Round Two

Yesterday I went back to American Fork Canyon to work on Reaching For Razors, the 5.11d I mentioned in my previous post. I had been feeling a little sick, and I didn't have any expectations of climbing the thing. After warming up on a couple of easier routes, I jumped on RFR. My first attempt was less than whole hearted. I was feeling weak, cold, and clammy. I fell at the the crux of the route, three bolts up. When I fell, my right foot got tangled up in the rope, and I was jerked upside down before coming to an abrupt stop. I didn't care, I just felt like crap and wanted down. On my second try, I stuck the move, and was able to clip the next bolt. Now I had forgotten I was sick. I had to rest at the bolt, but I got up the route again, and with much less trouble than last week. I'm sure I'll be able to send it free and clean soon. I'll keep you posted. 

On the way back from AF Canyon, I got a call from my new friend Mike. I met Mike just a couple of weeks ago, and just thi

s Sunday we found out we both climb. He's more into alpine climbing, mountaineering, and trad, which is what I really want to get into as well. He was calling to see if I wanted to do a night trad climb up in Rock Canyon. I have wanted to learn to trad climb for a long, long time.

 So I said that of course I did. Half an hour later we were driving to Rock Canyon. We headed up to the very popular and often climbed Red Slab. I led the first pitch, a bolted 5.7 that I had climbed many times before. Pitch 1.5 wasn't really a pitch at all, just a scramble up 75 vertical feet or so that we did unbelayed. The second pitch was our real goal-a 35-40 metercrack up the

 face of Ed and Terry Wall, also rated 5.7. Before Mike got started climbing, 

I got to fool around a bit placing cams in the crack and testing their strength. I belayed Mike while he climbed and placed his gear. He got a little over halfway up the route before the crack widened out to the point that he just didn't have gear that would fit. Rather than risking a big fall, he decided to back off. I lowered him to the ground, pulled the rope down, and hiked around the backside of the crag to the top. I set an anchor on the bolts on the top of the route, lowered one end of the rope to Mike, and belayed him as he climbed the crack up to me. Then we switched spots, he lowered me to the ground, and I did the same climb. I should mention that it had gotten dark before we got 

the the bottom of the second pitch, and we were doing all this climbing in the dark, with only our headlamps to light the way. After I climbed, we took a few minutes to admire the view with our lights off. On one side of us was the cliff, the mouth of the canyon, and the glowing lights of the city. On the other side were the sillouettes of the mountain and the darker, starry sky.

We rappelled down into the darkness, downclimbed to the top of the first pitch, and rappelled again. Then we packed up, hiked down to the cars, and got home around 10:00 pm. This morning my mild cold was far, far, worst, and I still feel aweful writing this now. Maybe climbing for eight hours straight while I'm sick isn't the best idea I've ever had.