A great past weekend and another coming up
This past weekend would probably be considered a great weekend by most climbers' standards. On Saturday Colin and I headed out to Yamnuska. I'll just stop complaining about Yamnuska since I probably climb there more than anyplace else. So for one last time, the rock is LOOSE, route finding is tricky and the approach to the base his a lung burning affair. Suffice to say that in future posts when I mention Yamnuska the prior complaining should be assumed.
But back to Yam, Colin and I climb *most* of a fun 10b route called State of Confusion. I was in a state of confusion on the first pitch after Colin took a lead fall due to his hold breaking off. Colin is a big guy 6ft6' big and heavy too. His fall had me dragging along the base of the route until I was in line with his fall line. The trick of course is most belayers in the rockies would be STUPID to belay directly under a climbers' fall line, lest you get an unrequested present, called a rock or boulder landing on you. Hence why you belay off to the side. Since it was the first pitch I wasn't attached to anything as I would have been higher up. Once I skidded to a stop all was well. All Colin said was "Well that was a dynamic belay" Which means he kept dropping as I was being dragged closer to him, but slowly, geez. :-)
With that excitement over, we re-commenced climbing although it took another pitch for my nerves to calm down. The climbing was very good for Yam standards, some crack climbing, some slab oh and of course some scary loose boulders. I couldn't help noticing the happy hikers walking along the base of the cliffs oblivious to the hazards of rock fall above them.
I was enjoying the climbing until we get to end of pitch 7 and Colin starts to talk about pitch 8... an exposed 30ft traverse. I wonder what must be going through Colin's mind as he tells me about it.. he must be thinking "here we go..." Because as he says "traverse.." my eyes get big, I start shuffling and well, acting like a nervous nelly. He calmly lets me know if we're going to bail we have to do it now. I blink, blink, blink and then say OK! Again he reminds me "that's a lot of rappels down" I look up at the route, look down at the anticipated rappels, up down, up down and then say, "lets start rappelling". To Colin's credit he never expresses frustration, he never says "don't be such a baby, do the damn traverse". I fell on a traverse with him a couple years ago which sent me rocketing down the through the air with all the slack, ending up penduluming and swinging HARD into the rock face. After the fact I read that the force of falling on a traverse is just as bad as taking a lead fall. I did tell him "if you really want to complete this climb I'll do it Colin" but he shrugged his shoulders and replied "I can always come back". Perhaps he remembers the one time on Yam I started to cry just thinking about an anticipated traverse. I'd say 90% of the time I have good mental toughness when climbing, but traverses are my nemesis for sure.
Oh but I said this was a GOOD climbing weekend. Colin allowed me my jitters and we rapped down. While we were climbing Tom & Shannon and Nic & Karena were also climbing different routes on Yamnuska. That evening we met up at Toms and had a BBQ with hmm hmm Good food. Laughing, talking about our day, having a couple cocktails and we all sat down to watch a climbing movie. By 11:30pm I was done like dinner. We all crashed at Tom's.
In the morning we walked down to a breakfast place, ate food swilled down coffee and decided where we would climb that day. The local climbing crag Grassi Lakes won out as the weather looked dubios. We were the first set of climbers there so we claimed some great routes. About an hour later the area was full. There were a couple routes I was itching to top-rope.
It was a great blend of Trad climbing on Saturday and some happy social climbing on Sunday. At the end of the day we all headed back to Tom's to make short work of our leftovers from the night before.
By the time I got back into Calgary around 9:30pm I was exhausted, bruised, had tender bleeding fingers and a big smile on my face.
Climbing isn't just about the climbing, its about WHO you climb with as well. Hanging with my peeps for a full weekend is like hanging with the family that you actually like. :-)
But back to Yam, Colin and I climb *most* of a fun 10b route called State of Confusion. I was in a state of confusion on the first pitch after Colin took a lead fall due to his hold breaking off. Colin is a big guy 6ft6' big and heavy too. His fall had me dragging along the base of the route until I was in line with his fall line. The trick of course is most belayers in the rockies would be STUPID to belay directly under a climbers' fall line, lest you get an unrequested present, called a rock or boulder landing on you. Hence why you belay off to the side. Since it was the first pitch I wasn't attached to anything as I would have been higher up. Once I skidded to a stop all was well. All Colin said was "Well that was a dynamic belay" Which means he kept dropping as I was being dragged closer to him, but slowly, geez. :-)
With that excitement over, we re-commenced climbing although it took another pitch for my nerves to calm down. The climbing was very good for Yam standards, some crack climbing, some slab oh and of course some scary loose boulders. I couldn't help noticing the happy hikers walking along the base of the cliffs oblivious to the hazards of rock fall above them.
I was enjoying the climbing until we get to end of pitch 7 and Colin starts to talk about pitch 8... an exposed 30ft traverse. I wonder what must be going through Colin's mind as he tells me about it.. he must be thinking "here we go..." Because as he says "traverse.." my eyes get big, I start shuffling and well, acting like a nervous nelly. He calmly lets me know if we're going to bail we have to do it now. I blink, blink, blink and then say OK! Again he reminds me "that's a lot of rappels down" I look up at the route, look down at the anticipated rappels, up down, up down and then say, "lets start rappelling". To Colin's credit he never expresses frustration, he never says "don't be such a baby, do the damn traverse". I fell on a traverse with him a couple years ago which sent me rocketing down the through the air with all the slack, ending up penduluming and swinging HARD into the rock face. After the fact I read that the force of falling on a traverse is just as bad as taking a lead fall. I did tell him "if you really want to complete this climb I'll do it Colin" but he shrugged his shoulders and replied "I can always come back". Perhaps he remembers the one time on Yam I started to cry just thinking about an anticipated traverse. I'd say 90% of the time I have good mental toughness when climbing, but traverses are my nemesis for sure.
Oh but I said this was a GOOD climbing weekend. Colin allowed me my jitters and we rapped down. While we were climbing Tom & Shannon and Nic & Karena were also climbing different routes on Yamnuska. That evening we met up at Toms and had a BBQ with hmm hmm Good food. Laughing, talking about our day, having a couple cocktails and we all sat down to watch a climbing movie. By 11:30pm I was done like dinner. We all crashed at Tom's.
In the morning we walked down to a breakfast place, ate food swilled down coffee and decided where we would climb that day. The local climbing crag Grassi Lakes won out as the weather looked dubios. We were the first set of climbers there so we claimed some great routes. About an hour later the area was full. There were a couple routes I was itching to top-rope.
It was a great blend of Trad climbing on Saturday and some happy social climbing on Sunday. At the end of the day we all headed back to Tom's to make short work of our leftovers from the night before.
By the time I got back into Calgary around 9:30pm I was exhausted, bruised, had tender bleeding fingers and a big smile on my face.
Climbing isn't just about the climbing, its about WHO you climb with as well. Hanging with my peeps for a full weekend is like hanging with the family that you actually like. :-)
posted by Lise B at Friday, June 29, 2007
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