Summer comes smashing in

Three weeks ago, plans to go out to Lac Sam and do some cleaning were trashed by a blizzard. Wind driving ice pellets, freezing rain and hail into my windows. I took one look outside at 7:00 am, grabbed my phone, crawled gratefully back into bed, and texted the crew from among the pillows saying, “so I guess climbing’s off.” Mornings are not my best time).

But last Saturday, the sky was an indescribable blue, buds were snapping open into leaves like popcorn, and it was 25 C (15 or so when I left the house around 7:15 to pick up Jex).

The seasons come bursting in through the door like Kramer on Seinfeld in this part of the world.

White courage!

Anyway, with the gorgeous weather, we headed for Montagne d’Argent last weekend. The place was jammed: there was some sort of college group or something (identical neatly erected tents, bus in the parking lot, and the Canyon was like Times Square) and an Alpine Club of Canada group (maybe 40 people?)

We’d planned on heading for L’Antre du dragon, because leading l’Ecaille du Dragon was on Phil’s tick list of Things To Do Before Going Back to England. But by the time we got there all the routes had been staked out by some of the ACC folks, so we moved on.

We wound up at Paroi du Lac, down toward the end of the trail, which we decided was called that not because of the lake below it but because of the ‘vertical lake’ on it. It was dripping wet and mossy, with water running down the face, mud puddles below it and huge chunks of ice still slowly melting into the earth at the base. (I think they’re left over from ice climbing, and the ice climbing might be “assisted” by pouring water down the cliff, which would explain the masses of ice.)

Ice climbing! Yeah! That’s it. Ice climbing.

But undaunted, we get set up and put some ropes up.

Jex making a disgusted face.

The rock was so very, very wet…

David and Phil headed off to another area to drop top ropes on some stuff: Hue, Jex and I stuck around and I put an anchor on a big laybacky crack which was blessedly dry and sunny. I had an interesting time of it figuring out the anchor, which involved three trees, one of them scooping out and over the cliff edge. It looks precarious as hell, but it’s solid enough to stand on, as I proved. The trick was figuring out, with limited anchor gear, how to run the rope so it wouldn’t run over this tree. What I wound up doing was anchoring to two trees above it, then rappeling to just below the scoopy tree and setting up a sling on that, and running my rappel rope through a carabiner attached to the sling to redirect the rope. I thought it was clever, although it took way too long to work out how to manage that. Ah well. I consider it to be “leader” practice, since I was the most experienced of the three of us at that point.

Hue putting her natural crack instincts to work (she showed mad crack skills the first time we brought her to MdA. She’s a natural at it).

We gave the crack a run: Hue and Jex both worked really hard on it but between the burliness of the opening section and the big piroutteing swing that you went for if you fell (couldn’t be helped, given the position of the anchor) they both bailed. I fell a couple of times in the opening – and went for the big spinning swing along the wall – but muscled up it. It was a solid layback for the first few feet, then a slightly odd switch where the crack you were using suddenly took a right turn to the right and became an undercling. Feet were pretty much nothing but friction and hope.

We discovered when the boys got back that we’d been on the infamous Jos-Bras-de-fer, which is kind of known for being “5.7+++,” as David put it. The top half is 5.7ish; that bottom bit is the reason for the “+++,” and takes either the arms of steel mentioned in the name, or a whole lot of tetchy technical footwork – at least I think that second is an option. Because I definitely don’t have ‘bras de fer.’

Jex admitted, “Yeah, it’s a butt shot, but it was a cool butt shot.”

And then we went by l’Antre du Dragon. And it was open!

The “old school” gear sling Phil worked up out of webbing for his new rack. It’s very 1980s.

We spent a couple of hours there: eventually Phil did go after l’Ecaille du Dragon, and got it. Meanwhile David put up a top rope on a 5.10b at the far left of the crag. It was a crack that ran almost the whole length of the rock. We went over to play with it while Phil set up for his run.

David, though clearly working hard, sent the 10b, and came back down panting and happy and slightly disbelieving. Watching him work as hard as he did, though, I figured I’d be overjoyed just to make it to the top.

So I tied in on it, though I was feeling a little stunned by the sun and heat and a day’s worth of climbing. It was a classic, carnivorous crack: uneven, with skin-chewing chunks of texture and bottlenecks where you could wedge a fist and grit your teeth as it chewed into your skin but held you in place. The foot jams were classically painful, too, and at one point I struggled through a section with a left foot jam that made me shout, “ow, ow, FUCK!” and then fell, and said to David, “Why do I like cracks?”

“Because you’re a pervert,” he said in response. And I couldn’t really argue.

There it is: a classically carnivorous crack.

The climb was a punishing series of varying jams, just a little off balance to the right but with no feet whatsoever on the right, then when you finally made it to a set of thank-you holds and could rest (though still a little off balance so you couldn’t quite rest) it moved into an annoyingly offwidth section that was just too big and flaring to get a fist into, but offered nothing on the face to use for feet or hands. I grunted and shouted my way up the last ten feet or so, and was pretty triumphant when I hit the anchor. I’m happy to climb a 10a in the gym: a 10b outside, no matter how many falls I take, makes me pretty pleased. And pretty tired.

Meanwhile, Phil had gone over to l’Ecaille du Dragon and slain his dragon.

And that was the day: we headed out pretty pleased and tired and sun-stunned. Felt like summer.

I find I’ll have a song that gets stuck in my head while I’m climbing: it’s a different song every day, sometimes there’s more than one, but some song or other often plays away in my head while I’m working my way up the rock. This time, this was one of them.

Spring is here!

Spring is officially here: my marker for the start of spring is the first day out in the chilly, chilly Gatineaus. Admittedly, the crew I climb with usually get started pretty early in the season, and it was something like 3 or 4 degrees Celsius Saturday afternoon, but actually the rock on Spindrift Wall was more or less air temperature (not soul-suckingly cold). We got pretty warm on the hike up, and for most of the day I shed my jacket and wore my cotton hoodie. We also got to the rock around 1:00, because the forecast for the morning was so cold.

Targets were some trad practice for me on North Wall, and a run at leading Security for Phil, who’s got a to-do list in the next six weeks before he goes home to England.

Of course, Spindrift Wall was a waterfall near the cave, and periodic ice falling down that end of it made us a touch nervous. The cave was full of icicles:

A little waterfall on the scramble up to North Wall. Yeah, it’s still a bit early.

and there was a steady little rill running down the scramble up to North Wall, which I never did manage to get to, although Mike and Phil lugged the rack up and led one of the three crack systems up there.

Jex jumped on Bolt Route Two (which was more or less dry) off the bat and did a great job on it, I thought, seeing as I actually got a little spooked just following on it because of the icy cold wet bits. After that, though, I led the equally boringly named (but lovely) Bolt Route One, which has a sketchy high bolt at the start but is, after that, possibly one of my favorite climbs in all of the Gatineaus. It was dry, and it made me really happy. For some reason, I am always dead calm on lead on this climb: it’s perfect for getting my lead head back after a season in the gym. It’s not that hard and the crux section is short but sweet, and somehow I find it very Zen.

I also scrambled up and dropped a top rope on Neruda, one of the few classically “crack” climbs in that area, although as it turned out only Jex really got to take a run at it. She did really well, though (crack technique is one of her targets for the season).

Phil working out the gear on Security, pre-lead.

As the shadow started to creep across Security, on Cave Wall, we figured Phil should take his run at it. He climbed it on top rope first to check the gear, picked out his pieces, and set them up, leaving the rack behind, and shedding all excess weight, even down to his keys, and then started up.

It looked great – a lot of work, but he was doing brilliantly – until he made a rather un-Phil-like noise, and then after a moment shouted “Take!” and had to stop. He’d done something rather nasty to his shoulder involving grinding noises (eek), and continuing the climb was just not a good idea. He was pretty disappointed: but the shoulder didn’t seem to be too badly damaged, so we’re thinking he might be able to run at it again in a week or two, depending on how fast it heals up.

It’s so frustrating, though, to be that close to a target and have something random like that happen: I could sympathize. Still – the season’s just started, and he’s got a few weeks to go back for it. It was getting cold anyway: we packed up and hiked out to the road.

Blackfly

“And the black flies, the little black flies
Always the black fly no matter where you go
I’ll die with the black fly a-pickin’ my bones
In North Ontar-eye-o-eye-o, In North Ontar-eye-o…”

At least, that’s what I’m told this climb was called: Blackfly, and no, it wasn’t in North Ontar-eye-o, it was in the Gunks. I was pretty happy with how I got through the tricky curving crack and slippery feet at the bottom of this climb: after this bit it’s all gravy, but as one of the weaker climbers in our group I was pretty smug about getting through this sequence about as smoothly as any of the others.

 

(Trevor tilted his camera: the rope gives you a sense of where ‘up’ is.)

 

 

And I’m through the sequence!

My regards to Broadway

I will admit, we giggled like kids getting off the subway at Columbus Circle. Actually, we giggled like kids getting on the subway up in Harlem. I mean, it all looked just like New York City!

And I was proud of surviving the drive there – an overly long, though gorgeous run through the Adirondacks from Ogdensburg, and a squeaky-bum bit of actual in-New-York driving (they honk their horns a lot, don’t they?) The long drive did mean that a) I was trembly and b) by the time we found Rat Rock, in the north end of Central Park, it was already getting toward sundown.

But it was bouldering. In Central Park. How cool is that? For a couple of Canadians who’d never been to New York before (and a British guy who had but hadn’t known about the bouldering), pretty damn cool.

So we got to the rock and got our shoes on. Phil checked out the route guide he’d found online.

And it was climbin’ time. First outdoor climbing of the season: could pick worse places to be.

As it got darker I had to switch on the flash on my camera, and things got harder to catch on film, but we climbed until it got too dark:

Eventually it was so dark we needed to get out the headlamps to read our guidebook and plan where to go next…

But the flash still lit up the surreal boulder against the skyscrapers:

The thing about this that amuses me is, we spent a couple of hours in New York City, and took a sizeable detour on our way to the Gunks, just to say we did this. I can’t think of any other people I could go to New York with who would also think bouldering in Central Park was the most hilarious thing ever. And where to go next? Where else? How often to you get to walk from where you were climbing to, well, this?

Ahem: a little poem for the equinox

Spring has begun, the light half is here,
the back of my car is loaded with gear.
A week and a half, I think with a grin,
till we head to the Gunks.

Let the season begin!

Dancing on the ceiling

I’ve got a ceiling project! A week ago I went into the cave at Coyote and discovered that there was a ceiling problem that was actually a possibility for me (usually, I just fall off ceilings.) I spent a while playing on it today, and brought my camera so I could see how I was doing. I can do the first half, and the second half: it’s that one bit where there’s a low foot on the wall and you have to switch around and then get back on the ceiling that stumps me… so far.

Plotting

Nothing makes you start itching for spring like planning trips…

Last weekend I got together with some of the gang to start fleshing out plans for Climbing Trip 2013: The British Invasion! (or something like that. Picture it in epic font, with symphonic music in the background). The plan is, we’re going to England at the end of July! Phil will have moved back to England by then, he says (although we keep trying to bribe him to remain in Canada) and a bunch of us – well, three: David, Jex, and I – will meet up with him in London, climb some sandstone in the south:

then make our way north with stops in the Peak District:

and Lake District:

to Scotland, where I’ll get to see my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, and we’ll get to climb on some Scottish rock.

Yeah. It’ll be big. I get excited just thinking about it. Not least because I get to see my sister/BIL/nephew as well, which is awesome.

But a little closer to home: we started wondering the other night, at the pub after a Thursday session, if maybe we could get far enough south on Easter weekend to get some climbing in. So we also started plotting about that too. . . and came up with something.

Currently the plan is, we’ll head for the Gunks. The problem is weather – hard to know what will be happening on Easter weekend on the east coast. But, if all else fails, we’ll be going to New York City first anyway, to meet David, who’s flying in from a work trip, soooo… we can always be NYC tourists if the weather’s lousy. Also, someone told me there’s bouldering to be had in Central Park. Which I have GOT to do.

Three cheers for the project

Jex is really good for me. For one thing, climbing around her means some of her attitude has rubbed off on me. Specifically, her determination to get better, and her deliberate means of going about getting better.

Jex will work a project. She has climbs at the gym on a hit list, and she works on them (depending on what type of climb she feels she’s strong on that day) until she gets them (or they get taken down). A couple of weeks ago the two of us wound up spending practically the entire session working a route until we were close to sending it – each of us must have gone up it about six or seven times, with the occasional break to wander off and climb something else for a bit, then back to the same corner and the same route.

Then when we came back the next session we tackled it fresh – and sent it, having worked out the moves.

Yesterday Jex was exemplary. We’ve both been working on a route: I sent it a few days ago, and Jex was really close. It was in her sights when we went in Sunday afternoon. She warmed up, then went for it, and went up it a few times, but fell at the crux. She was feeling her way through it though, and would come down, let David and I do our climbs, then try again. At one point I went off (at her suggestion) to tackle a climb that’s about a grade above my usual hardest stuff, partly so it would take longer than usual as I thrashed and struggled up it, so she’d have time to rest. (I was pleased with how I did: climbed it “like a bus” as another climbing friend says – stopping all along the line – but it’s a hard climb, and getting to the top of it was an accomplishment for me.)

And she tried again, a couple of times. Then she did a smart thing. “I’m going to go read twenty pages of my novel,” she said. “I think that’s about enough recovery time.” So David and I went off to climb a bunch more stuff, while she found a spot on the couch and sat down with a book. After we’d each been up a few climbs, she put the book down and came to find us. She started up, fell at the same spot, came back down, and then started up again. This time, with pauses at the right spots, she sent the climb. We applauded, and cheered, and hugged her when she got back down.

It’s that kind of determination that’s really good for me. The methodical heading for a goal. And stopping for half an hour or so, sitting down, taking the shoes and harness off and saying, “this is rest time,” was really smart. Very eyes-on-the-prize.

Personal best

Calvin and Hobbes, copyright Bill Watterson, may his fortunes ever increase.

I know that climbing grades are subjective and erratic and far from absolute. They vary depending on the setter, general consensus, the area you live in, the kinds of skills and strengths the climb calls for, etc etc etc.

But I’m still going to be pleased and proud that I sent a personal best today at Coyote. It’s a route I worked on a few times a couple of weeks ago – and had a really hard time with – until it caused a nasty flareup of my sprained ankle and I had to bail. I’ve been leery of it since.

It’s a bit balancey at the bottom, and needs some fairly precise sequencing, and then at the top there’s a bit that spat me off, repeatedly. A smallish handhold, a big step, and a need for control. Tonight I decided I wanted to tackle it again. I had a shaky start – when Jex started saying, “Just stop climbing like an idiot, Kate!” I had to agree with her: there’s a bit at the beginning where you have to cross over your hands, and I bullheadedly tried, a few times, to do it without crossing until they pointed out to me that I already knew how to do the damn move and was just being thick. “Come on,” Phil said, “use that girly control strength.”

Anyway, once I stopped climbing like an idiot I made it up to the real crux, fell a couple of times, and then worked out the move. I came back down, we did a few more routes, and then I said I wanted to go back and give that route another go.

On the second attempt I flowed right through the thing. It was very cool. I had the moves down, and as my hand locked on to the hold after the crux move, I thought, “my god, I’m actually going to send it.”

And I did! (And there was much rejoicing.)

It’s so funny how once you work out how to climb a route it can suddenly feel so much easier. Where you were kicking the wall and swearing a week ago, you’re suddenly trying to remember what you found so difficult.

And, grade-wise anyway, this climb is now my personal best redpoint. I kept looking back at it for a few minutes afterwards, and did some happy bounces.

Bouldering: a whole other kind of ouch.

The lighter bits, ringed by red bits, on each finger joint…? Yeah. Ow.

I went to Coyote and did some bouldering on Sunday. Partly because I finally had some free time, and I hadn’t been climbing Thursday, and partly because there was a comp on Saturday so there would be new problems up. (Also, congratulations to Phil/Ropegun, who came in second in the recreational men’s division, which is kind of awesome.)

I haven’t been bouldering properly in ages, and it was really good to get back at it. I discovered that I have some skills I’d forgotten I have (I’m stronger on overhanging stuff than I expected) and I remembered the different rhythm that there is to working boulder problems instead of wall routes.

But I also remembered something else. And that something is “ow.”

I was there for about an hour and a half with Jex, then had to go to a meeting, then after the meeting I just went back to the gym and kept climbing. Then Monday night I went again, also with Jex, because we’ve decided we want to do more bouldering, and tonight I’m heading in to do routes. My muscles are feeling it though, particularly all those stomach and leg muscles that work so much more in overhanging bouldering. It’s good, but ow.

Also, my hands. The skin takes more abuse on a 45 degree wall, and I haven’t been doing that much where I hang on my hands. Definitely something I need to work on: last night when I had to quit, I still felt like I had the muscle power left, but my hands were making little whimpering noises every time I grabbed a hold. Must get them calluses back!