(WARNING: Some of the following info. is "climbing lingo", and I apologize for that to those multitudes of you who don't climb. Just know the higher the number of the route rating (i.e. 5.3, 5.7), the more difficult the route. The "Gunks" is a nickname for the Shawangunk Ridge and more more info. on it can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawangunk_Ridge . The routes listed below are located on "The Trapps" cliff.)
So, as summer blossoms in all its full blooming glory, I joined the Connecticut Appalachian Mountain Club's excursion to the Gunks in NY to do some lead-climbing yesterday.
My climbing trio started the day with Gustavo Nava leading "Frog's Head" (5.6) route, me
in second place switching ropes, and Dominic Galletti bringing up the rear (and
gear). Considering Dominic and I are rather new to
this style of climbing, it took us a little while, but
we finished the two-pitch--120 ft. climb without incident and then had a happy snack
break.
Next we decided to let Dominic lead route "Betty" (I think was
the name of the 5.3?) and the first pitch went very
smoothly. Starting the second pitch, Dominic went to
the right as he was instructed, and disappeared around
a large rock. Gustavo and I settled in on the sunny and narrow ledge to wait to hear
Dominic yell down that he was at the top.
While we
were waiting, other folks climbed up to our ledge and
we had time to chat a bit.
One was an instructor named Jason who had a very
fabulous faux-bunny-fur chalk bag. He was leading a
honeymoon couple on their first climb ever. After the
first pitch, the bride wanted to go back down and have
a glass of wine, but the groom wanted to do the second
pitch, so to decide, they did the best two out of three of
rock/paper/scissors. He won.
I was also unexpectedly hit (twice!) by people's ropes
who decided to rappel down right over my head. (Don't
people yell "ROPE!" anymore?) By now, it had been a
really, really long time and Gustavo and I were
getting concerned that Dominic had run into trouble.
The wind had made it difficult to hear each other, and
we couldn't see him, so we were imagining all sorts of
things, however, the rope keep being pulled up every
few minutes, so we figured he must be OK. Finally,
after what must have been more than an hour, we hear
Dominic yell that he was off belay (meaning he was at the top and secured to an anchor so Gustavo could start his own ascent). Whew.
Then Gustavo followed up. By now the weather was
changing, and it felt like a storm was on its way and
since my grandmother taught me that it's always good
to have an exit strategy in mind, just in case, I
started pondering what the heck I was going to do if
it started raining and I was still on this ledge. I
finally decided to forfeit the idea of climbing the second pitch, sacrificing Gustavo's equipment to the Gunks gods and goddesses, and rappel down on someone
else's ropes (since I seemed to be directly in the
path of everyone else on their way down anyway.) I
figured that was the better choice than trying to
climb up wet rocks for God-knows how long, or just
staying put on my 60 ft. high narrow ledge and weathering out the storm.
Finally, I got the go-ahead from Gustavo and I was
very eager to get moving. Once around the boulder when
I was out of sight from everyone, I realized what had
taken Dominic so long. There was a substantial rock shelf
that was over my head with no way around it. I looked
at it in disbelief and realized I had no choice but to
go over it somehow. (Q: "What do I do now?" A: "Go
up!") I was mostly concerned that I would damage my
still-not-100% shoulder that I had strained a few months ago, but after VERY ungracefully
jumping up, wedging my feet to the wall on the left
and sloppily skootching myself on my chest on the top
of the shelf like a large flabby seal mounting a rock,
I found myself safely on top.
From there it was a
solid 5.7 terribly vertical climb over some
barnicle-covered holds. Many minutes later, and after
suppressing several mild panic attacks (and very
skillfully removing all the gear, if I do say so
myself), I finally saw Gustavo's face smiling down on
me. As soon as I hit the top, the first thing I said
was, "That was NOT a 5.3!" It turns out it wasn't.
Dominic had unknowingly made a wrong turn somewhere on
the way, and managed to inadvertantly lead a 5.7--yet
was under the impression that he was leading a 5.3. He
said he thought the route seemed hard because he was
just scared. I was terribly impressed. Once the terror
of the realization of what he had done passed, so was
he, I think.
After what seemed like several months later, we
finally finished a very frustrating rappel to the
bottom (we had some difficulty with a tree that kept
snagging the ropes,) we found ourselves back on the
ground about three hours after starting the "simple
5.3" climb, and it was time to leave.
We got the car going around 5:00ish and drove in
record time back to Derby (way to go Gustavo!) where
they dropped me at my house around 6:30 to feed/let
out my dogs, and then I met them a few minutes later
at Archie Moore's downtown for a huge plate of their
famous chicken wings, sweet-potato fries, cold beer,
and de-compressing from our unexpected adventure.
Dominic and I were pretty exhausted (him
psychologically/me physically), and Gustavo was just
an awfully good sport about it, all the way around.
Lessons learned: NEVER try to lead a blind route that
you haven't already climbed; ALWAYS re-sunscreen
before every climb because you don't know exactly how
long you'll be perched on a sunny ledge; and there are
faux-bunny-fur chalk bags for sale somewhere in
Arizona! Awesome.
Enjoy the photos!
