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climbing with the ACC
Sep. 15th, 2007 08:45 pmI went climbing with the Alpine Club of Canada - Ottawa branch today. We had a good crowd, 14 people in total and went to Home Cliff. We started with a bunch of top-ropes in the main corner area of Home Cliff (which didn't excite me, as I'd climbed much of it already). After doing several routes there, ropes slowly got moved down and to the right. The stronger climbers led (trad, not sport), and set top-ropes for Peggy's Route (5.7, **), Rupert Bear Goes Hiking (5.9, *), Lavender (5.9, **) and Piton Highway (5.7+, *).
I climbed all of these except Rupert Bear, including Lavender -- a 5.9. These are long routes -- 25m/75' or thereabouts, and Lavender was quite sustained -- it wasn't (like one of the 5.7 routes in the Main Corner) one 5.7 crux, and the rest pretty easy. It did have a couple cruxes and a tough start -- but it never really eased off, either. Yes, there were occasional rest points, but the whole climb was consistently hard, and I'm really happy with myself for completing it, my hardest (rated) out-door climb to date.
Piton Highway was nice as well -- a nice combination of arete and dihedral climbing, switching from one to the other. Also fairly sustained at its level. Though, Peggy's was rated lower (5.7 vs 5.7+) the start of Peggy's was harder than anything on Piton -- though Piton was more consistently hard than Peggy's.
And, while the weather looked threatening, and we did get rained on driving to the cliff, it actually turned out to be lovely. A mixture of cloud and occasional happy-making bursts of sun, and one or two spits of rain. Given the forecast, this was quite good. And I'm glad it was nice enough, as the rain-date was tomorrow and I'm busy doing something else tomorrow.
I climbed all of these except Rupert Bear, including Lavender -- a 5.9. These are long routes -- 25m/75' or thereabouts, and Lavender was quite sustained -- it wasn't (like one of the 5.7 routes in the Main Corner) one 5.7 crux, and the rest pretty easy. It did have a couple cruxes and a tough start -- but it never really eased off, either. Yes, there were occasional rest points, but the whole climb was consistently hard, and I'm really happy with myself for completing it, my hardest (rated) out-door climb to date.
Piton Highway was nice as well -- a nice combination of arete and dihedral climbing, switching from one to the other. Also fairly sustained at its level. Though, Peggy's was rated lower (5.7 vs 5.7+) the start of Peggy's was harder than anything on Piton -- though Piton was more consistently hard than Peggy's.
And, while the weather looked threatening, and we did get rained on driving to the cliff, it actually turned out to be lovely. A mixture of cloud and occasional happy-making bursts of sun, and one or two spits of rain. Given the forecast, this was quite good. And I'm glad it was nice enough, as the rain-date was tomorrow and I'm busy doing something else tomorrow.
