Good god... how am I going to remember everything we climbed? I met Joe up at the base of the stairmaster last Thursday around 3:45, and we figured we'd get a few climbs in. We didn't have a guidebook, so we just started walking, contemplated Snooky's (Joe hadn't done it and he said it looked "hard"; I couldn't convince him otherwise), and finally ended up on Raunchy (consensus: 5.6. Dick gives it 5.8). We then wandered over to Triangle, though Joe was convinced that Triangle was further down. Apparently the route is named for the big rock flake at the base of the climb, but I always thought it was for the triangular shaped pod at the right of the overhang...consensus: 5.8. Dick gives it 5.9-. Damn we suck!

We had a couple of end of the day drinks in the lot when we were done, went over the Brigid & Yves' place to leave a car, and before heading out to dinner, had a couple more drinks (well, not me, I was driving!). Tried the Otter, just to mix it up a bit. It was okay, but a bit pricey. Grzregorz and his friend met us there and after a couple of pitchers, we went back to Brigid & Yves'... much drinking ensued, including some killer polish vodka that gzreg had. We didn't get to bed until after 4AM. I was up at 8, ready to go, but nobody else was... wandered over to the deli (Joe, you want anything? I just need another hour of sleep), came back... sat around... finally roused Joe... oh I just need food... oh I just need a nap... ended up going to split rock with the dogs and taking a 4 hour nap while being chewed up by bugs. We didn't do ANY CLIMBING! We went to Greg & Jen's that evening after a funny dinner at the Brauhaus, where Joe's friend Andrew met up with us.

The next morning, we decided to head down to the Sleepy Hollow area, and we got a ride in the back of the ranger truck, which was killer. Joe did Casablanca (5.9) while I did Emilio (5.7+); Yves, who'd walked from his house, showed up just in time to see me blow the crux. It's basically a deal where you step up on some big ledges and have a big reach to a very good but scarily thin flake way out on the roof above you; you then have to get up onto a bulge that is to your right. I managed to reach over and clip a draw onto the fixed pin on top of the bulge, but trying to step up on to it I got totally pumped and was trying to downclimb - which is very difficult as you need to blindly reach down and jam your hand in a horizontal, but as to do the move up to the flake in the first place requires a bit of a leap and a slap, it's not really possible. Thankfully I'd traversed under the bulge and clipped a fixed angle that's under there, otherwise, my other gear would have been a couple of feet to the left and a foot or so further under the roof so my fall would not have been quite so clean. My first lead fall; now I just need to take a whipper on gear I've actually placed! I hopped back up and noticed a chalked up hold low down on the edge of the bulge I was stepping on to; the trick was to stay low, step around to the front of the bulge and then climb up it, rather than try to rock on to it from the side. Oh well. After that, we went over to the CCK area, where Joe & I did the first pitch of Erect Direction (5.8) and the second of CCK (5.7+), while Greg and Andrew did the first pitch of CCK and the second of Updraft. CCK was good; I just wish we'd gotten on it earlier, while there was still light hitting the face so that we could have gotten better photos. After we came down, Joe led the first pitch of Keep on Struttin', which was a reasonably good. We had a really good dinner at Greg and Jen's that night, with Jamaican jerk kebabs, cabbage and mango salad, spicy string beans, cheese and crackers, rosemary potatoes and far too much alcohol. I was the hungover one on Sunday morning, but to my credit I did not waste the entire day the way Friday was wasted!

We warmed up with Joe leading Snooky's (see, told you it wasn't difficult), and then, because Friends and Lovers was taken, we walked down the path to Gory Thumb, in the process discovering that the unknown route Joe and I had climbed on Thursday was Raunchy. Greg and Andrew did Raunchy, while I followed Joe up Gory Thumb (5.9); it was a very nice route with very slippery feet up the crack. I was feeling quite a bit better by this point, so I racked up with Greg's rack to do Absurdland (5.8) while Joe did Never Never Land (5.10a). I ended up wasting a lot of energy dicking around with the gear, trying to figure out which pieces were which size (I don't own any DMM cams, and only one alien; Greg's rack was almost exclusively these pieces), and by the time I grabbed the wrong biner of nuts and had to fiddle with placing one sideways at the top of the bulging face, I blew too much energy trying to get it set right and had to hang on it. After I regrouped, the rest of the crux went no problem. I then popped over the Never Never Land and after some beta, figured out how the crux needed to be pulled - only to have my left hand rip off the crimper and tear my middle fingernail in half. I did get it second time around, and "twinkle toed" up the rest of the route. I think my small hands were an advantage, up top, where Joe'd backed down several times before finally making the move with a bit of a slap for a hold, I was able to find a couple of intermediate crimps and haul myself up relatively gracefully. We met up with my brother and sister and their significant others, and then went down to finish the day on the first pitch of Birdie Party, which was quite nice. There was a big party in Gardiner that night that we popped over to afterwards; lots of wine and champagne and about 20 different sorts of pasta salad, and a calypso band doing lots of fun covers. I passed out almost immediately upon returning to Greg and Jen's.

Monday was again a very mellow start day; we got up late and then had breakfast at a diner. Bisuits and gravy were not on the menu, but they had them when Joe asked, and the waitress suggested a double order... three huge biscuits each, smothered in sausage studded flour gravy... one order would have been plenty! Properly weighted down with breakfast, Joe, Andrew and I started walking, until we came to what Joe was convinced was Sixish. Having don ethe climb a dozen times in the past I knew it wasn't; some passersby settled the debate by telling us it was Asphodel. I led it and was surprisingly perplexed by a move in the middle of the first corner, but the rest went off fine except for a few rope management issues, and it ended up being a reasonably nice climb. I very much liked the face up top; very easy, but for whatever reason (north facing?), the nature of the vegetation and the rock just seemed a little different from a lot of the rest of the gunks. Joe then decided that he was going to do Le Teton as a single pitch... and failed miserably. He got up to the crux, and went up and down half a dozen times before retiring to the belay ledge, making an anchor and bringing up me and Andrew. It was a combination of the weight of the ropes, and the newbie belaying by Andrew (eg pulling in teh rope when he should have been feeding out slack, etc.) that did him in, I think. After we were there, he gave it another couple of goes before figuring out the sequence and firing the rest of the pitch. The problem is that the crack wants to draw you right, and there are really good chalked up holds straight above...but there is nowhere to go from there. Rather, you have to get a nice right hand jam at the top of the crack, keep your feet low, and stretch out to the horizontals out left. A short hand traverse gets you to a huge horn, a nice pin, and big feet. The rest of the climb is spectacular - huge jugs, but really really steep, taking you straight up the prow of the arete. Really fantastic. Andrew wasn't able to do the crux pitch, so we left him at the belay and collected him on the way down. As a warm down, we ran up Apoplexy back at the uberfall, had the requisite fish and chips at Bacchus (but no tacos for Joe this time!!) and I said my goodbyes to Stella and Rocky and drove home. I'm working today... think I'll be able to see the fireworks out the window at the hospital!

But honestly, I feel like saying screw this vet stuff, I want to be a climbing bum for the rest of my life....