Monday the 16th of January was Martin Luther King day, so as a government employee, I got the day off. Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to go climbing because we had some errands to do, but we wanted to get some climbing in so we headed to the Riverside Quarry. Amy has a friend (Asia) who has been climbing with us once before who has been saying that she would like to come with us again so we invited her and her son Romney (who is Danny's best friend) to come along.
Since Asia had only been climbing once before, and since we wanted to have Amy practice her leading some more, we decided to climb at Schoolhouse Rock. Unfortunately, our replacement remote control for the camera hasn't arrived yet, so we only got pictures of Asia, and not ourselves, but hopefully our new remote arrives soon.
We started out by climbing a 5.6 called "I'm Just a Bill". I ran up the route, then Asia TR'd it, and Amy finished up by leading it and getting the redpoint.
I'm Just a Bill ends at the same anchors as a 5.0 called "My Hero Zero" so we decided that it would be good for the kids to try out if they wanted to. Danny went up first (I climbed next to him for moral support) and he made it up without too many problems. Asia's son Romney had been acting like he wanted to climb (as seen below in the photo of him), so we tried to put the harness on him, but as soon as he realized what was happening he started freaking out and wasn't having any of that. We took the harness off and I ran up and cleaned the anchor.
We have never climbed anything to the right of My Hero Zero, so we decided to try the next route over, a 5.9 called "Conjunction Junction". The route started out as a super easy low angled slab and finished on a vertical headwall with a couple of 5.9 moves to get to the anchor. I ran up the route and got the onsight. After I climbed it, Asia went up the lower portion of the route, but didn't want to go any farther when she got to the crux. After Asia, I convinced Amy to try leading it, and she got the redpoint without any problem. Prior to this route, 5.8 was the hardest that she had ever lead, so I think she did pretty good.
Asia was done climbing after that, but Amy and I wanted to do a couple more routes, so we ran up a 5.7 called "Dollars and Sense". Again we both lead it, and both got the redpoint. The route is basically a one move wonder, but at least it's a pretty fun move. We finished up with another 5.9 called "Tyrannosaurus Debt". This route has a couple of 5.9 cruxes, there is a 5.9 slab crux, then an awkward balancy 5.9 section a little bit later. I ran up and got the redpoint, and I convinced Amy to try leading it as well. She definitely struggled a bit more with this one than the other 5.9 that she did, but at least she made it to the top after a couple of hangs.
Even though we only climbed easy stuff I consider it a very successful day out since Amy was able to bump both her hardest lead and redpoint up by a full grade.
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