Yikes 7/1/07

Sunday after a day of rafting I went back to Rumney, to go rock climbing with Igor. As previously stated I find it difficult to write about rock climbing but feel compelled to tell you about Sunday briefly because there were so many firsts for me.

We warmed up on a 5.8 that I cleaned and rappelled off of. That was my first rappel.

We climbed a multi-pitch route! It was super easy, basically a hike but good for figuring out the rope system on multi-pitch especially when the other multi-pitch we were going to try doesn’t exist! That was my first multi-pitch climb.

Ok, I’ll try harder on this next first. We had just finished a fun 5.8 called Drilling for Dollars and we were waiting for one of two other routes to open up. Either a 5.8+ or a 5.10a that are both very popular, however the Quebexicans were all over the place, mainly on these 2 routes, so Igor opted for a 5.10d, named something – I imagine it was named something but I can’t be sure. Before starting the route, Igor said, “its time to get over my fear of falling”. And that’s what he did, yikes. This is a very difficult route (as you may have guessed from the 5.10d rating). So I had Igor on belay about as tight as I could get him without pulling down on him when he came off the rock. He was about 4 feet above his last draw and it took about 6 feet to catch him which even though I’m not an MIT student equals about a 10 foot fall. For my mother’s sake I won’t go into detail but this was my first big catch (I made that term up I mean belaying and stopping someone else on a big fall).

Igor was fine and we took some time to chill while the Quebexicans yucked it up in French, English and Spanish (all very funny) while still climbing our intended routes. Finally, about an hour later, they got off Lonesome Dove, the 5.10a the Igor had his heart set on. I told Igor “I doubt I’ll get up this but I’ll give it a shot.” Igor decided that rather than lead, lower, belay me until I gave up then have to clean the route he would lead, top belay and then move over to the 5.8+ from above. That way I could finish my last route and Igor wouldn’t have to climb the same route twice. Igor had no problems with this extremely fun climb and set up to give me a shot. This climb is very balancy and does not have many jugs (big holds). As I got past the bottom and ran out of jugs, I tried to go off route and climb a crack but I soon realized (by realized I mean I came off the rock twice) that going up the route was my only chance. At first I didn’t see any holds but eventually I changed my perspective and noticed the smallest cracks and bumps. After deciding to climb the real route things started going really well. I climbed my first 5.10a!!!!!! and we went home.