So, I am of the age where myself and my friends are having babies. Now this in and of itself is not a bad thing, but it does mean that my wife has baby showers to attend. I don't know what it is with baby showers, but it seems that there is some universal rule that they must be held at the most inconvienient time of day possible. It seems like they are always held from 11am to 2pm, just early enough that you don't really have time to go climbing in the morning (and still have time for the wife to get ready for the shower), and they go just late enough that it also creates a very short time for climbing in the afternoon. Such was the case on Saturday the 10th of September.
Since we didn't have a lot of time, and since it was afternoon and hot, we decided to head back up to 8000" crag. The elevation and orientation of the rock ensured that the temperature would be cool, and it is only a little over 30 minutes drive from our appartment (plus the killer 10 second approach).
When we got to the crag we decided that my wife doesn't lead nearly enough so we would climb the 5.8 on the far left side of the crag. She didn't want to hang her own draws so I lead up first. As I mentioned in my last post about 8000' crag, the 5.8 is a little bit dirty, but it does have a couple of fun moves of good clean rock at the top of the route.
Here I am starting up the 5.8
And here I am on the fun moves at the top
So, I finished the route and put Amy on belay so that she could lead the route. Now Amy is still scared of leading, well I shouldn't say scared of leading, she does that just fine, really she's scared of falling since she's never taken a lead fall yet. I keep telling her that we need to find an overhung 5.9 with clean falls so that she can just take a whipper or two to see that it's not that bad, but so far she has refused. I only mention that because she was a bit nervous to lead the route since she has never lead anything harder than 5.8 before. To make a long story short, she roped up and cruised the thing. She did hang a couple of times, but again it was more out of fear than actually needing a rest. I think we are going to start working on her lead head a bit more.
Amy starting up the route
And here she is finishing it up
Once Amy got down I realized that something wasn't smelling right and after a little bit of investigation we found that Emily had had a blow out. Since we weren't planning to be gone for long we hadn't brought a change of clothes for her, so we had to change her diaper then just wrap her in a blanket with only a diaper on.
We decided to do one more route before we left (partially because we had left quickdraws on the anchors since we were planning to do another route that went to the same anchor prior to the blowout). We actually did a linkup of two different routes (started up Out of Sight and finished on Drift or Die) because the start of Drift or Die requires a stick clip (which we didn't have) and the start of Out of Sight is really fun.
I ran up the route, but unfortunately, I had to hang once on the last bolt after I got lured right on some good looking holds only to find out that they lead to a sloping ledge that I was unable to mantle onto due to the lack of holds. Heading streight up instead of following the obvious holds to the right ended up being the ticket and I arived at the anchors to be lowered off.
Starting up Out of Sight
Looking for a way to mantel on the sloping ledge
After I got down, Amy roped up and cruised the route on TR. Even though it was a short day of climbing we still had a good time and managed to get up two routes.
Amy on the fun section at the top of the route.
The right way to go at the top
Since we didn't have a lot of time, and since it was afternoon and hot, we decided to head back up to 8000" crag. The elevation and orientation of the rock ensured that the temperature would be cool, and it is only a little over 30 minutes drive from our appartment (plus the killer 10 second approach).
When we got to the crag we decided that my wife doesn't lead nearly enough so we would climb the 5.8 on the far left side of the crag. She didn't want to hang her own draws so I lead up first. As I mentioned in my last post about 8000' crag, the 5.8 is a little bit dirty, but it does have a couple of fun moves of good clean rock at the top of the route.
Here I am starting up the 5.8
And here I am on the fun moves at the top
So, I finished the route and put Amy on belay so that she could lead the route. Now Amy is still scared of leading, well I shouldn't say scared of leading, she does that just fine, really she's scared of falling since she's never taken a lead fall yet. I keep telling her that we need to find an overhung 5.9 with clean falls so that she can just take a whipper or two to see that it's not that bad, but so far she has refused. I only mention that because she was a bit nervous to lead the route since she has never lead anything harder than 5.8 before. To make a long story short, she roped up and cruised the thing. She did hang a couple of times, but again it was more out of fear than actually needing a rest. I think we are going to start working on her lead head a bit more.
Amy starting up the route
And here she is finishing it up
Once Amy got down I realized that something wasn't smelling right and after a little bit of investigation we found that Emily had had a blow out. Since we weren't planning to be gone for long we hadn't brought a change of clothes for her, so we had to change her diaper then just wrap her in a blanket with only a diaper on.
We decided to do one more route before we left (partially because we had left quickdraws on the anchors since we were planning to do another route that went to the same anchor prior to the blowout). We actually did a linkup of two different routes (started up Out of Sight and finished on Drift or Die) because the start of Drift or Die requires a stick clip (which we didn't have) and the start of Out of Sight is really fun.
I ran up the route, but unfortunately, I had to hang once on the last bolt after I got lured right on some good looking holds only to find out that they lead to a sloping ledge that I was unable to mantle onto due to the lack of holds. Heading streight up instead of following the obvious holds to the right ended up being the ticket and I arived at the anchors to be lowered off.
Starting up Out of Sight
Looking for a way to mantel on the sloping ledge
After I got down, Amy roped up and cruised the route on TR. Even though it was a short day of climbing we still had a good time and managed to get up two routes.
Amy on the fun section at the top of the route.
The right way to go at the top
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