eagle point buttress with bronchitus

yesterday was the day after thanksgiving. all summer i told my partners i hoped to 'climb until thanksgiving,' like a broken record, but i couldn't. it looked like the temperature was going to end my season after our trip to pebble beach (red river gorge) on 11/5.

i was sad to see the end of climbing season. it has been my best season yet, the year i learned trad and the whole world opened up. no more waiting in line for routes; no more wondering if i was good enough to hang a rope at crag X.

but during the one week that everybody had time off work, the temperature was suddenly hitting 60. here was our chance! eric was away for thanksgiving, but tonya was in town and up for some climbing, so i tagged along with her, david & bill to eagle point buttress. i wasn't feeling that great -- have a bad cold, what with green phlegm like bronchitus -- so i was glad to be with tonya and bill, who prefer to lead.

we split into two teams: tonya & david started up foxfire, a five-ish pitch 5.7, while bill led a route that i think is called 'crude boys,' a one pitch 5.7 (above). i followed him and then we followed (bill led, actually) dave & tonya up foxfire.


here is a cute pic of bill getting ready.

'crude boys' would be a great route if it were climbed more. it's not too difficult (except the start) but the rock is soft and there were three, count 'em three, dead trees in our way. one looked in no danger of falling on us, but the other two were held up only by the crack we needed to climb. (you can see two of the trees in the photo above.)

i had left my helmet at the base of foxfire, so as bill led i pressed myself against a rock face to protect myself from all the falling rock & debris. no trees fell, but bill had to reach around one of the perched trees to place a piece, and thereafter any shake in the rope moved that tree. i was pretty scared that it would come down on my head, and retrieved my helmet before i followed him. ...AND made extreme acrobatic moves on very soft rock to avoid touching any of the trees, which of course came in quick succession.

i have more photos, but stoopid blogger won't let me show you. p'haps will house them elsewhere & link there... yes. skip the sick epic for more pics!

later: and now this blog is getting too many hits for yahoo: they shut me down for now. switching all links to photobucket...

sickness at the crag, blah

apparently my lungs weren't working too well. except for two falls just off the ground, i finished the 'crude boys' route cleanly, but at the top i couldn't breathe and then had a fainting spell!!

bill was ready to rappel off the route when i told him, "i feel faint," stripped my long sleeve shirt off, extended my anchor sling, and laid down in the dirt in my tank top -- at the top of the cliff. it wasn't really warm enough for a tank, but it felt quite warm to me. bill looked worried. "do you want me to wait here until you feel better?" he asked. "no, i'll be okay." i hoped that was true, but i felt like a hot, shaking lump with no muscle at all. he stayed anyway.

i have had spells like that before, and i know that if i don't lie down immediately i'll throw up. so thank goodness we hadn't started on foxfire! who knew whether the first belay had a place to lie down, or whether one could rap safely from there?

but now i was afraid that i wasn't healthy enough to finish a five-pitch route, and bill was too. dave & tonya were by this point too far up foxfire to lower a rope for bill, so if i couldn't climb it, he wouldn't get to. i didn't want to tell him i couldn't do it, but if i tried to climb it and was unable to, i could easily get us stuck somewhere, partway up but with no safe rap point.

there was nothing to do but wait and see how i felt. we rapped off 'crude boys,' walked back to our packs and i laid down again. bill gave me an apple, i drank a lot of water, and i rested.

after a while i felt almost normal, so i belayed bill up the first pitch. i was still worried that i wouldn't make it, but when i started climbing, it felt okay. that one pitch is quite comfortable: it was slabby and didn't require a lot of work, so i never got winded. it was enough to convince me that if i took things slowly, i could do this route. and it was true!

these are my friends at the top!



this is bill gesturing to david and (unwittingly) making shadow monsters. we were at our second belay point -- probably their third, as bill finished the second pitch by crawling across a ledge which is usually its own pitch -- and david was belaying tonya from the fourth belay point.



this is bill on the last pitch of foxfire. the roof overhead is not a big deal (you go around it) but the overhang he is approaching is a little tricky.

and this is a tree at the very top.

and that's me at the top, trying entirely too hard to smile. i'm blotchy, too.

And this is the view looking out. this is why i love multi-pitch climbing: the view from the top. the knowledge that you brought yourself there (it's better if you led, of course). the knowledge that only certain people can or ever have seen what you're seeing, and (brace for dorky sentiment) the peace that comes with distance and perspective. yeah.

escape in the dark

it was starting to get dark --we had to skedaddle. to make things more interesting, we had to rap down the way we came up, which is unauthorized. we had to go that way because i had lost a tricam (DROPPED IT! YI!) and been unable to retrieve a small cam at the crux.

luckily, bill was able to get his cam out and the tricam had only fallen about 15 feet to a ledge, so no gear was lost. but we found out why the guide books don't recommend rappelling from that ledge: you can get back to the fourth belay point easily, but one rope is not long enough to get from there to the ground, and you can't see the ends of the rope when you go over. so bill got stuck thirty feet from the ground, as the sun set quickly.

good sections of that rappel are in midair, but thankfully he found a place to secure himself to the rock while the rest of us tied our two ropes together. (tying the ropes together was recommended as the wisest course to bill to begin with, but he can be a bit rash -- er, "impatient," he says -- and decided to take his chances rather than wait for us to pull the second rope down.)

i was the last one to come down and by the time i did, it was almost completely dark. i had heard david, rappelling just before me, shout down to tonya, "hey! hey! what do i do here?" but i didn't know what was going wrong, and i didn't hear tonya's answer. all i knew was that this was a bizarre sort of rappel we were going on.

i put myself on rappel, wriggled around the tree that i was anchored to, undid my anchor and pushed off into complete darkness.

first came a massive overhang, that left me hanging in midair. spinning, actually. i screamed and laughed because i felt like i had no control at all. then i realized the others were worried so i tried to shout an explanation. i'm still not sure whether they understood.

about thirty feet down and still far from the rock face, i felt was a soft tickling. it was a fir tree -- a beautiful, long-needled thing. it must have been growing out of the rock, because i was nowhere near the ground -- it was touching my back. at first it seemed gentle and harmless, and i tried to move the branches out of my way so the tree wouldn't get hurt it as i lowered past. but below those were more branches, and then more, and pretty soon i felt my gear sling come up off my shoulder -- being lifted by a branch!! i was far from the rock at this point and could not go back up (no prussiks, either). so i tugged and tugged (and shouted at the tree) until it let go of the sling. but it would NOT(!) let go of bill's #6 (yes i said six) C4 camelot, which was wedged between a pinecone and a branch. that cam had been getting stuck on things all day, and more than anything i wanted to abandon it. but somehow i was able to free it, after freaking out imagining myself trying to build ascending knots where i was, hanging in midair with one hand on my own ropes.

then after another 20 feet i saw that i was about to lower on the wrong side of a giant boulder, into a crevice. this was where david had shouted. i could almost reach the rock face by that time, but in this case it did no good. it was too far to push off. so i shouted to bill, who had been backing up my rappel, to "PULL! PULL!" and locked off until i could get my feet on the correct side of the boulder. that did the trick, but i have no idea how tonya and bill got past that part.

we packed up and hiked out in the dark. no injuries, no gear lost. a good day.

post script: hooray for photobucket!