the leap

Last week was busy with my upstairs bathroom in full swing (I'm doing some of the work to save money...you know, the simple but tedious tasks that I can't fuck up, like peeling caulk off my tub), work, and of course playing.

Saturday I went to a new climbing place in Golden. There's a hike in so luckily no one was there except for myself and the fun hog. It was an interesting day.

I started up the first climb, which we initially thought was a 5.8, but that ended up being a 10+ (and I've hardly been climbing). I broke a hold off headed to the third bolt and then took a 10 foot lead fall when I missed the fourth bolt. So the fun hog decided we should climb something simpler, and we moved to an area of the cliff that we thought had 5.9s. But the one he led ended up being another 10+ (I guess they don't grade them more specifically because the holds keep breaking off - the more you climb them the harder they get).

a picture where I'm not wearing sunglasses and a hat - rapping off the 5.11

a close up of my ass - yeah I know the rope is twisted, I'd just finished a traverse and was about to go under the rope to untwist it

I ended up following the 10+ and then climbed over the arete to feed the rope through anchors on a climb we thought was the 5.8 (we basically spent the whole day climbing the wrong climbs because the map was fucky). I put a quick draw on the final bolt under the anchors as I was lowering on the supposed 5.8 for 3 points of contact (not like the anchors would fail...maybe...safety first). As I was lowering I looked at the climb, which was really overhung and not very feature rich. As I landed on the deck I told the fun hog "this looks harder than a 5.8".

We aren't sure what the grade is, would guess it was a 5.11 or harder. FH started leading but you had to climb over a big ledge that was all slopers at the top so there wasn't anything to grab to pull up on. Plus, you could only squat under the roof on a sloper ledge. I'm guessing as we climb more we'll be able to pull the ledge but neither of us could do it.

Then clouds started moving in and I was worried that it was going to rain. The rock hasn't been climbed much and has moss all over it. Moss + rain += shit show. But...I had left two quick draws on the anchors and one on the last bolt.

Quick draws are expensive.

So fun hog said he could help pull me up to the top to retrieve our gear (of course I had every fucking thing in my pack except a prusik). I barely made it over the ledge even with fh pulling me and me pulling on a quick draw I had put in above the ledge. I ended up trying to stand on what ever I could get my feet on (the hands were worthless - I knocked a hold off that was the size of a baby's head barely grabbing it). I finally made it to the top and got our gear back. Surprisingly, since I wasn't really climbing, it was the hardest thing I climbed the whole day.

Looking forward to more climbing there!

and then fun hog, who commented that I never have pics taken where people can see my face, snuck took this picture and then sent it to me with the caption "I'm a dork!" - then he said "why can't you ever look normal in a picture?"