Of course we go to Anna Liffey’s.

Sunday 30^th

The alarm goes off at about 6.30am. In a frenzy of flailing limbs and shouting I manage to shut it up and stagger into the shower. It is there that I realize how terrible I feel.

Ye Gods, I’m going to die.

After the shower I eat some breakfast, brush the fangs and then lie down for another half hour or so. I wake up with a start as some automatic fail-safe mechanism jolts me back into the conscious world. Death is very much the preferred option.

I try to reach James, but only get an answering machine. I try Lu next.

     “Mmmm?”
“Luciana?”
     “Mmmm ... what?”

She’s pretty tired because she went to a party last night. But she’s good to go, I give her about 30 minutes. I call up John and he askes if I can pick up Henrik, a swedish dude I have met kayaking with John earlier in the year. Ok, fine, I get the details and call up Henrik. James calls me almost as soon as I hang up again. Ok, he’s good to go as well, he gets about 20 minutes.

I go downstairs and hurl all of my ropes and gear (which is totally disorganized) into a giant dufflebag I had purchased the previous day. I bought this thing to carry all of my stuff for an upcoming Arizona trip John and I are planning. Looks like it’s going to come in handy sooner than I thought.

In the car, driving around and picking up the troops. We’re on our way out of New Haven by about 8.20am. We are going to try and meet John at the visitor center under the cliffs sometime close to 10am.

You know the sort of hangover you get which is combined with medium-awful mexican food … it’s like there’s a snake writhing in your guts and it’s making your stomach so nervous that it wants to get out. I wonder to myself if I am still over the alcohol limit. Naaah, couldn’t be … I have superhuman powers of metabolism … at least I used to.

We get to the Gunks and reach the visitor center at about 10.15am, mere seconds before John gives up on waiting for us. He’s there with his parents and his youngest son, Jay the indescribably evil. I want to buy a Gunks guide but I’ve forgotten my wallet, so I coerce James into buying it for me. John organizes a rendezvous point at a climb called Red Pillar. We (me, James, Lu and Henrik) troop off to repark my car and walk it in.

The trek was unremarkable except that my gear-filled dufflebag is possibly the least appropriate container for hauling my gear to the base of a climb. It was very heavy and extremely unwieldy … James and Henrik actually carry it most of the way. The climb was very easy to find, John’s description and the Guide were actually both quite good. At the base we start to get ready and see that nearby there are quite a few people climbing or setting up to climb. For instance we were just to the left of a three star classic called Three Doves (5.8+) that a young couple were preparing to scale.

My mind was still pretty fuzzy, so preparations were slow. John showed up, gave me some pertinent beta and then whisked Henrik away saying that they would be climbing with Jay on Easy V (5.3) not far away to the right. You have to admire John’s love of the game, he’s got this fantastic ability to find enjoyment beyond the rating scale and he has a great capacity to impart his enthusiasm for beautiful climbs regardless of their apparent level of difficulty.

At some point I found that I was on belay, James and Lu looked at me expectantly. Ah right, ok … now what did John say again? I step up to the very easy beginning of Red Pillar (5.5). It is pretty easy too. I reach the tree without having to place any pro, sling that and then go all the way to the top of the pillar - no problemo. It’s not as cold as it was earlier and I’m comfortable in T-shirt and jeans. However the stomach-snake is still doing lazy flip-flops in my belly.

Yeah, when it gets colder I put on a loose pair of jeans … I’m just no fan of those pantaloony things and the thought of lycra gives me the heebie-jeebies … anyway it’s not like I’m climbing anything hard.

So what now, the climb looks a bit more serious … I see the pin that John told me about down below … hmm, that’s a bit high. I step up and then step up again, finding those wonderful positively angled horizontal finger-tip cracks and plenty for the feet. Er … the next bit looks a bit sparse. I struggle to find some pro for a long time.

Here’s the thing. I can maybe climb this thing drunk and blindfold, but only on toprope. However this looks hard to protect properly and for me no pro means no go.

I spooked myself a bit by placing a so-so tricam and then watched it pop smoothly out as I tried to set it. I got a cruddy #.75 camalot into a shallow groove instead, it looked pretty yuck … but it gave me the cojones to move up a yard to the next good handhold. I was still a little short of the pin.

”Hey Keith, how’s it going?” John was somewhere along Easy V and spying on my progress.

“SLOW.” I shout back.

”Heh. Ok.”

Ok. I wriggle in a pink tricam so it doesn’t just fall out right away. At best this has merely reduced the weight I have to carry just a tiny bit. That in and clipped I step high, stand up and then reach for that hold just by the pin. Got it. Excellent. I clip a draw in smartly and my worries melt away. I back clean those two cruddy placements, below me Lu and James watch patiently as I give them the thumbs up. The rest of the pitch is pretty good, except there is one really reachy move halfway between the pin and the big ledge I’m aiming for.

As I get near the top, running out the last really easy section (although the rope-drag was kinda butch), I see John walking along it from the end of Easy V’s first pitch. He asked me how it went and I said that it felt a bit harder than a 5.5 should. He snorted at this a bit and said that maybe it was a little stiffly graded. As I walked up to a stance he suggested I use for a belay John started to give me some clues about the next pitch.

It’s like having some magic geni pop into your life and give you the necessary hints just when and where you need them. From underneath the unwashed dogsblanket that was my hangover I found it a truly needed blessing. My brain was not in much of a climbing mood.

Having dispensed some invaluable advice John disappeared back to his own route to belay up Jay or Henrik.

I set up to belay Luciana. Shouting, yelling, hauling up the slack. More yelling. Guessing that someone’s got the idea and slowly hauling up the line as she climbed. That’s it, when I get rich I’m gonna git me a pair o’ them walkin’ talkin’ thangs. Anyhow, after a period of good progress she stops moving for a long time … I’m in no position to see what’s happening, but I’m guessing she’s at one of the stretchy bits. Lu is kind of small, see, like really small. This presents a bit of a problem for her climbing … but so far she has answered most challenges with the necessary determination. Eventually she is moving again. After a time she has stopped once more. Waiting. I can hear her voice faintly calling out.

”Keith … I can’t reach it. It’s too high.”

Ah, she’s at that really stretchy bit above the pin. After lots of yelling we agree that I’m going to tension the rope pretty hard, she uses this a little bit of assistance and manages to reach the high holds. Soon she’s up beside me, hauling James’ rope behind her like an overworked dray horse – oh yeah, the rope drag thing was pretty tough. She helps me pull up the slack on James’ rope and then I start belaying him up too.

As Lu is small, so James is tall. The big bloke moved quickly up, pausing only to clean out the protection and also once at that stretchy bit (but here for no more than a dozen seconds), swinging into view and marching up to our belay. Lu and I gave each other a look. God-damn lanky so and so, it’s just too bloody easy for him isn’t it … cut his legs orf and we’ll see how well he climbs then eh?

“That was good.” He said.

I’ll bet.

Ok, so I explained the beta that John had given me and told them where we were going from here. Straight up past the tree to a tricky corner, then up and left to a small notched almost-roof which would provide some interest (this is what John said anyway). Basically just go where the dried up browny lichen stuff isn’t. So up I went, just below the tree I put in a tricam I thought was truly magnificent.

“You’re going to need to hammer that one out.” I warned James.

Up higher was that tricky corner, few foot holds equals a little laybacking here … ok, no real concern, just a little bit worrisome. The protection was much better on this pitch, so I wasn’t too bothered. Up and left to that … ouch, unk … hey, this is a bit cramped. I was doubled over on a small ledge under the little roof. So this is the bit John hinted might be … ah … interesting. Above the roof it’s very smooth, the notch widens into a big crack up there too. A bit of ferocious underclinging allowed me to poke my spare hand into the high crack. Oh heck, where’s the hand hold? Lu’s gonna love this one too. I spent much time here, looking mostly for somewhere to place my feet so I could reach further up and into that crack. Bending backwards out from under the roof was giving me the jitters too.

Down below Lu takes off the helmet I have loaned her (it’s Leila’s bike helmet) and it rolls out of reach and off the cliff. Never to be seen again.

I eventually work out the footholds and go for a high reaching grab on the left side of the crack above the roof. I get what feels like a good hold way up high and release my undercling hold to add that hand above me. It’s in the crack and jammed into the notch and my bloody feet slip a tiny little fraction. That small skid pumps me absolutely full of adrenaline and I haul myself rapidly up on my arms. Somehow a foot swings into the notch and I’m suddenly standing up in a pretty wide crack above the roof.

At the bottom of the pitch that perfect tricam of mine slips out of its pocket. James turns to Lu and dryly remarks that perhaps he wont have to hammer it out after all.

The rest is easy and I’m real close to the top. Down below I can hear John’s voice again. He’s talking to James and Lu. Jesus that guy sure gets around, maybe he’s climbed up Three Doves or something. After setting up an anchor station on a handy tree trunk, I belay for Lu, who has a better time of this pitch than the last. This is so even though that roof problem provides some early consternation and we again employ a little tension on the rope to get her through. She said that she was a little scared.

When it’s James’ turn he gets no help from me and has to figure it out for himself. He takes less than a minute to put the sequence together and he’s over the notch. As he moves up beside me he comments that a month or so away from climbing has drained his fingers of the strength they used to have.

They’re both very hungry and suggest that maybe we should go get some food before any further climbing. Well, despite my (now-fading) discomfort I am also a bit hungry … it’s been a long time since breakfast. In fact it’s 2pm and it has taken us about 3 hours to get up here! Ouch.

There are a couple of rap points nearby, but we have to downclimb to them … which we do on belay. James goes first and sets an anchor sling up for us on the bolts, then Lu follows and then I go next (belayed by James). As we are setting the ropes for rappel a climber moves up from below. So we make room for him and he’s pretty friendly. We carefully lower the ropes to avoid inconveniencing his partner and I put all three of us on spider rappel set-ups. James is ok, he’s rappelled using a bunch of different methods so I’m not particularly worried for him. Lu, however, has never rapped before. She seems somewhat concerned but we (including that guy who climbed up to us) help her decide to give it a shot. I go first and head down, Lu follows (it’s much easier than she thought) and then James leaps down too. We repeat this for the next pitch too … very smooth, very easy.

At the bottom we pack everything up and haul it all back to the car. It’s like after 3pm or something and I’m pretty sure that our climbing is done for the day. We hit the big germanic restaurant at the end of route 199 and chow down pretty heavily as we were all starving. Afterwards I’m so stuffed I can hardly move. There, that did it … no chance of climbing anything now. Driving home I get so sleepy that I’m starting to drop off behind the wheel. So gentleman James finishes off the driving for me.

I call up John after I get home and catch up with how his day went. It went pretty well, even though Henrik had a minor epic on Easy V, or was that some other climb John?