Beautiful March Weather= Fun climbing at the Gunks

Beautiful March Weather= Fun climbing at the Gunks

Spent all day Saturday climbing...got to the cliff at 830 AM (38 degrees) scrambled, slipped, slid through the ice all over the carriage road, set up a tarp on the snow (still about a foot on the ground, more in places, less in others) and did our first climb of the new year. We started on Eyebrow; a wandery 5.6 that ends up at the horseman rappel. It's a fun climb, hadn't been on it in years. My partner was feeling great so he put up Retribution...nice job Seth! I felt a little rusty but I cilmbed it well. One of these days I need to man up and lead it. We Tr'd Nosedive...does anyone else find the move to the ledge stupidly hard? Mitch joined us as we headed to the Gerdie Block, and then up to the No Picnic area and then back to Laurel. I think I managed 10 pitches (runing some laps on the Shit or Go Blind face and Laurel) on Saturday. We finished at 4, went into town and had dinner at Neko's. A totally and completely perfect Saturday. I felt great on the sharp end and I am looking forward to the upcoming climbing season.

I head out to Home Cliff with Jex and K8 (of the Red River Gorge crew), Bruce, and Helene and her two kids. I managed to forget my climbing shoes, so I lead the first three (easy) climbs in my hiking boots, and TRed a 4th that way.

Luckily Bruce's feet are a couple sizes bigger than mine, so I was able to borrow his shoes to lead a couple harder climbs (wearing socks in the shoes). I lead Piton Highway (5.7) and found it easier going than I expected (from previous memory, and from expecting to be out-of-shape since it is first day out), then was going to go after Peggy (also 5.7 but with a hard opening crux), but just before I got on it, somebody else headed up it. (It was a busy day out at the cliff, too.)

So, I hemmed and hawed a bit, then decided to try to lead Lavender (5.9 - I've only lead this clean once, and that was last season when I was in climbing shape). I got most of it completely clean, except couldn't finish the final crux section to the anchors at the top. I'm disappointed in not being able to finish it -- but happily surprised at how much of the rest of it I got clean, I'd expected to take a fall or two before that point. I'm also happy with how unworried I was about taking the lead falls (I took three) trying the top section -- I'm pretty sure I came off from not getting the moves, not from not committing to trying the moves.

Oh, and I bootied a nut from Lavender. It wasn't there when I climbed it last fall -- so a recent lost nut. It didn't take too much -- just bring a rock up with me as a hammer for my nut tool.

The snow is melting up there? Nice that you got out.