Do u miss the T?

Glen sent me this photo the other day to get me nostalgic.  Yes Glen, I do miss the T, and how few people there are in it.  Even though the trains are crappy and dirty, I still miss it.  Back to the land of pushing  and elbowing.

I'm back on the cyber world.  I had way too much fun hanging out with all of you for the last few weeks in Boston, I didn't even have time to write about it.  Then again, most of you were THERE, so there was no point in writing about it.  Big thanks for all you for being around, making me yummy food (and coffee).  I managed for four weeks in Boston without going to the grocery store. 

I spent more time at the airport in the last week than anywhere else.  I met a pilot this weekend while climbing in Baihe who told me that I am losing a lot of brain cells flying so much.  I told him it can't be worse than his drinking habits with his fellow pilots after work.  What I didn't know is that there is a lot of exposure to Galactic Cosmic Rays at higher altitudes based on the duration of the flight.  Oh well.

So you probably figured out by now, I went to Baihe this weekend, crushing with my buddies.  We went to the same crag again on Saturday, so I complained.  They told me that it was just coincidence, and that they have been to other crags while I was away in the US.  On Sunday we went to the Bee Gorge, which was a lot better and had more options (where Glen and I went climbing last time).  We also ran into some familiar faces, which was real fun.  There are two white dudes Simon and Matt that I can go trad climbing with, except that they are working as guides on the weekends :(  We'll see how it works out.

This is the year to work on my climbing mental ceiling, so that I can break the barrier that I've had for many years.   I hate falling, and it has always kept me from getting on harder routes.  I tried two 5.11 on Sunday, one on toprope and one on lead.  The TR 5.11 was a roof move, which honesty wasn't even as hard or impossible as the 5.10 we did at the Gunks the other weekend (Max, I want photos!)  At least I got up the climb.  The main problem of this climb is that if you didn't get to the third clip on lead, you would deck.  So I just TR'ed. 

One of the strongest climbers there gave me some very constructive criticisms, which I really appreciated.  He said that I didn't visualize and plan the moves enough, and that I was wasting too much energy moving around, trying blindly to find the right hold.  When you climb at your limit, you should conserve all the energy so that you can move through the crux smoothly.  I guess I know that already, but it was good to be reminded of my bad habits. 

The other 5.11 I tried was a highly technical and balanced face climb.  I was doing really well at the crux, but then when I got to the next bolt, I couldn't rebalance from a side pull to a frontal stance and clip the bolt.  I took a whipper.  Then I took another on the second try, then another, then another one.  I made a lot of grunting noises as I was trying to reposition myself for the clip, and it reverberated through the valley.  Eventually, the adrenalin kicked in so much, my left leg shook faster than Elvis and I could no longer balance myself on the key foothold.  I came down, still shaking real hard.  I don't think I've pushed myself this hard, EVER.  I know so because the crux required so much focus, that I was not worried about falling anymore.  Eventually, Daxue went up the climb to clean it, as it was near the end of the day.  He pulled the quickdraw at the crux, instead of risking taking a lead fall. 

I'm really sore this morning.  I think that is a good sign of a good weekend.  Three great weekends in a row climbing in three different places!

The weekend before was stellar.  I left for Denver early in the morning from Boston, arriving there at around 9:30AM.  I didn't sleep much on the plane, and was really exhausted.  Carlos came and picked me up from the airport.  I believe he was going to take me straight to the cliffs from the airport, but was saved by this plan when he told me that his car breaks were making weird noises and that he probably needs a new rotor.  So we had breakfast and he fixed his breaks while I took a nap.

By the time we were ready to go climbing, it was already around 3PM.  The sun wasn't going to set until 8:30PM or so, and so we picked a multi-pitch climb in Eldorado, probably the most classic 5.9 over there, called the Yellow Spur.  Since we were short on time, we linked some of the pitches together to make the 6-pitch climb into a 4.5-pitch one.  I lead the first pitch, though struggled on the first move because Carlos made me try the 5.10 variation (which I wasn't ready to do, and thought it was the 5.9 climb).  I was getting a bit frustrated by it and also somewhat embarrassed.  Then he showed me the 5.9 original start, which was a lot better :)  There was a roof move, though I think I'm well trained on it thanks to the Gunks.  Carlos lead P2 and P3, which were relatively long but straight up.  Then I lead P4, which had a fun and exposed diagonal traverse under the roof.  Carlos then did P5 and P6, which was extremely exposed and had a lot of face climbing on old pitons.  It almost reminded me of Ancient Art, though the rocks were a lot more solid.

Photo by Carlos

I know I ran through the climbs without much detail - but that's because the best part was on the descent, which involved downclimbing on lower grade rocks, gulleys, and more.  We started climbing at 4PM, and had got to the top at around 8PM.  The sun was starting to set, but there was still plenty of light, so we weren't too worried.  When we got to the top, Carlos opened his arms and wanted to give me one of those, "we did it" hugs.  While I have done that before after completing a hard pitch with Max, I never feel like I am done until I am down at the ground.  So I told him that shouldn't give him a hug until we got to the ground (but we hugged anyways).  I was a bit superstitious.

The way down looked relatively obvious at the time.  It was down a gulley at the opposite side of the rock we ascended on. Downclimbing plus three rapps.

We were racing against the sun as it sets behind the mountains.

I think we went down the wrong descent, said Carlos after about 40 minutes down.
He said that this was the descent of another route, not to worry.
So we kept going, until it was DARK.

I turned on my brand new headlamp that I acquired the week before from Rock and Snow.  It was nice and bright.  Carlos wasn't so lucky.  His headlamp was running out of juice.  I suggested that we start rapping, since I wasn't comfortable downclimbing in the dark.  He was worried that the ropes would get caught on the way down. 

Should we climb back up and try to find the correct way to descent? 
Or should we just rapp down from these unmarked trees, in hopes of finding another tree down there to rapp down? 
Wait, is the lower part getting STEEPER? 
Glad I'm rapping down instead of downclimmbing. 
What?!?  Carlos, you are still wearing your Chacos?  I am such a wuss.

We decided to rapp down from some unmarked trees, with me going down first with the brighter headlamp in  case we hit the end.  After two raps, we landed on a bigger ledge, but the bottom of the mountain was not in sight.  My headlamp was just not bright enough.

I suggested that we sleep on the ledge.  I was afraid of being stuck in the middle of a rappel and needing to climb back up if we didn't find another big tree to get down on.  Carlos did not want to stay on the ledge, since he knows how cold it would get at night even with the jackets we have.  I gave him my headlamp, and he went exploring for more big trees to rapp down on.

Two more rapps, he said, is probably all it will take to get to the ground.  But we should rapp off from THAT tree down there.  He pointed to a big tree that was about 20-30 feet down from where we were.  I was stubborn and didn't want to downclimb, so I rapped to the big tree first, then from there did two more rapps. 

He was right - after hanging over a huge roof, we hit the trail.  With about 15 ft. of rope left.

We headed back towards the trail to retrieve our bags with one headlamp.  I think it was around 11:30PM when we got down to the ground.  The descent took longer than the climb.  Such typical epic day.  Carlos called it an epiquette, since it wasn't too extreme (and we only really started at 4PM). 

Now we are done, I said.
I turned off my headlamp. 
The sky was clear and the stars filled the sky of Eldorado. 
The silhouettes of the mountains glowed along with a million stars.  
It was a perfect night.