On Saturday the 19th of November we decided to head out to J-Tree to do some climbing. I had been climbing at the gym the day before and was still tired and Bennett and Gwynne weren't feeling like climbing anything too hard so we decided to look for some easy climbs. Bennett suggested going to the Hemmingway area. I didn't even know where Hemmingway was off the top of my head, but not having any better suggestions myself, I agreed to check it out. As we were driving into the park I was looking out the window at some good looking cracks and mentioned to Amy that I've always wanted to climb them when we saw the sign for the turnoff that said Hemmingway.
We did the short hike over to the wall and decided to start by climbing a 5.6 called Poodlesby. Bennett lead it up first and as he was leading we realized that we had a problem, the wall we were climbing was in the shade and it was just a bit too cold to be belaying and hanging out in the shade. After Bennett finished up we pulled the rope and I ran up it on lead. As I was climbing I decided that I would top out and belay from the top so that I could at least be sitting in the sun while I belayed the girls up.
We decided to go find a sunny climb so that we wouldn't freeze to death. We headed over to Hidden Valley Campground to see if any of the west facing climbs were unoccupied and on The Blob we found a climb that would work for us, a 5.2 called "Beginners 2". We thought that this climb looked perfect, since it was so low angle we realized that Danny would love climbing the first half of it before it got steeper.
I ran up the route and set up a TR anchor then lowered off so that Danny could give it a go.
Danny had a blast. He went a good hundred feet up 3rd and 4th class slabs (which to him were certainly 5th class) and loved it. He did get scared a couple of times, but I was climbing up next to him and when he'd get scared he'd just say "Daddy Hug" and I'd give him a hug then he'd keep on climbing. It was hilarious.
After Danny finished his climbing Amy, Gwynne, and Bennitt TR'd the route and we called it a day. Although it certainly wasn't the most productive day of climbing we've ever had, we certainly had a good time.
And lastly, I got a photo of the rock formation called The Old Woman because from The Blob you can clearly see how the formation got it's name.
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