Monday, March 31st, 2008

Climbing: A Hangless Day at Discovery Wall

The day started out dicey — cloudy, gusty, with occasional drizzles. In the afternoon, there was more sun and it warmed up a little. Finally, the day ended being spectacular.F4, Mud, and I were joined by the Landshark family at Discovery Wall. In the morning, we were almost ready to call it a day after Wet Kiss and Big Pucker, but as the day went on, we assaulted Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Verdict, Pistol Wipped, Broken Arrow, Here Comes the Judge, Buffalo Soldier. I did all of them on TR Embarrassed, but then it was the first time I got on the four underscored climbs today, which made it all special. All these climbs are CLASSIC!

A party was held at F4’s place afterwards. Happy B-Day, Landshark!

Here are the photos:


Something does not seem right… The belayer wears a helmet, but the leader does not!


Oh, that’s because F4 needed the helmet to keep his head warm in the cold weather. How cold? Well, here is Debby and Mud to show you how cold it was. (We ran into Debby at DW.)


Big daddy and little baby


It’s nice to have a big daddy because he makes a pretty darn good swing

[Note: The above was posted to the forum first.]

Blog Exclusives:

  • This was a “hangless” day for Mud and I — neither of us fall or hang climbing. That made us feel pretty darn good. To some extent, the cold weather helped. In the morning, I noticed that I was hanging off of some sharp holds that normally would have pained me enough for me to come off of, but today, my fingers couldn’t feel the pain because they were numb.
  • Surprise, surprise! We bumped into my good friend, Debby, at DW. It was good to see her, but it also made me feel guilty. She asked me about my weekend plan earlier in the week, and at that time, I told her that we would be at a B-day gathering near Sonora for the entire weekend. So, we did not make plans together. Later, the B-day plan was changed due to the iffy weather and it was not until the weekend did we decide on the Sunday plan. I thought about calling/emailing Debby, but thought she would have made plans by then. She sure did, but I should have updated her from my end.
  • My husband tackled me today!!! He was being lowered down Buffalo Soldier, which sits above the first half of Ordeal. In order not to disturb the climbers on and below Ordeal, he moved around the arete to the other side after coming off the top half of Buffalo Soldier. Now he was 30 feet to the right of the fall line (gravity line), and he had to half down climb. Close to the ground, suddenly he came off the rock. With the rope pulling sideways, he started pendulum and I was right in his path. I had two options: either duck and let him pendulum past me, or stay where I was and stop his pendulum. I remember those two options flashed through my mind and I stayed where I was. It was probably more of an instinct, because two years ago, I shuffled my hand under a falling 27″ TV trying to stop its fall, which only resulted in a broken finger. Anyway, after evaluating some options flashing through his mind, he tried his best to turn around and came to me with his chest. Even though he tried to hug me (for the minimum impact), I was still knocked off of the boulder I was sitting on and fell into a gap next to it. (I did not let my brake hand go.) But that was enough to stop him from gaining more momentum for a brief second before he swung further and managed to stop himself when his feet touched the ground. Nobody was hurt. We got a good laugh out of it. That was exciting!