... then I tried to kill him... wait, he tried to kill me... no, we tried to kill each other... (part two: Dark Shadow)

After rapping off Y2K, Robb and I have about 3 hours of sunlight left to run over to Dark Shadow, climb three pitches and get off before being lost in total darkness.

When we run over, what we find is Dark Shadow looming overhead with a couple of parties rapping down, and one party of two midway up. Robb and I just look at each other with a gleeful glint in our eyes and quickly rope up. 3 hours. that means one hour for one pitch. Not to mention extra time to rappel in the light. My average tends to be one hour per pitch, with both the leader and the follow completing that section of the climb - Robb was pretty confident that we could do it.

After the rappelling parties were nearly done, Robb takes off, linking the first two pitches of Dark Shadow into one long pitch (that was our original plan). It was pretty impressive watching him become the living "blur" - a mass of white blurry climber moving up past the dark desert varnish that made of Dark Shadow (hence the name - duh!). I ran up to him when he put me on belay (ran is pretty close to what I was doing - I was almost out of breath when I reached him 170' up), and we switched leads. With very little rest, I scampered up the next pitch.

So something to note: take breaks when speedclimbing. I was sloppy leading up the second pitch of Dark Shadows - feet kept wobbling, hands couldn't decide how to go up, etc. etc. I managed to get to the anchors at the end of the second pitch, but somewhat more slowly than I would have liked. Still, it was an enjoyable pitch and probably my favorite of the weekend.

Now, getting to the belay ledge was interesting. I arrive to find a climber, whom we will name "Bill", sitting there with a half-dazed half-amused look. "How was the jug hauling... dude...?" he asked. "Umm... good. A fun pitch" I answered. I was a bit confused - yes, there were big holds on that but there was still a decent amount of crack climbing involved too - not exactly what I'd call "jug hauling". I made my anchor and belayed robb to my stance - the entire time listening to Bill's comments and quips to his belayer whom we will name "Ted".

Yes, ladies and gentlemen - bill and ted were stoners. Or if they weren't, they've gotten stoned so often they were perma-stoned. I wouldn't be surprised if they were so stoned that they're able to naturally crap out weed from their asses on command. I was nervously eyeing them as they climbed overhead - I really wouldn't want bill and ted to land on me with their weed crapping asses. My head would smell of ganja for months...

Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened. Bill slowly, but methodically plodded his way up the 5.8 crack above me while Robb reached my stance. By the time Robb started up, Bill and Ted were starting their rappel. I would follow Robb shortly, and afterwards, we would start our rappel down.

Once again, this is where things get interesting. Robb and I have rappeled back to the "first" belay ledge that Robb got to. 170' below us is a small stream where I watched numerous other parties splash their ropes into... My two ropes when tied together gives us a 200' rappel. Doing simple math means that at least 30' of my ropes will get wet. I look over at Robb and he seems to know what he's doing as he threads the rope through the chains. "we should be careful not to get the ropes wet" I tell him (or something along those lines). he gives me an affirmative and throws the first of two ropes down... *splash!*. Robb kinda gives me this guilty look as he realizes that he just threw some of the rope into the water. *sigh* - it's santa ana conditions this weekend so the air is super dry - that should help tonight...

We decide to simul rappel - one climber on a strand of rope, each acting as a counter weight for the other person. At this point we're losing light FAST so hastily clip into the ropes and begin our descent. Robb quickly takes the lead and he's about 10' below me as he rappels down towards the stream. And this is where he tries to kill me. Robb touches ground first, stands up and unweights the rope. Remember: he's my counter weight. Which means when he stood up, I started free falling. All I remember is saying "woah Woah WOAH!!!" and abruptly coming to a stop a foot or so above the water. Later on Robb would tell me that I fell about 15', and it took him a moment to realize what was happening... he also told me taht my toes definitely disturbed the water below me... talk about a close call. I was a bit concerned during the fall, but in hindsight, I found it pretty amusing.

So: so far, I nearly killed myself attempting to climb across a blank slab after losing the route, and Robb has nearly killed me during a rappeling incident. Don't worry - I get back at him.