As for rock, we are going to RR in a couple weeks. Trip report to come.

Josh

Sure Josh! I will hold my breath. I am remembering how I had cajole you into a write up about The Chief! Have a great time!

Chad, cool video. A little bit jerky and blue-and-white when I viewed it. Gave it a sort of Chaplinesque air. Pretty cool effect. Not a fan of the soundtrack however. Maybe because I'm an old fart. One of those problems looked to be definitely height related. Hope the guy in the white cap eventually got it. BTW, where is all your snow? We are buried here in the Boston area. Had four feet of snow on my deck two weeks ago. Now we have gotten into the dreaded "mixed precipitation". Been an enormous wimp and haven't been out since the beginning of January. Need to step up. Coldweather Kevin are you lurking on this thread? Call me, we need to get out this weekend. I think it has become a retaining our manhood thing.

Gail, you are the woman! Good deal, you are an inspiration. See you in the Gunks in a couple of short weeks, I hope!

Godfather2 love your tagline! Looked like a fun outing.

Greg, keep the book or pass it on. Don't worry about replacing it. I'm pretty sure I have it pretty much memorized. Have you lined you climbing helmet with lead yet? Or have you strapped a turtle shell on your head?

Sure Josh! I will hold my breath. I am remembering how I had cajole you into a write up about The Chief! Have a great time!

Chad, cool video. A little bit jerky and blue-and-white when I viewed it. Gave it a sort of Chaplinesque air. Pretty cool effect. Not a fan of the soundtrack however. Maybe because I'm an old fart. One of those problems looked to be definitely height related. Hope the guy in the white cap eventually got it. BTW, where is all your snow? We are buried here in the Boston area. Had four feet of snow on my deck two weeks ago. Now we have gotten into the dreaded "mixed precipitation". Been an enormous wimp and haven't been out since the beginning of January. Need to step up. Coldweather Kevin are you lurking on this thread? Call me, we need to get out this weekend. I think it has become a retaining our manhood thing.

Gail, you are the woman! Good deal, you are an inspiration. See you in the Gunks in a couple of short weeks, I hope!

Godfather2 love your tagline! Looked like a fun outing.

Greg, keep the book or pass it on. Don't worry about replacing it. I'm pretty sure I have it pretty much memorized. Have you lined you climbing helmet with lead yet? Or have you strapped a turtle shell on your head?

Bill, I am planning on climbing at the gunks this weekend if the weather holds. Looks like moderate temps on Saturday and Sunday. Also looks like some form of precip in the AM.

Josh, can't wait to see the TR.

I am headed to Arizona on 3/22 for a week of climbing with Manny. I hope I can keep up, he is pretty hard core.

I can't stop thinking about ice climbing...it was so much fun. I know the season is likely over, but, I do hope to get out one more time.

Greg, Let me know when you are ready to gunk ok? I am eagerly awaiting John's arrival in June. I am already planning to work out of New Paltz!

"It'll never replace rock." Man, I couldn't be more polar opposite from this viewpoint. I'm up in Lake Willoughby right now, capping off what has been a tremendous ice season thus far, and all I keep thinking is....why can't we have 9 months of winter climbing and 3 months of rock climbing. All I can say is.....just wait until you are runout above a stubby ice screw, three moves into a mixed sequence, with a tool torqued in a crack, crampons points on edges you would never think to use, and trying to fish in a green alien while hooking a hanging sheet of ice over your head. If you don't realize that's the epitomy of climbing, then no one can help you!

Hope to see you out at the cliff this season!

RR

Played at the gunks yesterday. It was cloudy, started out in the high 40's and gradually hit the high 50's. The rock was dry on the face, but the cracks/pods were a bit slimy and some horizontals were filled with mud.

That said we had some fun and I did my first trad lead of the 2011 season. Honestly, I felt rusty. I was climbing with a friend, using his rack (and racking system) and was 1/2 up the pitch when I realized that I didn't have any slings. Not his fault, he asked me if I wanted his gear sling and I said "no". Pretty stupid, it was holding all of the slings!

We were on a very easy climb, so I built an anchor and he brought it up to me. I ran a couple of laps on Son of Easy O and we called it a day. Way too early in my opinion, but my partner had to go to a party. Mitch walked with Bett (both recovering from major surgery/accidents) to the Andrew Boulder and then they waited for us to finish climbing. (Bett shattered her hip in 5 places in late November, she is really recovering well. She walked 3 miles yesterday on pretty crappy footing. She even climbed one of the ascent trails. Mitch's wrist is better, he can take of his splint to shower and is allowed to bend it ever so gently. He will not be climbing until the end of the summer. Anyone looking for a gunks partner???)

Trail conditions: The trail from the Trapps lot to the carriage road is covered in packed snow and straight up ice. Micro spikes recommended. Much of the carriage road is covered in packed snow and ice as well. You can get up there without spikes, but it's so much eaiser with them on your shoes. The trails up to the cliff are pretty clear, very little snow and ice.

That said we had some fun and I did my first trad lead of the 2011 season.

Good deal Gail! Weather forecast was a bit too sketchy to think about heading down although I was tempted. Did get a good bouldering workout in at Crow Hill on Saturday however.

Inspired by Chad's video Kevin and I got out last week for some sport climbing at a local crag. Too cold for trad but we had a great time clipping bolts.

Once again inspired by Chad I did a video trip report. Production values are somewhat low. There were only two of us and I was too lazy to pack the tripod in. So no actual climbing video footage. In addition after I got home I discovered I had accidentally set the camera to some strange color tint setting so the color is a bit off. Finally I was too lazy to lay down a music track even though I had a Yo-Yo Ma CD sitting here on my desk! Have I lowered your expectations enough? Here's the link http://www.youtube.com/...e=player_profilepage

Best wishes to Mitch and Brett for speedy and complete recoveries. Regarding finding partners Gail I don't think you will have any problems!

So many climbers, so few routes

I climbed at the gunks today. The parking lot was nearly full, every moderate climb was occupied. It was like climbing during the season. The promise of mid fifties in the sun drew everyone to the cliff. In fact, the actual weather was only fair, not great. It never really got sunny (few intervals), it was cool and breezy. Most of the climbs were wet, hence lots of wandering climbers looking for dry terrain.

We did Rusty Trifle x2, Columbia, That Nice crack climb and That nice 9. It felt great to be on the sharp end, but I do not recommend climbing in your mountaineering boots.

I was inspired by Ranger Rob's youtube video; he and a buddy aided Erect Direction during a snow storm in February. They were in their mountaineering gear. I found the edging difficult and sensitivity really low.

Hopefully I will go out tomorrow.

Isn't it amazing how a body part as insignificant as a toe can kill your climbing????? Heal faster!

It's very breezy, mostly cloudy and 44 degrees right now. We are waiting to hit the cliff. Mitch will have to belay while I put up the climbs. I am afraid he will be too cold.

Don't believe what you see on the internet...

Weather.com called for sunny and a high in the forties today. It was much colder and windier than I expected. We got to the cliff at noon, the parking lot was almost full. We had no real plan, I figured I would put up some single pitch climbs until Mitch couldn't stand it any more. We got to the Gerdie Block and the wind was blowing, the sun was tucked behind clouds, it wasn't really very climber friendly weather. We ran into Mike at the Gerdie block, he had a rope set up on Dirty Gerdie. He offered a ride, I accepted and that's where I spent the next four hours. Mitch belayed to try and stay warm. I ran laps on Dirty Gerdie, Red Cabbage and Red Cabbage Right. For me, Dirty Gerdie was the hardest. It's polished and thin, not my forte. I love the Cabbages, they always feel easy to me. I haven't lead Red Cabbage Right...need to check the gear on that one.

One more weekend at the gunks and then I leave for a week of climbing in Arizona. I am looking forward to warmer weather and new terrain.

Sure Josh! I will hold my breath. I am remembering how I had cajole you into a write up about The Chief! Have a great time!

Okay, inspired by Josh and Pestfed's red rock trip reports, here's mine, minus all the poop.

We landed in Vegas at 10:30p.m. on Thursday March 3rd. This would end up being our first mistake, although we didn't know that at the time. After securing our rental car, which could be more accurately described as a go-cart, we made a brief supply stop and made way for the desert. We wanted to get a head start on the approach to Levitation 29, so we parked along road 159 and hiked the extra distance. It was around 12:30a.m. when we began to hike in.

By 2:00a.m. we were well inside the mouth of Oak Creek Canyon, but so exhausted from traveling all day that we had to stop. Both my partner and i were at work in Pennsylvania half a day ago, and now here we were stumbling through the nevada desert. We needed to rest. Without looking very hard we found a flat spot sheltered by a roof not far off the trail that looked like it had been used as a tent site before, so we set up shop there. It was around 2:30a.m. vegas time when we fell asleep.

We had our alarm set for 8:00, but for some reason woke up just after 6. After scarfing down a quick breakfast we hid our tent and some excess weight and started walking up the drainage. I felt oddly refreshed for only having three and a half hours sleep, which was a good thing since the approach was everything i was told it would be.

We took the traditional approach, as neither one of us knew about the direct one, despite later seeing it denoted on the supertopo card we were carrying for beta. The walk up the drainage was fun (although i can say i returned with a vendetta against holly trees), and we got to the twin pines that mark the approach slabs without incident.

I thought the slabs were far more scary than any of the climbing, and i inched up them accordingly. My parntner was either more confidnet or more complacent, or possibly both, as he ascended the scarefest in much better style than me. We took our packs with us up the slabs, which not only added some extra unwanted weight, but was also the second mistake that kept us from the top. Had we made it all the way up with our packs at the base of the wall we would have had to ascend the slabs again to retrieve them. That was something i certainly wasn't looking forward to.

We reached the base of L29 just after 9:30, a little bit tired from the hike in. This was my first time climbing west of the Mississippi, so i never encountered an approach like that before. The carriage road and honeymooners ladders don't exatly hold up to that!

I led the first the pitch, which i though was fun although at times a bit awkward. My partner took the lead on the second, pausing to contemplate the roof for a few minutes before firing through it without incident. I met him at the second belay a short time later, absolutely thrilled to be at there.

In the weeks prior to the climb we worked out who would lead each pitch. My friend is stronger than me with a few more years experience and a few trips to Red Rocks under his belt, so we decided he would lead the 5.11's and i would lead the 8's and 10's, then whoever wanted to lead the top would do it. That meant i had the next two pitches. I moved up the third, brought my friend to the anchors, then proceeded to go up the 130 foot pitch 4.

Before setting out up the forth pitch we both remarked how nice it would be if there was a ledge up there to make the belay a little more comfortable. For some reason i was climbing in less than comfortable shoes, despite having a pair of comfy laceups in my pack below, and was too scared to drop one to even consider taking them off, so i just endured. This made it even more disheartening when i reached the top of the 4th pitch and found the anchor to be bolts in space. To cap it off, i would be hanging there while my partner cleaned the long 4th pitch (i sewed up the crack pretty good) AND while he led the 5th pitch, the business of the climb.

By the time he met me at the anchor i was not a happy camper, relatively speaking. Don't get me wrong it was still better than being at work, and the first five to ten minutes hanging there taking in the view and the exposure were pretty freakin awesome, but now my knees hurt from being pressed into the wall and my feet were screaming, despite having my shoes undone and halfway off my heel. He clipped in to take a break and assess the next pitch, so i took advantage of the lull in the action to enjoy a hanging belay cig break. As i did i looked behind me and noticed the sun getting fairly close to the west wall of the canyon. It was then that we first entertained the notion that we wouldn't make the topout. Even so, at least we'd get to do the crux.

I've read peoples complaints that the only detraction from that climb is the bolted crack on the crux, and i certainly don't disagree with that. However right then and there, we were thankful for every single one of those bolts. That was a hard, pumpy, exposed, awesome pitch, bolts or no bolts. My heart was racing just seconding the thing. As I reached the anchors i was prepared to discuss just how much farther we would go, but that decision was already made, as my partner's hydration pack was empty. It was time to go down.

Three rappels later we were back at the base of the wall. It was 5:45. I remember while we were at the pitch 5 anchor one of the redeeming factors for our decision to go down was that we wouldn't have to do the slabs in the dark. That was an incorrect assumption, as we were now staring dusk in the face with the entire descent ahead of us. We had headlamps, so it wasn't too bad, and they actually seemed tamer in the dark, since we couldn't really see the consequences of a mistake.

After getting down to somewhat level ground we had a seat and took a break, ate a snack, then set off back the drainage toward the place where our extra gear was stashed. We reached our tent at just after 10:00p.m, having slept 3 out of the last 37 hours, during which we flew to vegas, hiked into the desert, and attempted one hell of a climb. I can say i've never been so exhausted in my life.

We had two days left in the trip, and were too beat to attempt anything else big, so we packed up the car and drove out to meet some friends in Joshua Tree. We climbed some nice lines there for the next two days and had a good time doing so, but for me it just didn't hold up to the adventure in Red Rocks. Our plane left Vegas on Monday morning at 10:00, and by Tuesday morning was back at work again, feeling like a true Weekend Warrior.