Saturday, October 22, 2005

Beck's Mom

Loose and dirty - that about sums up the majority of the climbing I did today at El Cajon Mtn.

after an hour long hike that hell rejected, Adam and I arrived at the base of El Cajon Mtn. one word: surreal. The entire day was foggy - the rope was a little damp, but somehow the rock was dry (once again, the analogy with Beck's mom still holds... loose, dirty and dry). the inital warm-up route, a 3 pitch 5.8, was stellar. slightly slabby to vertical climbing on plate sized patinas up an exposed wall was awesome. The fact that you could hear voices, but not see anyone due to the fog added to the surrealism. The world was a mere 30' sphere around you while climbing - definitely awesome.

The second route that we tried, called "The Storm", was supposed to be a 5 pitch climb to almost the summit. This is where it was truly loose, dirty and dry, not to mention crusty and bushy (the analogy knows no bounds). I have never had a more technically demanding route - not because the moves were hard, but because and careless weighting of the foot or grabbing of a hold would cause a chunk of rock to break. if the holds were good, the route would be easy. As it stood, the manky holds made this route almost like a contrived boulder problem (climb this easy looking wall without using any of the holds...).

I felt kinda bad - Adam lead the only 5.10 pitch on the entire route. I was tired and cranky from the poor climbing quality that I had Adam do the crux moves. I think physically, I'm a stronger climber than adam and could have done the moves with less pump. However, he's a better mental leader and lead the solid 5.10 pitch without any falls (good lead Adam!). I told him that his plan to make me his rope gun failed. I'm only good as a boulder gun... not that that does much good for anyone...

Next weekend? Talk of El Cajon Mtn again, or Jtree with Steph, possibly Taryn.

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