Climbing adventures on the weekend
Jul. 9th, 2013 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dagibbsLike most non-winter weekends with at least a bit of decent weather, I went climbing this last weekend.
Saturday, I head out to Home Cliff fairly early (7:30am departure) with Jex (later to be joined by Mike, Velta, and Kate.) We got there early enough that, even after a warm-up climb, there was noone else there and I got a chance to lead Magical Mystery Tour. This climb goes part way up the cliff, then traverses across about 8 other routes -- so if the cliff is at all busy, it isn't reasonable to climb it. This was a great climb, and far better protected than described in the local guide.
Sunday, my expected climbing crew shrunk to just Flo and myself. We headed to Mont King, which Flo hadn't climbed before. After the de rigeur climb up Rocketman, the classic three-pitch run up to the top, we looked at other stuff. There's a bunch of bolted, but not documented climbs on Mont King -- and we played around with these. Flo was leading them, as he is quite a bit stronger climber than I was.
The first one, he made it up with a lot of work, but I was unable to complete. It was probably in the 5.11+ range. After pulling the rope, I noticed a core shot (a place where the sheath had been worn/cut to expose the core of the rope), and we cut off the end this was close to, losing about 5m from his 70m rope.
The 2nd one was a series of widely spaced bolts up a slab, then a steep (more than vertical) headwall, finally disappearing over the top of that. Flo went up this, taking and hanging a few times on the headwall, then proceeding well past the half-rope mark, before finally calling down safe. In all, probably a 45-50m route. I followed easily up the slab, but had a very tough time (not surprisingly) with the headwall, before getting over it with a lot of rope tension and hanging. As I got to the top anchor, it started to rain. We had no obvious way off -- rappelling on the one rope wouldn't work. We chose to continue up the easy (much less than vertical) upper portion of Mont King to the top of Rocketman, but as I approached the anchor, we heard a bit of thunder, which encouraged us to hurry our descent. We made it off safely, if a bit damply, packed up under an overhang in the cliff, and headed out.
Saturday, I head out to Home Cliff fairly early (7:30am departure) with Jex (later to be joined by Mike, Velta, and Kate.) We got there early enough that, even after a warm-up climb, there was noone else there and I got a chance to lead Magical Mystery Tour. This climb goes part way up the cliff, then traverses across about 8 other routes -- so if the cliff is at all busy, it isn't reasonable to climb it. This was a great climb, and far better protected than described in the local guide.
Sunday, my expected climbing crew shrunk to just Flo and myself. We headed to Mont King, which Flo hadn't climbed before. After the de rigeur climb up Rocketman, the classic three-pitch run up to the top, we looked at other stuff. There's a bunch of bolted, but not documented climbs on Mont King -- and we played around with these. Flo was leading them, as he is quite a bit stronger climber than I was.
The first one, he made it up with a lot of work, but I was unable to complete. It was probably in the 5.11+ range. After pulling the rope, I noticed a core shot (a place where the sheath had been worn/cut to expose the core of the rope), and we cut off the end this was close to, losing about 5m from his 70m rope.
The 2nd one was a series of widely spaced bolts up a slab, then a steep (more than vertical) headwall, finally disappearing over the top of that. Flo went up this, taking and hanging a few times on the headwall, then proceeding well past the half-rope mark, before finally calling down safe. In all, probably a 45-50m route. I followed easily up the slab, but had a very tough time (not surprisingly) with the headwall, before getting over it with a lot of rope tension and hanging. As I got to the top anchor, it started to rain. We had no obvious way off -- rappelling on the one rope wouldn't work. We chose to continue up the easy (much less than vertical) upper portion of Mont King to the top of Rocketman, but as I approached the anchor, we heard a bit of thunder, which encouraged us to hurry our descent. We made it off safely, if a bit damply, packed up under an overhang in the cliff, and headed out.
