Tried Pilot again last weekend. A buddy from work came with me. It was his first time climbing outside. He did really well. We did a lot of 5.6-5.7 routes. By about 11am the weather was getting so hot it sucked the life out of you. I also took about 5 falls off of a route I did cleanly last week. My husband is going to kill me. I was able to make it up, but really struggled about half way through. Here's a movie of me climbing Grandpa's Belay. The movie is titled wrong.
Showing posts with label Rock Climbing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rock Climbing. Show all posts
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Climbing with Friends
My wife let me get away for the day to climb at Pilot Mountain. I think it's been a year since I've been here last. The weather was warm and humid but actually a pleasant day. The hike down to the wall was pleasant. The forecast called for a day in the 90's. There was a nice breeze and it pretty much stayed in the 80's.
A friend was nice enough to show me some anchor techniques. We actually repelled off the anchor I tied. I was really proud of myself.
After getting schooled it was time to get ready to climb. It's amazing how much stuff you pack in.
The first routes we climbed were in the Little Amphitheatre section. We did Dirty Rotten Scoundrel, Place your Bets and Grandpa's Belay. The climbs were 5.6-5.7. Really fun to start the day.
One of the cool things climbing is how you meet people We met another group climbing with a guide, and as what often happens we shared ropes. This helps you get more climbs in and it's fun to meet new people. We moved to another section called black rain. I started a route called, My Wife's Gonna Kill me.
I was able to get up that, but I failed on a 5.9 route to the right called Black Rain. I took a nice 10ft drop and bruised my heel. I think the fall and the route kind of psyched me out. Definitely doable. I'm looking forward to trying it again next time. I only got really 4 climbs in, but I did them all cleanly. I found places to rest where I didn't hang on the rope. It was a really fun day.
A friend was nice enough to show me some anchor techniques. We actually repelled off the anchor I tied. I was really proud of myself.
After getting schooled it was time to get ready to climb. It's amazing how much stuff you pack in.
The first routes we climbed were in the Little Amphitheatre section. We did Dirty Rotten Scoundrel, Place your Bets and Grandpa's Belay. The climbs were 5.6-5.7. Really fun to start the day.
One of the cool things climbing is how you meet people We met another group climbing with a guide, and as what often happens we shared ropes. This helps you get more climbs in and it's fun to meet new people. We moved to another section called black rain. I started a route called, My Wife's Gonna Kill me.
I was able to get up that, but I failed on a 5.9 route to the right called Black Rain. I took a nice 10ft drop and bruised my heel. I think the fall and the route kind of psyched me out. Definitely doable. I'm looking forward to trying it again next time. I only got really 4 climbs in, but I did them all cleanly. I found places to rest where I didn't hang on the rope. It was a really fun day.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Climbing at Table Rock
Climb was on 04/24/2009
This is a belated post. We did this climb a couple weeks ago. I just wanted to post some pictures and give a report. My brother-in-law Russ has been trying to get me to climb at table rock for some time now. I was happy we finaly got a chance to get in a multi-pitch climb there. A friend named Jasyn met us and Russ's younger brother Ryan was visting and made the accent as well. The weather was perfect and we decided to do the route Hidden Cracks. It was a four pitch climb with varying difficulties. The first pitch was 5.7, second 5.4, third 5.7, and forth 5.6.
Russ took the lead on the first pitch. He had never climbed this route before so that was a pretty brave task. Even though a route says a certain rating it can proove to be difficult. He seemed to do it with little effort.
Ryan went up second. I climbed up after him draggin the second rope. I had never done this before and feeling the weight of the rope was a little odd. I had to clip into various gear placement spots during the climb. I turned a corner and was greeted with a huge drop off with some serious exposure. It did rattle me at first, I just stared at the rock and chugged along. At one point there seemed to be no hand holds. That is my worst nightmare. I reached around and eventually made a move trusting my feet. The foot holds were great. I was so eager to get to the top of the first pitch I went past a few gear placements where I needed to clip the trailing rope. This caused me to go back and clip the rope in. I swore that made the climb twice as hard. As I reached the top of the first pitch I saw Ryan. He decided this was a good place to trim his toenails.
Russ cleaned the belay station and we waited for Jasyn to make his way up.
Here's me testing my anchor. Not the smartest thing in the world to do, and one of the main reasons Russ did not let me lead a climb that day. The only thing holding me in this picture is some rope material. There was probably no chance of real danger by, but why test it?
As we looked down we could see Jasyn climbing his way up, Ryan got some good shots.
We all made it with no problems up the first pitch. I don't have any picturs of the second pitch but it was a ho-hum 5.4. The views were pretty but we scampered up that pretty rapidly. The next 5.6 pitch had a interesting beginning. As we get to the top of the second pitch and are looking around at the 3rd Jasyn asks Russ where do we go? Russ thought this was pretty funny after explaining explicedly before we climbed this route that he had never done this before. You could tell Jasyn wasn't worried, but you could also tell he wasn't too sure where to go. The only bolt you could see was reached by crossing a suspect ledge. Your anchor point was 30ft or so behind you. This means if you fell you were dangling over about a 100ft cliff. Thank god it wasn't windy. Needless to say Russ wasn't leading this pitch. Jasyn did it, and he handled it like a pro. He complained of lichen and rotten rocks but still handled it with no problems. I followed second after Jasyn. The route was beautiful, great holds and awesome views. 
You can see the ledge you have to walk across with this picture. Ryan is making his way to the bolt.
Here's more pics of Ryan making his accent.
Russ decided to shoot a self portrait while waiting to climb himself.
We all survived the third pitch. The last pitch was a 5.6. It was a great route. The only bad part is Jasyn and I climbed last. That wouldn't have been so bad, but I was resting my butt on about 3inches of ledge. I had to stay that way for about an hour.
Russ took the lead again and handled it with poise.
Russ is really good at making you feel calm and safe. He always seems to know what he's doing, and if he doesn't he's good at faking it. We all made it to the summit safely and had a wonderful day.
I can't wait to go to table rock again. There are so many routes there and different types of climbs you could climb there for a month and probably not do them all.
This is a belated post. We did this climb a couple weeks ago. I just wanted to post some pictures and give a report. My brother-in-law Russ has been trying to get me to climb at table rock for some time now. I was happy we finaly got a chance to get in a multi-pitch climb there. A friend named Jasyn met us and Russ's younger brother Ryan was visting and made the accent as well. The weather was perfect and we decided to do the route Hidden Cracks. It was a four pitch climb with varying difficulties. The first pitch was 5.7, second 5.4, third 5.7, and forth 5.6.
Russ took the lead on the first pitch. He had never climbed this route before so that was a pretty brave task. Even though a route says a certain rating it can proove to be difficult. He seemed to do it with little effort.
Ryan went up second. I climbed up after him draggin the second rope. I had never done this before and feeling the weight of the rope was a little odd. I had to clip into various gear placement spots during the climb. I turned a corner and was greeted with a huge drop off with some serious exposure. It did rattle me at first, I just stared at the rock and chugged along. At one point there seemed to be no hand holds. That is my worst nightmare. I reached around and eventually made a move trusting my feet. The foot holds were great. I was so eager to get to the top of the first pitch I went past a few gear placements where I needed to clip the trailing rope. This caused me to go back and clip the rope in. I swore that made the climb twice as hard. As I reached the top of the first pitch I saw Ryan. He decided this was a good place to trim his toenails.
Russ cleaned the belay station and we waited for Jasyn to make his way up.
Here's me testing my anchor. Not the smartest thing in the world to do, and one of the main reasons Russ did not let me lead a climb that day. The only thing holding me in this picture is some rope material. There was probably no chance of real danger by, but why test it? As we looked down we could see Jasyn climbing his way up, Ryan got some good shots.
We all made it with no problems up the first pitch. I don't have any picturs of the second pitch but it was a ho-hum 5.4. The views were pretty but we scampered up that pretty rapidly. The next 5.6 pitch had a interesting beginning. As we get to the top of the second pitch and are looking around at the 3rd Jasyn asks Russ where do we go? Russ thought this was pretty funny after explaining explicedly before we climbed this route that he had never done this before. You could tell Jasyn wasn't worried, but you could also tell he wasn't too sure where to go. The only bolt you could see was reached by crossing a suspect ledge. Your anchor point was 30ft or so behind you. This means if you fell you were dangling over about a 100ft cliff. Thank god it wasn't windy. Needless to say Russ wasn't leading this pitch. Jasyn did it, and he handled it like a pro. He complained of lichen and rotten rocks but still handled it with no problems. I followed second after Jasyn. The route was beautiful, great holds and awesome views. 
You can see the ledge you have to walk across with this picture. Ryan is making his way to the bolt.
Here's more pics of Ryan making his accent.
Russ decided to shoot a self portrait while waiting to climb himself.
We all survived the third pitch. The last pitch was a 5.6. It was a great route. The only bad part is Jasyn and I climbed last. That wouldn't have been so bad, but I was resting my butt on about 3inches of ledge. I had to stay that way for about an hour.
Russ took the lead again and handled it with poise.
Russ is really good at making you feel calm and safe. He always seems to know what he's doing, and if he doesn't he's good at faking it. We all made it to the summit safely and had a wonderful day.
I can't wait to go to table rock again. There are so many routes there and different types of climbs you could climb there for a month and probably not do them all.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Z-Crag
Sorry, still no fishing pics. I did make it to a local pond yesterday. I managed to catch a nice 7-8inch bluegill. It was a amazing day. The heat has subsided and the humidity is really down. Yesterday it was 83 with relatively no humidity. It felt like I was in San Diego. Bill sent me some pics from the Ship rock weekend, I decided to do a little post about that. More fishing stories to come, I just got a tip on a pond that supposedly hardly anyone fish's and it has some monsters.
The day after climbing Ship Rock we went to a unknown crag by my brother-in-laws house. I just like to call it Z-crag. I call it that, because it is really difficult and also I think of a french person saying zeee crag. I know it's dorky... Anyways, from the bottom it looks do able. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard at all.
The beginning is not that bad you start with a layback that is pumpy but not terrible. Here's Russ showing how it's done.
Then after this it gets to kind of a pseudo chimney. It's a dihedral that slowly gets narrow the higher you go. 
After this, you have to traverse over to a ledge and there is really only a few holds you can use. Some how I was able to do this on my first try. After that I couldn't do it again. Everyone was able to do the route, with Russ being the only one who could do it more than once. Then we decided to try what I thought was going to be the easier climb. It turned out to be one of the most annoying outside starts ever.
Here's Bill on the beginning, there is a crack to his right that goes pretty deep inside the rock, I tried to go up that. Why are there no pictures of me climbing this? Because I never got more than 3ft off the ground. Even with that low altitude, I was still able to bruise the ball of my foot and jack my elbow up some how. I think it's from the 500 different ways I tried to get up this thing. It really pissed me off. It was fun, but like torture at the same time. You'd find some good holds but they weren't helpful to doing your next move. You really had to commit to each hold. They weren't large holds mostly finger grabs. The foot holds were fine but at strange angles. This was a great route for technique climbers. If you shifted your weight any way that was wrong, your foot would come off. Too tough for me at this time. It's nice to have something to come back to as a challenge. I will get at least 5ft off the ground next time.
The day after climbing Ship Rock we went to a unknown crag by my brother-in-laws house. I just like to call it Z-crag. I call it that, because it is really difficult and also I think of a french person saying zeee crag. I know it's dorky... Anyways, from the bottom it looks do able. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard at all.
The beginning is not that bad you start with a layback that is pumpy but not terrible. Here's Russ showing how it's done.
Then after this it gets to kind of a pseudo chimney. It's a dihedral that slowly gets narrow the higher you go. 
After this, you have to traverse over to a ledge and there is really only a few holds you can use. Some how I was able to do this on my first try. After that I couldn't do it again. Everyone was able to do the route, with Russ being the only one who could do it more than once. Then we decided to try what I thought was going to be the easier climb. It turned out to be one of the most annoying outside starts ever.
Here's Bill on the beginning, there is a crack to his right that goes pretty deep inside the rock, I tried to go up that. Why are there no pictures of me climbing this? Because I never got more than 3ft off the ground. Even with that low altitude, I was still able to bruise the ball of my foot and jack my elbow up some how. I think it's from the 500 different ways I tried to get up this thing. It really pissed me off. It was fun, but like torture at the same time. You'd find some good holds but they weren't helpful to doing your next move. You really had to commit to each hold. They weren't large holds mostly finger grabs. The foot holds were fine but at strange angles. This was a great route for technique climbers. If you shifted your weight any way that was wrong, your foot would come off. Too tough for me at this time. It's nice to have something to come back to as a challenge. I will get at least 5ft off the ground next time.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Rock Climbing at Ship Rock
While my wife and I were in Boone this weekend my brother-in-law was nice enough to guide me and a friend up some routes on Ship Rock. The forecast called for showers on and off, when we woke up Saturday morning the sky was blue and no storm clouds were in site. We headed for the parkway and decided to try our luck on Ship. 
The excitement started to build and as usual I had an issue getting my harness on right. It's not a big deal but from time to time one of my leg loops always gets twisted and I have a hell of a time figuring out why it's happening. Eventually I figure it out, but I'm sure it does not instill confidence with the people you're about to climb with that you can't even get your harness on right. None the less they trusted me and we approached the first climb.
The scramble to the first ledge was an interesting one. Not too difficult but you have to really pay attention, there's plenty of places to twist an ankle or fall on rocks. We worked our way along the bottom of Ship Rock and found the route Edge of a Dream.
Here's Russ giving me some instructions on how to rappel. Russ is my brother- in-law but he's also a really cool guy. He explains things really well and is very patient. The thing that sucks is, everyone else knows he's cool to and recognizes him. So we had to wait every 5min or so for Russ to talk to some random person hiking the trail that recognized him. I'm selfish, so I was like, lets get climbin' man! He was able to hide long enough from his fans to start the lead on Edge of a Dream. Before he started he talked about various rock features and how he was probably going to set up his equipment for the route. I was impressed he felt I knew the rock climbing vocabulary like what a dihedral and arete and other stuff were. I finally had to fess up that I had no idea what he was talking about. I figured, I better know what that stuff is, if I'm going to second and clean gear. After learning the terms, he started his climb.
The clouds over Grandfather Mountain looked ominous but the sky really was more blue than gray. What did start building up was a nice wind gust. It was more of a constant wind that I think was close to 30mph. It seemed to really intensify once Russ started climbing. He didn't seem rattled at all and looked to smoothly put in gear.
As he made his way to the corner of the route, the wind really picked up an it looked like he was close to being blown off.
I really watched him closely because I was climbing next and I had to turn that corner too. He seemed to handle it fine and didn't really say how bad the wind was.
He got to the top no problem, set up a anchor then yelled down, OK KEVIN! I don't know why but I was more excited than scared. I mean the wind seemed bad but how bad could it be really?
I got to the first few pieces of gear with no problems, the climbing seemed easy and I was feeling more and more confident with every move. In my head I started to get a little cocky. I thought this is a 5.7? I'm killing this, maybe all the gym work is making me stronger, or maybe Pilot Mtn was rated harder..... Who knows? But this is friggin cake....
I worked my way closer to the edge and I could see Russ now, the wind started to pick up and now it was blowing hard enough to make me think about it. A few gusts I had to just hang on and wait for it to die down a little bit. I got to the corner and the wind really started to blast me.
Luckily, the holds were all awesome and I made it up the corner pretty easily. After the first few moves you forget about the wind and anything else that's going on. You just want to get to the top and there's plenty of holds to get you there. After I got to the top I did my first rappel down. It wasn't until I got to the bottom I just realized, not only did I do my first rappel but I also did my first climb seconding cleaning gear. I was pretty happy with myself.
Bill climbed next, taking a line right up the face near the corner. The climb was smooth and clean with no problems. It looked too easy, I was going to have to try that route next. Here's a couple more pics of his climb.
I was able to TR the same route. It was a really fun climb. The wind was still there but not as bad. 
Buffalo Nickel
The next route we went to try to climb was a multi pitch 5.7 called Buffalo Nickel. The hike there really showed off the rock features of Ship Rock. The only word I can think of that describes it is gnarly.
Russ and Bill checking out the route. The beginning was the most sketchy part. You have to pull a decent move to get about 6ft off the ground. There are pretty good holds all the way to the first belay. Russ took the lead and showed us how it's done.
He made it look easy and set up to belay Bill. I was going to climb last on this one. The only bad part about climbing last, you have to wait awhile to climb. The good part, all you have to worry about is climbing. The only gear I had to clean was at the belay station. Bill had to clean and have a rope tail him. It didn't seem to bother him any.
This picture cracks me up, I have two people climbing a 100ft wall and just some rope is basically holding them on. Is this interesting me? Obviously not as much as the pictures I just took, because I'm looking at them in the back ground. At least I'm wearing my helmet.
This is good, yeah Bills smiling in this picture.
Not so much in this one, I think it's because he had to stand on a crappy little 3inch ledge to belay Russ, and I got to stand where Russ was. It was a nice huge ledge you could almost sit on. It didn't work out like that on purpose but it was kind of funny. Even with the good position you are basically hanging from 2 bolts on a cliff. It sounds scary but when you're doing it..... Well, it's not as scary. I helped feed rope up to Russ while he was climbing and we only had to suffer threw one tangle in the rope. I fed rope up while Bill made his climb to the top. Then I made my approach. Right before I started I heard a little boom..... The last thing you want is to be in the middle of a cliff in a thunderstorm. I looked out towards Grandfather Mtn and saw some clouds, I thought to myself that's probably just a sonic boom. Ten seconds later, BOOM.......... Hmmm alot of planes out today. I started to look at how much rope there was and tried to estimate if I could get to the top before a storm hit us. A few more booms and I knew it was thunder and the storm was getting closer. I tried not to worry about it and made my way to the summit. The climbing was pretty straight forward with only one section that you have to think about. At the very end there is a cave like hole you have to crawl threw. Once you pop out of that you're at the summit.
We didn't have long to enjoy the view. A thunderstorm was coming are way fast. When we were watching Bill rappel down, rain was actually being blown up into our face. Kind of a weird experience but cool at the same time. There was a concern to get down quickly but it never got to the point that it was really scary. We never saw lightning. By the time I was about to rappel down the storm had mostly passed us, we missed the brunt of it. We didn't want to push our luck so we still made haste to get down quickly.
I survived my first multi pitch. It was a awesome day. Ship Rock is a great place to climb with tons of routes. I can't wait to come back. Russ is a great guide and I hope he'll tolerate me climbing with him more often. I don't think I could have been as calm through the whole ordeal as I was without him. While we were leaving we took one last view of Ship Rock from a distance. The view was pretty neat with the clouds in the background.
The excitement started to build and as usual I had an issue getting my harness on right. It's not a big deal but from time to time one of my leg loops always gets twisted and I have a hell of a time figuring out why it's happening. Eventually I figure it out, but I'm sure it does not instill confidence with the people you're about to climb with that you can't even get your harness on right. None the less they trusted me and we approached the first climb.The scramble to the first ledge was an interesting one. Not too difficult but you have to really pay attention, there's plenty of places to twist an ankle or fall on rocks. We worked our way along the bottom of Ship Rock and found the route Edge of a Dream.Here's Russ giving me some instructions on how to rappel. Russ is my brother- in-law but he's also a really cool guy. He explains things really well and is very patient. The thing that sucks is, everyone else knows he's cool to and recognizes him. So we had to wait every 5min or so for Russ to talk to some random person hiking the trail that recognized him. I'm selfish, so I was like, lets get climbin' man! He was able to hide long enough from his fans to start the lead on Edge of a Dream. Before he started he talked about various rock features and how he was probably going to set up his equipment for the route. I was impressed he felt I knew the rock climbing vocabulary like what a dihedral and arete and other stuff were. I finally had to fess up that I had no idea what he was talking about. I figured, I better know what that stuff is, if I'm going to second and clean gear. After learning the terms, he started his climb.The clouds over Grandfather Mountain looked ominous but the sky really was more blue than gray. What did start building up was a nice wind gust. It was more of a constant wind that I think was close to 30mph. It seemed to really intensify once Russ started climbing. He didn't seem rattled at all and looked to smoothly put in gear.As he made his way to the corner of the route, the wind really picked up an it looked like he was close to being blown off.I really watched him closely because I was climbing next and I had to turn that corner too. He seemed to handle it fine and didn't really say how bad the wind was. He got to the top no problem, set up a anchor then yelled down, OK KEVIN! I don't know why but I was more excited than scared. I mean the wind seemed bad but how bad could it be really?I got to the first few pieces of gear with no problems, the climbing seemed easy and I was feeling more and more confident with every move. In my head I started to get a little cocky. I thought this is a 5.7? I'm killing this, maybe all the gym work is making me stronger, or maybe Pilot Mtn was rated harder..... Who knows? But this is friggin cake....I worked my way closer to the edge and I could see Russ now, the wind started to pick up and now it was blowing hard enough to make me think about it. A few gusts I had to just hang on and wait for it to die down a little bit. I got to the corner and the wind really started to blast me.Luckily, the holds were all awesome and I made it up the corner pretty easily. After the first few moves you forget about the wind and anything else that's going on. You just want to get to the top and there's plenty of holds to get you there. After I got to the top I did my first rappel down. It wasn't until I got to the bottom I just realized, not only did I do my first rappel but I also did my first climb seconding cleaning gear. I was pretty happy with myself.Bill climbed next, taking a line right up the face near the corner. The climb was smooth and clean with no problems. It looked too easy, I was going to have to try that route next. Here's a couple more pics of his climb. I was able to TR the same route. It was a really fun climb. The wind was still there but not as bad. Buffalo NickelThe next route we went to try to climb was a multi pitch 5.7 called Buffalo Nickel. The hike there really showed off the rock features of Ship Rock. The only word I can think of that describes it is gnarly.
Russ and Bill checking out the route. The beginning was the most sketchy part. You have to pull a decent move to get about 6ft off the ground. There are pretty good holds all the way to the first belay. Russ took the lead and showed us how it's done. He made it look easy and set up to belay Bill. I was going to climb last on this one. The only bad part about climbing last, you have to wait awhile to climb. The good part, all you have to worry about is climbing. The only gear I had to clean was at the belay station. Bill had to clean and have a rope tail him. It didn't seem to bother him any. This picture cracks me up, I have two people climbing a 100ft wall and just some rope is basically holding them on. Is this interesting me? Obviously not as much as the pictures I just took, because I'm looking at them in the back ground. At least I'm wearing my helmet.This is good, yeah Bills smiling in this picture.Not so much in this one, I think it's because he had to stand on a crappy little 3inch ledge to belay Russ, and I got to stand where Russ was. It was a nice huge ledge you could almost sit on. It didn't work out like that on purpose but it was kind of funny. Even with the good position you are basically hanging from 2 bolts on a cliff. It sounds scary but when you're doing it..... Well, it's not as scary. I helped feed rope up to Russ while he was climbing and we only had to suffer threw one tangle in the rope. I fed rope up while Bill made his climb to the top. Then I made my approach. Right before I started I heard a little boom..... The last thing you want is to be in the middle of a cliff in a thunderstorm. I looked out towards Grandfather Mtn and saw some clouds, I thought to myself that's probably just a sonic boom. Ten seconds later, BOOM.......... Hmmm alot of planes out today. I started to look at how much rope there was and tried to estimate if I could get to the top before a storm hit us. A few more booms and I knew it was thunder and the storm was getting closer. I tried not to worry about it and made my way to the summit. The climbing was pretty straight forward with only one section that you have to think about. At the very end there is a cave like hole you have to crawl threw. Once you pop out of that you're at the summit.We didn't have long to enjoy the view. A thunderstorm was coming are way fast. When we were watching Bill rappel down, rain was actually being blown up into our face. Kind of a weird experience but cool at the same time. There was a concern to get down quickly but it never got to the point that it was really scary. We never saw lightning. By the time I was about to rappel down the storm had mostly passed us, we missed the brunt of it. We didn't want to push our luck so we still made haste to get down quickly. I survived my first multi pitch. It was a awesome day. Ship Rock is a great place to climb with tons of routes. I can't wait to come back. Russ is a great guide and I hope he'll tolerate me climbing with him more often. I don't think I could have been as calm through the whole ordeal as I was without him. While we were leaving we took one last view of Ship Rock from a distance. The view was pretty neat with the clouds in the background.
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