Gunks: Lost and Flying
“Rišo, I think I am falling!”
“OK, I am ready.”
“…but I don’t want to…”
“Well, then you better climb on…”
“AAAAAAAAAAH!”
The rope tightened and snatched me up from the small belay ledge with Ľuboš dangling on the other end. Few people on Arrow, just next to us, turned to see who is disturbing the tranquility of the Sunday afternoon with these barbarian screams.
The second act of Feast of Fools turned out to be not so easy and totally different than the juggy-roofy first pitch. The other route we climbed this day was Pink Laurel, quite a pumpy 5.9 in a broken corner with fantastic variety of moves – anything between underclings, fingerlocks, stemming and jug-hauling. We had made our climbing plans on the day before, while drinking beers and casually talking at the camp. A bad concept, as we found out today, because in the guidebook, everything looked unrealistically casual.
None of us was exactly enthusiastic about climbing this morning, not after a night spent in the makeshift bivy made up from a plastic tarp that Ľuboš brought “just in case”. He anyways escaped to his car shortly before the dawn, leaving me and his jacket behind. Having nothing to cover myself with, I gratefully grabbed the piece of cloth and huddled on a 1.2 meters short sleeping pad which I bought the day before. None of us had expected to stay in the Gunks for two days, but the idea seemed to be such a good one yesterday.
On Saturday, we took Barbara on Andrew, 5.4. The first pitch on the nice, 5.3 slab was especially inviting, and I daresay everybody enjoyed it. Sitting in the “shadow of the Twilight Zone” on the GT ledge, we made the first step toward trouble, by following the guidebook too closely. I made a 50-feet traverse (okay, maybe a BIT longer), as suggested, and found myself below something what might be interpreted as flaky right facing corner, just like the description of P2 of Andrew. Climbing that crack to an ominous overhang was quite stimulating, still, it was getting harder and harder. I was thinking to myself how really tough Gunks 5.4s can be, placed a good cam below the ceiling and reached up. Sure enough, the holds were there, but the climbing got by no means easy. Hanging mostly on my arms, I made an airy 15-foot long traverse to the right. Barbara and Lidač below vehemently refused to climb this and started setting up a rappel anchor. Was this route really Andrew? I arrived to a groove. Just like in the description of Andrew! I put in a solid nut and crawled up the sharp flake in the corner onto small ledge formed by a huge block of rock. The rope drag was not letting me any further, so I made a belay there, pondering that this was THE toughest 5.4 of my life.
Ben came up and cleaned the pitch, and finished off the remaining 20 feet to the top, while I was watching a climber next to us, climbing No Glow according to him. This was puzzling, because if I remembered correctly, No Glow was nowhere near Andrew in the guidebook. It started drizzling, so we hurriedly rappeled down No Glow from a steel cable anchor to the GT ledge, and traversed back to the double-ropes rappel which Lidija and Babs left there for us. I rushed to check the guidebook and Lo! The line we considered to be the second pitch of Andrew (5.4) was in fact P2 of Three Vultures (5.9). Such a bad luck! (Although, I have to say it was still a wonderful route, just not something to do if one is tuned up to an enjoyable 5.4).
Then the skies opened, and the heavy rain drove us back to the car.
And there we were on Sunday, hanging on Feast of Fools, with Ľuboš having taken multiple whippers on one of three bomber nuts set in the short, left-facing crux corner on pitch 2. He hit his ankle, I lowered him. The sharp end was handed over to me, and the prospect of the easy following of this pitch disappeared. Well, at least I didn’t have to bother with placing pro – Ľuboš placed as much gear as I could dream of. The crux was actually quite interesting, reachy, balanced moves between good holds, but a little bit run out. On the GT ledge, we got lured by the fantastic 3rd pitch of Easy Verschneidung, and decided to go with that. A short face to a notch in a big overhang and niiiice numerous buckets! What could be a nicer finish to our first 5.10b in the Gunks?
Quick rappel down the Arrow and even a quicker discussion about what to do now. “Let’s quietly clear the scene”, we have had just enough.
More pictures from Andrew, Rhododendron, Pink Laurel and Feast of Fools…
9/15/2009 at 13:05
I just want to point out that for each piece of protection you placed I told you at least once that that was NOT the second pitch of Andrew and that I was not bloody climbing it