Climbing today - did 3 trad leads!
May. 24th, 2009 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dagibbsI went down to Kingston Mills with Scott to climb today. We headed there (just east of Kingston, on the Cataraqui river) because we hoped the black flies that were terrorizing the Gatineaus wouldn't be out in force, and since Scott lives in Brockville, this meant I took a turn at doing the extra hour each way on the road.
It turns out there were no black flies FTW! We did get the occasional mosquito, occasional like you swat one down and 5-15 minutes later a replacement shows up. I can live with that sort of bug problem after what the black flies were like. I also took the bike to/from Brockville, which was good.
I did my first real trad lead on a route that we first top-roped, so I could check out how hard it would be, and make sure there'd be good placements all the way. It went really smoothly. The next two, though, were on-sight leads, where I just eyeballed from the ground that I thought it would go, and climbed them. I ended up run-out a bit on the first of them, because the long crack I thought would be good for pro was flaring the whole way up. The 2nd also got a bit run-out near the top. But both climbs went smoothly, and I didn't have any problems. They were all, though, fairly easy climbs -- probably in the 5.4-5.6 range (maybe with a 5.7-5.8 crux).
But, hey, 3 trad leads -- each in the 20m range. w00t!
Also, the weather was gorgeous. And the hike in is really short. Too bad there just isn't very much cliff down there. :(
It turns out there were no black flies FTW! We did get the occasional mosquito, occasional like you swat one down and 5-15 minutes later a replacement shows up. I can live with that sort of bug problem after what the black flies were like. I also took the bike to/from Brockville, which was good.
I did my first real trad lead on a route that we first top-roped, so I could check out how hard it would be, and make sure there'd be good placements all the way. It went really smoothly. The next two, though, were on-sight leads, where I just eyeballed from the ground that I thought it would go, and climbed them. I ended up run-out a bit on the first of them, because the long crack I thought would be good for pro was flaring the whole way up. The 2nd also got a bit run-out near the top. But both climbs went smoothly, and I didn't have any problems. They were all, though, fairly easy climbs -- probably in the 5.4-5.6 range (maybe with a 5.7-5.8 crux).
But, hey, 3 trad leads -- each in the 20m range. w00t!
Also, the weather was gorgeous. And the hike in is really short. Too bad there just isn't very much cliff down there. :(
