Baby

Amy is on break from school and is visiting from Atlanta. We headed to the Gunks last weekend. The weather was pretty bad! We were one of only two tents in Camp Slime (which is usually full). On the first morning, after a heavy rain, discovered that we had set up tent over a run-off and had a stream running underneath us. The bottom of the tent felt like a waterbed.

We got in good climbing on the first day. Amy lead Rhodadendron (you go girl!), a beautiful single-pitch finger/hand crack. And, in my ridiculous arrogance, I decided that, even though I had no experience with off-width and it was nearly two grades above what I had done before, and I am a beginning leader who isn't ready to fall on her pro, that I would lead Baby. Its *only* a 6+... how hard can it be?!?

Um... I made it to the middle of the crux. I was above my last cam (the #4, gotta love it), chicken winging my arm into the crack trying to get my shoulder in as well (I have bruises on my tricep to prove it), and looking at a move that would involve taking my foot from a straight on jam to a side-ways foot-bar jam. I said the F-word very loudly and, instead of finishing the crux (I was five feet into it and had five feet left to go), I downclimbed it. Baby turned me into a great big baby.

Uh huh, my very first trad flip-out. But now I have a project and I'm HUNGRY for that route.

I discovered that if I wear cotton, it makes it rain. After the first night of heavy rain, Amy and I wandered around the carriage trail looking for something dry.

Um... here is Ken's Crack.



We found a handfull of routes that were dry enough and hopped on. Amy took her first trad lead fall on a #5 stopper. (you go girl!)

And I worked on that whole jamming-thing on Finger Locks. I had a hard time resisting the face holds!


When it rained, we played Scrabble and the Anchor Game...


And, on our third day there, got in just one climb before the skies opened up.