which some books call this route, and felt strong enough to get on it. But our first goal was to get up Upper Refuse and find a way to rap back down because we had left our gear with the kind folks from Seattle who had just come up Pooh to the same ledge we were on.

For the second pitch, go up the notch and either belay at the tree just above, or continue past it onto the easy face / crack before turning left to the next ledge at the top of Cathedral Ledge. If one wants to walk off, then just hike up from there and get to the road that cars use to get to the top (wimps). If one wants to rap off, then, at the top of the crack, turn right and scramble down to a somewhat hidden ledge. There are chains here that lead back down to the top of the first pitch of Book of Solemnity.

We decided to rap, but not without some difficulty. Because we couldn't see the climbers below us, we guessed at the mid-point of the rope and shuffled it down. I went first, and got about ten feet from the ledge when I noticed that the right end of the rope extended about ten feet below the ledge, and the left end was short about ten feet. Gulp. It was OK, however, because I had set myself up with a kleimheist as a back up knot. I simply then took the right end of the rope out of my belay device (I was backed up, remember), and tied that into my belay loop. What did that do? It essentially put me on self-belay. All I had to do then was lower myself on the left rope. Tadaaaa!

"Jello" came down once I equalized the rope, which was, by the way, just long enough to get to the ledge. At that point, we had our second and third good karma moments: 1) if we had pulled the rope then we would have dropped the rope onto two climbers below us on Women in Love (5.12); and 2) the folks from Seattle were on Book of Solemnity practicing rescues. Most people would have complained about #2 considering the route's popularity, but we're two easy-going guys, and we understand that life doesn't revolve around us. We waited patiently until the two climbers on Women in Love were out of the way and then rapped off from there. However, I need to point out that if one raps off from this ledge DO NOT RAP DIRECTLY BELOW THE LEDGE. Why? Because there's really nothing there at the bottom. Sure, I found a ledge, but that ledge is just above a wide chimney that leads all the way down to the bottom of the cliff. One misstep and you're a goner. Take my advice and angle left back toward the main ledge.

Black Lung (5.8) - 1 pitch variation to start Upper Refuse that finishes on the upper sections of Upper Refuse - trad - Climb to the two pitons noted above - Greg Led

I know two guys who are going to ring some alarms when I say this, but Black Lung isn't a 5.8. It's a 5.7 in disguise. The crux really isn't that tough. It is heady, but the move isn't that tough. Anyway, this the right-fading crack directly in between Upper Refuse and Book of Solemnity. Simply put, climb the crack to the pitons and finish on Upper Refuse.

I started this route with droplets of rain spitting from the heavens. There were a lot of people on the Upper Refuse bottom ledge, and we wanted to get up ahead of folks so we didn't get caught in the rain. However, karma number four developed as I approached the pitons. About five feet below me was a climber coming up Upper Refuse. I had the option staying at the pitons or heading to the tree above. I asked the kid what he wanted to do and he chose the tree, so I chose the pitons. He went up and "Jello" followed me. As it was, there was already another party on the ledge with the tree, so it was OK because we wouldn't have to deal with other people - a thought that had crossed my mind as I asked the kid what he wanted to do. It wasn't really raining yet, so we were OK hanging in that spot until they moved on. But then it started to rain. We looked up and saw the two teams still here. It started to rain a bit more. We looked up again, and they were still there. It started to rain harder. We didn't bother to look up because he heard the belayor yell three times, "Are you at the top yet? Have you stopped climbing? Are you off belay?". Hey, I was a noob at one point, too, so I hope they learned from this. If not, may they never leave a team in the rain again, the bastards!

Finally, they got off the ledge and we went up. The final pitch was a waterfall, but an easy one. It didn't take long for us to hike down and decide that it was too wet to cook outside. We went to the Moat for a beer and soup instead.
The Moat

The Moat is a bar that is to the left of downtown North Conway if one is driving on River Road back toward NoCo. It will be about a mile down on the left, after the hospital. It is a popular place, and I recommend the burger and chili. Damn, that stuff was good. But this isn't why I mention this. We were to maybe meet two gentleman from RockClimbing.com, which we didn't until later, and instead started talking to this guy who happened to be sitting next to us. BTW - good karma #4 was when we put our names on the wait list (45 minutes) and then got a seat at the bar. I went back and told the host to take our names off because we didn't need to wait anymore.

Why is this casual, random conversation important? Well, because we ended up climbing with the guy the next day. Why else it worth noting? Because he, too, was in NoCo for the instructor's exam. In fact, he was supposed to meet the guy from Seattle that night. Small world. I'll call this new guy "Random".

Sunday

"Random" camped out in his car in the lot where we parked our cars. We didn't see the two guys from RR.com at the Moat that night, but I was so paranoid about the sound of the light rain on the tent and accompanying rushing water of the stream below us that I swore I heard footsteps. It turned out that I did. The two gents we were to meet found us and our camping spot. The next morning we woke up to more wet ground (so no They Died Laughing), and the chit chat of the two men we were looking for Saturday night under a tarp with their stove and coffee all ready to go (I don't drink coffee, but they offered and that should be noted). "Random" awoke soon after, and the five of us hung out for the better part of the morning until it seemed warm and dry enough to try to get on a decent climb. What was considered decent? Something easy and something that seemed as if it would dry easily. That meant it was going to be my first venture to NoCo's other famous cliff, Whitehorse.

Standard Route (5.5) - 7 pitches - trad - make your own anchors, for the most part - very runout in sections - "Jello", Greg and "Random" switched leads

I had never been to Whitehorse before, and didn't know what to expect. I knew it was all slabs and run out, but I wasn't sure what that meant exactly. Did that mean there simply weren't any cracks up there to place gear? Did it mean that the runouts would produce hairy fall potential? Was I going to die? I have run out my fair share of routes, some of which were not intentional runouts, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to put myself in a position where the elements could take my life. After all, I want to go out either on my own terms or through an event that is totally out of my control. Climbing runout slabs fits neither of those options, so when "Random" said that the approach to the first belay station went up what looked like a slab of wet, 5.8 granite, I tucked in my sack, took a deep breath and "trusted" that everything was going to be alright.

"Random" made it up to the belay ledge fine, though he did it with some trepidation in his otherwise sure feet. "Jello", having gone up five feet and slipped off only to catch himself from sliding another ten feet to the bottom by one handedly snatching out of thin air a dead tree that was conveniently resting where we were climbing, decided to take my approach and put his climbing shoes on first. While he did that, I carefully and swiftly worked my way up the slick rock to a steeper section when, as luck would have it, "Random" shouted down from the belay ledge, "I led you guys astray. The approach is to the left. Go back down. It's a lot easier that way."

If it's one thing I hate more than psyching myself out, it's down climbing a wet slab. How does one do this without looking like Porky Pig talks? Well, the answer is one does so very carefully. It took me about ten minutes, but I finally worked my way back to the tree where I could place my hands and feet on something solid. There I was, ten feet from the bottom. This was easy. I had just worked my way through the hard part. Now all I had to do was walk down while holding the equivalent of a staircase railing. Naturally, when I was two feet from solid ground...I slipped. It wasn't much of a slip; kind of like slipping on an icy set of front steps but catching oneself before one sends one's back into spasms by landing awkwardly on the crooked ground (raise your hands if you speak from experience: now picture Greg not just raising his hand but waving vigorously for attention just to make sure that you know that he does speak from experience as well). The problem with the slip, and the reason I mention it? Remember that gash on my ankle I got from climbing Mr. Clean at Barkeater Cliffs? I'll be damned if that thing wasn't opened up like a tomato dropped from the top of a third-story building. I'm telling you, that's pain, and not just from the open wound, but from the knowledge that I could have slipped where it was more likely and instead slipped where I shouldn't have. Stupidity hurts, too.

Anyway, we switched leads all the way up. I know I usually break out my routes by pitch, but this post is ridiculously late and I'm just going to say that we did the direct route. Basically, this goes straight up to a set of bolts both below and to the right of the large, obvious, exfoliating, arching roof that dominates the right side of the cliff. We could have then traversed left to follow the crack, by why do that when there's beautiful pockets leading the way up the next anchor (slings with rap rings)? We then followed the crack right until it ended and went up over the face to the upper slabs, which, by the way, one cannot see from below. From there, we found out that the wasn't enough rope to make it to the top with 60m ropes. So we simul-climbed from the large fir tree that is to the left of the next crack line and an easy, obvious dike leading upward like a true stairway to heaven (or, in my case, hell. Hey, no one said you had to go straight down first. I firmly believe St. Peter will be giving me my marching orders, just not through the pearly gates). I've since learned that most people untie here, but that's OK. This last pitch is probably no more than fourth class. Seriously, I was breathing heavy from the "walk" up. It was more of a cardio workout than a climb.

Anyway, we hiked down after that and decided that we'd take on Inferno (5.8). "Random" climbed the first pitch, and, while "Jello" was climbing the second pitch, "Random" wondered aloud what time his exam meeting was that evening. No sooner than the words had come out of his mouth did his phone ring:

"Random": Hello? Hey, yeah, I am coming to the meeting, what time is it? It's at 6pm? OK, what time is it now? Uh, it's 6pm? Huh. Well, I, uh, I'm going to be a bit late. Yeah, you see, I'm belaying the leader and, uh, well, I can't retreat until I get up. Uh huh. I'll see you then. Bye.

Oops.

As soon as "Jello" got up the route, "Random" raced to the top of the second pitch. By the time I got up, "Random" was gone. That was OK, because it was really starting to get dark. We saw that there were some folks rapping off another route on the other side of the ledge, so we walked over and asked if we could catch a ride. The group happily let us through, but not without them having to shine their headlamps on our rap devices to ensure we were properly locked in. Go back and read that sentence again. Uh huh. Now go all the way to the top of this post and read the initial conversation.

Uh huh.

Yep.

You got it.

Now imagine walking through your bedroom at night without any light whatsoever. Now imagine that it's not your room, but someone else's. Now imagine that feeling you get when you wake up in a strange room and forget, just for a few moments, where you are, except in the dark, with wet roots under your feet and a windy trail to the bathroom and back to the bedroom. For the love of God, I don't think we'll have an adventureless, perfect weekend. I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, our climbing weekends aren't about the climbing after all. Instead, it's about survival. At some point, and I hope this isn't true, we may become eligible for the Darwin Awards.

Sigh.

Still, we had our final good karma moment when "Random" trusted us to take his rope and remaining gear back with us to the campsite. He picked it up the next morning before going off to start his week-long test. I hope he did well.

Monday was a rainout, so we headed home without so much as a whimper (well, the stupid girl at Dunkin Donuts complained that my money was wet, but what the hell does she know?). They Died Laughing remained conqueredless and so did Recompense. That's OK. There will always be a time for beating back the demons. It just wasn't our time this time around. I'm off to the 'Gunks this weekend. Wish me luck.

Cathedral Ledge - North Conway

Ever since we met up in the Adirondacks over Memorial Day weekend, "Jello" and I have been discussing a potential trip that would allow us to tackle some trad, multi-pitch routes over the course of several days. We discussed two different weekends in July, one weekend in August and the possibility of meeting up either in the 'Gunks or 'Dacks, but we couldn't piece a trip together. First it was my inability to get time off from work. Then it was him getting laid off from work. He had a wedding to attend. I was going home for a week to visit family. His girlfriend was to fly out of Philadelphia on a day we wanted to climb. I was concerned about being out of the office at the same time as my boss (well, not really), and he was to start a new job sooner than expected. It didn't matter what our plans were in the end; time wouldn't let us meet up and we were both getting frustrated.

And then the stars came together.

Finally, we were able to piece together two days at the end of last week where we could camp right across the street from the crag at our super-secret camp site, get up early, and get on the choicest meat before anyone else was even thinking beyond their morning coffee. While we didn't get to do as much as hoped, we still had a great time trying. Thursday provided more opportunities than Friday did, but the route we did on Friday was enough to leave a taste in our mouths to do more. To go bigger. Longer. Badder and radder (OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating here, but only just a little). Below is what we did, how we did it and what the routes are like.

Thursday - North End and Lower Left Wall

Child's Play (5.6) - 1 Pitch of Trad with slings at the top - North End - This was our first route of the trip because we wanted to start on something easy as a warm up. That and we had heard Cathedral was stiff in the grading, so we also wanted to get a feel for what the routes were going to be like: stiff or honest? This route was a little sandbagged, but only just a little. The start was probably a 5.7+ layback with no feet on the first two moves, but once we got past that section, it was pretty easy to string the route together
the rest of the way. This route has excellent pro in the vertical crack just about anywhere on the climb. The finish has a bit too much lichen for my liken', but there was never a tense moment until "Jello" came down after TR'ing the route. It was a normal belay. He got to the top, removed our anchor, set himself up on the rap anchor already in place, and I lowered him. About half-way down, "Jello" saw a horizontal dihedral that he wanted to avoid and pushed his feet outward so that he'd land right on the top edge and step down from there. Unfortunately, his foot missed the edge and his shin caught it instead. It was a helluva scratch that I honestly thought for a few moments would end our climbing before it had hardly started. But he shook it off and we TR'd the next route over from Child's Play.

The Mantleshelf Problem (5.7) - 1 Pitch of TR with slings at the top - North End - This route is not really leadable. One could certainly free-solo it, but it is a face climb with no sign of a crack until about 30 feet off the ground. The start is nice. It has two palm-sized ledges for mantling, and these first two moves lead to a series of jugs just to the right of the Child's Play crack. The top runs up a face of flakey lichen that is way more slippery when wet
than one would think.

Kiddy Crack(5.7) - 1 Pitch of Trad with slings at the top - North End - Another solid route that is more consistent than Child's Play is. It is just to the right of The Mantleshelf Problem and follows a vertical crack upward to the same anchors as the first two climbs did. "Jello" led this route, and I was happy that he was going to be strong enough to continue. Still, these first few routes were too easy. We wanted more.

Bird's Nest (5.9-) - 1 Pitch of Trad with slings at the top - North End - And we got it. This was a stiff route that was very thin and slick at the bottom, especially since it had rained the night before and the jug of water I had bought for the weekend sprung a leak in my trunk and soaked my shoes.
When people tell you that Cathedral can be sandbagged, this is proof that is true. I think this was a 5.10, not a 5.9-. But I hate vertical cracks, so maybe that's just me (I also hate creepy looking spiders that look more poisonous than I'd care to learn the truth about). In any case, it has great pro all the way up that doesn't get in the way of where you want to put your hands. I tried jamming the first 20 feet or so, but I fell twice (the gear held, thank God) and found that a layback worked much better until I could hand jam through the middle (To be honest, I fell more because I was trying to avoid the damn spider than due to the difficulty of the climb. I swear, the fucker was sitting right on a jug that I needed and never moved despite my trying to nudge him along. "Jello" kept yelling 'Kill it! Kill it!', but I didn't want to get that crap all over my gear. I have standards you know).

I finally made it past the spider and into what I thought was the best part of the climb, a series of good hand and fist jams leading to a nice rest on a shelf below a small roof. The upper-middle section had an awkward high-step, sloper, mantle move that made me pause for a couple of minutes to figure out. The move is much easier than it looks, but that doesn't make it less scary. The top was pretty smooth. I'd even call it a 5.6 runout. This route is highly recommended.

After we finished on the North End Wall, we went back down to the car (less than 45 seconds of walking - damn, that's a tough approach), had lunch and decided to try out two routes on the Lower Left Wall that sounded intriguing. Both shared the same first pitch and split into different directions. Both were fantastically different from each other, almost so that it made us feel like we were on different walls.

Bombardment (5.8 - 5.6R) - 2 pitches of trad with no gear at the top - Lower Left Wall - "Jello" led the first pitch of this route: a one-piece 5.6 runout that goes up about 35 feet, with 25 of those feet above the only piece of gear the entire pitch. Still, it's a 5.6 that starts below the obvious rap anchors
at the bottom of pitch two, and winds right up a dike and touch-and-go smear section before an easy hike brings one back to the anchors. Pitch two juts out to the right with a high-step onto a flaring vertical crack that winds left as one goes up. Pro is scant early on this pitch, but it gets better as the crack fades. I'd definitely brings cams for this section. Nuts won't go until you're too high. At that point, decking out isn't just a reality for the start of the second pitch, but maybe the bottom of the first pitch, too. There weren't any anchors at the top, so bring some small nuts to make an anchor in the horizontal crack. There's also a good tree to rap off. And if you venture higher and find what seems to be a soft spot in the ground, don't step there. That's "Jello"'s "I'moffbelaygottarunI'vegottatakeacrapholySHIT!" hole. He was missing for several minutes when we finally rapped down to the bottom of the second pitch, which was also the start of the second pitch of Pleasant Street.

Pleasant Street (5.7 - 5.6R) - 2 pitches of trad with no gear at the top - Lower Left Wall - This route, instead of having a crack that sunk into the wall, featured an under cling flake that arched left to an easy but thick roof near the top. "Jello" led this pitch, and had a lot of fun with it. I don't know about
this guy, to tell the truth. He seems to really like sticking his hands in places
where you don't know what's hiding inside. He just sticks them in there and smiles, albeit not without bitching about all the cobwebs that had formed on the way up. If you don't appreciate cobwebs, make your partner lead this one. It'll be nice and clean for you on the way up. The pro is excellent and the footing is solid as well. One could probably climb the face, but all the pro is in the flake. Use long slings at the bottom to avoid rope drag. One thing to note, however, is that the top of this route is very, very rough. "Jello" stopped short of the top because he couldn't see that the route went any further. From where he set the anchor, everything above was a slopey, lichenfest with no easy, 5.7 moves. He built an anchor in the horizontal crack where he stopped and recommended we traverse over to the top of Bombardment to rap down. However, when I got to the top I discovered three bolts in the rock that led to a very precarious, slippery and slopey section up to a large tree (I aided this part - the lichen was just too touch-and-go). I anchored off the stout branch that hung out over the cliff, sat on the top of it, let him rap down and then I rapped down after him (just to be sure, swinging from a seated position on top of a tree branch onto rappel below a tree branch, and hoping one's weight doesn't snap the branch one is rappelling off of is no treat. I admit, I was afraid. Very, very afraid). Still, the rap was easy and went directly down to a rap anchor that is not in the same spot as the start of the second pitch. If you rap off, rap straight down from the top. You may need two ropes to rap back to the second-pitch belay station. The rap anchors half-way down are good enough to use, but as always, check first.

Friday - Thin Air Face

Standard Route (5.6) - 4 Pitches of Trad with slings for anchors on pitches two and three, and bolts for pitch four - Toe Crack Variation (5.7) on first two pitches - Thin Air Face - Our plan on Friday was to do Thin Air (5.6 - 4 pitches) and then do some of the climbs on the Upper Left Wall such as Upper Refuse (5.6) and various 5.9s and / or 5.8s. Unfortunately, we got up way, way too late in the morning to beat the crowds, and by the time we got to the bottom of Thin Air, there was already a disappointed father and his young daughter holding up the climb (he asked the party behind them to get a tri-cam out for him because his daughter, who couldn't have been more than ten years old, "had a meltdown trying to get the cam out". The whole crowd below heard him say that. You'd think he'd show a bit more support), a group of four waiting to get on the climb and "Jello" forgot his climbing shoes in the car. By the time he got back, Thin Air was as crowded as it usually is. And why not? It's one of New England's most classic climbs. Everyone has to do this route once. It's absolutely fantastic.

Because of the long queue and our desire to get as much climbing in as we possibly could before his girlfriend called for a ride back from shopping in North Conway all day, we decided to do the Toe Crack variation of the Standard route, a long, four-pitch route that requires two ropes if one is going to rap down from the top. "Jello" led the first three pitches mainly because I was now battling two damaged thumbs. The first one you've heard about in my other posts (canoeing accident). The second was a much more traumatic injury: I cut a massive gash in my thumb whilst trying to open a can of freaking blueberries for the pancakes that didn't cook well earlier that morning. Not only did we not get pancakes, but I was stuck fiddling with gear with a two-inch thick wrap of tape and gauze around my thumb all day. The damn thumb just wouldn't stop bleeding. When I finally took the wrapping off later that day, the gauze was stuck to my thumb thanks to all the blood. I thought I was going to die. Seriously.

OK, so maybe I am exaggerating again, but having two bum thumbs and an intense displeasure for vertical cracks (love, love, love horizontal cracks and face climbs. Despise vertical cracks), I let "Jello" have all the fun on the first three pitches.

Pitch One - "Jello" followed the dike at the bottom of the cliff (I mean, who wouldn't? She was HOT! - OK, bad joke, sorry, sorry) to the small chimney that is the Standard Route. However, what he needed to do was not climb all the way up to the chimney because Toe Crack starts to the left of a very slick traverse from the chimney. What he should have done was approach via a tricky slab below the crack. Don't go too high here. The slab is easier than the traverse is, and if you get your feet up high, the move across the slab is pretty basic. From there, follow the vertical crack up, place as much gear as you want (because it's more bomber than a B-52 is, and that's a real bomber) and finish to the
right, at the top of the chimney if one had climbed that instead. There are slings at the top, but these looked worn. I mostly climbed the face here, mainly because that is what I prefer, but you'll need to get your feet twisted in the crack a few times to get up. This was a beautiful pitch. I can't wait to get back on it again, except next time I want to lead it...sans blood.

Pitch Two - We stepped back out onto the face and finished the crack before again fading right to another tree above the Standard Route. Be careful on this belay ledge. There is a lot of loose dirt, sticks, debris, etc that can be easily knocked down to a heavily-used path below. It is the specific belay station that I use as an example of why one should not rap off this route.

You can probably string the first two pitches together in one go, but I'd use only 60m meter or longer ropes for that. If you fall short, there are plenty of places to fix an anchor in the crack below the belay station. That is what a cute blond named Brooke did below us so that she and her guide could traverse to the top of the second pitch of Thin Air and rap down. Hehe. A cute girl talked to us. We felt like men. Grrr...

Pitch Three - "Jello" was disappointed that Toe Crack was now finished and was slightly unnerved by the massive runout face / chimney the rest of the way. We were already swearing like cowboys (we were pretending to be motherfucking, cocksucking actors from the cocksucking, motherfucking cockcucker of a show on HBO called 'Deadwood'), and this pitch didn't help matters. It was a stiff climb that would have been disastrous had he fallen - at least thirty feet of unprotected climbing above a steep, rocky gully that would have shot him straight past me and down toward the lower pitches. I even felt the strain while on second, and gave him big kudos for being both "bold and old" at the top of the pitch.

The belay ledge here is huge. In fact, I may do a night climb of this route someday just so I can sleep on the ledge and wake up to shout "I'M THE FIRST FUCKING CLIMBER ON THIS CRAG TODAY!!! ... ... because I never left."

There are hangers for belaying. Don't use the tree.

Pitch Four - Because "Jello" practically crapped his pants on the previous pitch and partially because the crack was finished and I didn't need my thumb as much, he deferred the lead of the fourth pitch to me. Yippee. He likes cracks and I like stemming chimneys. It was a match made in heaven. Or not. This was the crappiest pitch by far. It was probably 5.6 all the way up, but it clearly was not a popular option. The cave / chimney at the start was easy enough (hint: go fairly deep in, stem across, and then come back out to the edge and below the roof). It was the rest of the climb that sucked. Firstly, there were some route finding difficulties. Once one comes over the roof, one finds a gully with high enough walls on either side to keep one from seeing the best line to the top. I chose carefully. I chose wisely. I chose luckily: to the left up a thin, lichen-covered crack that eventually leads to a slopey slab just below the last belay station of Thin Air. I chose this route because it offered far better protection that the right side did, and because I knew there was a 5.11 lurking somewhere around where I was. I figured it wasn't where Thin Air was anyway. Be forewarned, however. A fifty-meter rope won't make it to the top and there aren't many good anchors spots along the way. I had about ten feet of rope left when I finally got to the top. Thankfully the top ledge has plenty of good belay options (large tree, plenty of room, horizontal cracks, etc) to choose from. That made using what little rope I had left that much easier.

Once at the top, we though about rappelling down either Thin Air or Miss Saigon, but we were told that we needed two ropes to make it the belay stations on both routes. We decided to take the short, one-minute-hike path to our right and walk down the road that goes to the top of the cliff. We talked about night climbing Thin Air, but that was the end of our day and we knew it. We were tired, happy to have climbed what we did and began to talk feverishly of doing big climbs on Cannon and other routes in the 'Dacks. It was a good couple of days, and while "Jello" and his girlfriend had a nine-hour drive to Philadelphia ahead of them, I had a trip to Rumney the next day that would finish off my climbing weekend.

North Conway Trip

I've been back one day and I'm taking off again for the rest of the week. What a life! After spending a week in Bar Harbor (Acadia) sipping Mudslides, eating out, jet-skiing, reading, writing, relaxing and basically being a bum, the time has finally come for me to put away the awkward inflexibility in my thumb and put it to the test on Cathedral Ledge.

I'm meeting "Jello" and his girlfriend there. We're camping just down the road from the base of the cliff, so that will be nice. It will also be nice to be up there during the week as opposed to the busy weekend.

I'm not sure what "Jello" has in mind, but he has mentioned Upper Refuse (5.6) and Recompense (5.9). If you remember, Recompense is the route I damn near died on a couple of years ago. Oddly, I can't wait to get back on it. In fact, I haven't been able to wait until I came down that day. The only disappointment is that I won't be climbing it with the guy I tried to climb it with last time. I'm a sucker for punishing myself (note: I am not a sucker for other people's punishment). I just want to do things the hard way sometimes. Climbing this route with my other friend instead of "Jello" would just add more stress to the head-game equation. Still, "Jello" has knack for adventure, so maybe I'm speaking too soon.

Anyway, I'll report back when I get home. That looks like Saturday instead of Sunday. What a bummer. I knew "Jello" was going to cut his trip short due his girlfriend having to fly out of Philadelphia early Sunday morning, but I was hoping someone would go to Rumney this weekend. Alas, it does not seem to be the case. Maybe Labor Day? Maybe the Gunks? I need better partners.