Climbing Continued

I have been meaning to put up some kind of climbing imitates life imitates climbing post and how the theme of this year is going to be Finally Conquering Shit You're Sure You Can't Do, but I don't have the time or imagination space right now. But we have two rock days under our, um, harnesses so I figured I should at least post an update on that.

Rock Day #1: Castlewood Canyon

Getting to the King Sooper's was really the worst part for me. When I popped out of bed, grabbed my coffee and jumped into my little blue marvel the roads were slushy but more wet than ice, and I thought--yay!--since I'm a little late already. I wasn't too far south before the wet slush became frozen slush and bonafide ice, and oh, what fun that was. I even got to go for a little slip and slide myself--I've never been so happy I bought an AWD car AND that I paid attention the day they taught us you steer into a skid to get out of it.

We sorted ourselves into the higher clearance vehicles and headed down to Castlewood, and the doubletrack of snow got deeper and deeper. We rubbed our eyes in disbelief when Frank, who was leading, stopped up at the entrance station and got out to put $6 in the little yellow envelope for the fee. Would rangers seriously be checking today? But I guess that's how we roll at CMC--we do the right thing.

Once we found our spot, Frank and Chris headed up to the top to set anchors and throw ropes while Deb helped up put up a tarp for shelter against the constant, wet melty snow and we burrito-wrapped our packs in more tarps since we couldn't all cram under there. Once the anchors were set, we paired up and practiced our fallen climber tie-offs. This involves (once the climber manages to get far enough up the rope to fall on it, a challenge since the rock was so crumbly and wet Frank said he was sure it was just a fossilized dinosaur turd) putting in a big mule knot with safety, then fixing that line to the anchor so you can take yourself and your belay device out of the system, then figuring out how to reverse the whole process with a minimum of dropping or lowering your climber.

Once we had taken turns through that a few times and were thoroughly soaked, it was time to clamber up to the anchors for some raps. The route was super short (maybe 15 feet?) but enough to give you the idea--the worst part of any rap is hanging your ass out into space over the edge and getting started anyway, right? A couple of double rope laps and a fake simul-rap on singles, and it was time to pack it in and call it a day. Blessedly it never got colder than 36º and the wind never came.

Rock Day #2: Castlewood Canyon Redux

This time we were racing other groups to get out to the wall and snake the best routes, so the meetup was considerably earlier. But, no snow or rain or wind--I'll take it! There was one group that beat us there, but we still got 4 ropes up in decent placements. Lots and lots of BFT anchors. Somehow I kept ending up on rope #4 which had not one but two little overhangs and ledges that made getting the prussik slings past them...interesting, on the way back up.

The first rap was straightforward. Then, on with the prussiks and back up we went--again, straightforward until I got to the second overhang/ledge at the top. Prussik slings are nifty little loops of cord that you wrap and knot around the climbing rope so that when you hang your weight off of it, the knot tensions and holds you on the rope, but when you unweight it you can easily loosen it to slide it up or down on the rope, depending on what you are doing. You use two--one hooked to you at your waist, and another tied onto the rope for your foot, and you sort of inchworm yourself up or down the rope. Which is simple enough when the rope is not stretched taut against the rock. When it is, like at the end of a route, somehow you have to kick your body and the weighted rope away from the rock long enough to slide your chest prussik up a few inches before it slaps back down against the rock. This is harder to do when there the ledge is an overhang, i.e. the rock for your non-prussik leg to brace against while kicking your body away is further away. Plus you are wearing clunky mountaineering boots that aren't really smearing for shit. It was tough, but I figured it out and clambered inelegantly over the ledge to clip my safety into the anchor and take a deep breath. Oh, but the fun was just beginning!

Next was a 2-fer of rapping down on your off-hand while wearing your pack (and by extension chest harness, just for kicks and giggles!). It was a little more cumbersome, but not too bad. The worse part was having to prussik back up with the pack and chest harness on. I tried, but I'm so short-waisted that my foot prussik could only be moved up about 4 inches at a time before it ran into the biner of my chest harness. I decided instead to try Frank's suggestion of lashing a sling to my pack and dangling it from my harness and hauling it up that way. This worked much better until I got to that same damn 2nd overhang, and while I finally managed to get up and over to the top, I kept tugging on the pack but it wasn't budging. Turns out it was a little snagged under the lip of the overhand, but since it wasn't a big one I was able to haul it up eventually, even with my weak girly arms.

The most awesome exercise of all was passing the knot. If you're not wearing a bunch of crap, it's not a big deal--just a lot of procedures that have to be done in the right sequence so you stay tied into the system and are safe at all times. Frank made a deal with us--go down with your packs on and you only have to do it once. Of course everyone went for that!

I started down, stopped above the knot to let my autoblock hold me, and lo--a traffic jam of epic proportions bristled at my waist. Between the chest harness/biner, big biner and belay device, double rope rap AND safety belay line all in super fatty-fat-fat 11-mil rope, I couldn't see a damn thing, let alone figure out how to get what out of where. My 2nd locker was too small to get around my loaded harness, then it was a bitch getting both rap lines out of the device in all that mess, I clipped my safety knot on the wrong side of me which made management even more of a headache (but not in that order!) etc. I was pretty exhausted but thought I finally had it, and I was prussiking down to load up the autoblock, take off the safeties and finish the damn exercise when... I realized I forgot my chest harness! It was sitting on the knot, I couldn't go anywhere but back up a bit to try to get it off and back in below the knot. Which was really, REALLY hard for me because I'm weak to begin with, plus now I'm fatigued, plus the stupid pack is constantly pulling me backwards and loading the chest biner against the rope. I figured out how to wrap my straight left arm around the rap line and step up long enough to undo the chest biner with my right hand, but it took at least 6 tries, each one costing precious muscle strength. Once that was done, I STILL had to stand up and get the chest prussiks down to load the autoblock, which took another 5 or 6 attempts before my shaking, sweating, exhausted, cursing body finally got it. All I can say is if I needed motivation to keep going to Crossfit, well...

Then Frank surprised us all by making us go again so we got the practice, but he relented and let us go without packs/chest harnesses. It was a totally different ride--smooth, easy, fast--took about half the time without all that additional crap getting in the way.

The rest of the day was spent simulating multi-pitch climbs, which will be our next rock day in 2 weeks out at Seal Rock, which I'm told sports a rappel of 200 feet or so. I remember the rap at Balance Bar 2001 was close to 300 feet, but the start was so gradual it didn't seem that gnarly or scary, 'cuz you couldn't see the bottom anyway. I am getting a little less fraidy of being up though, and it feels like everything is coming together. Which is a good thing since I have to go leave for our final!

Ciao. Someday I'll take pictures, I swear.