First trip out to Farley this year! I went out there with Rich and it was pretty cool…
– 5.6 slab
The first climb just a warm up see where everything was at…I felt pretty good and got up quickly. I remember this climb being a bit harder the first time I did it but it is barely straight up. Only the last few moves are actually vertical. Nevertheless I felt good but was anticipating airblast
– Airblast (5.8)
I was definitely nervous about this climb. It’d been about a year since I’ve done any leading. My head wasn’t in the game at all…Anyway I willing let Rich go first and got my shit together. He came down and of course I had him clean the route so that I could lead it myself. I started up pretty tense and once I got the first clip I felt better. I kept moving up the route and periodically I’d think about where I was with respect to my protection. I’d get freaked out. There is one part where you have to go around a corner and are then exposed to actually how high up you are 🙂 it’s a really cool part of the climb. I wasn’t scared about being up high just didn’t want to fall since the last clip was about 6 feet down which would result in something like a 15 foot fall. Anyway I was way to tense…Got to the top and lowered down…
Rich lead again and then I followed up cleaning the gear. It was a lot better the second time and not having to worry about clipping I focused on finding the right line on the route since you can make it a lot harder otherwise. The climb is really really easy if you follow the right line up and it uses almost no energy. Rich schooled me on rappelling and when I got to the top I anchored in and setup a rappel. I was a bit uneasy doing this as it was probably only my 5 time. I had images in my head of me falling down to the ground.
– Trad Route ( 5.7)
Rich lead the trad route and I followed. The first move on this route is freaking weird. Next time I’ll spend more time figuring out how to do it more gracefully but it pulled a bunch of skin out of my right index finger (bastard!). Honestly every first climb I did I was nervous. It was like I couldn’t shake that really scared feeling I was having. It was definitely affecting my climbing for the worse, but I’m a good climbing so whatever…About halfway up I was like fuck this I’m not leading this route! I just didn’t have it in my to push myself anymore. Honestly at that point I was sick of all of the chances that I’d taken already. I go to the top and setup a rap, but this one was more difficult since I really didn’t have a good base to stand on. I did a good job although it took me awhile and then I rapped down.
Rich asked me if I wanted to lead it and I didn’t give him a solid answer. I should have just responded “No.” Fuck it I’ve got nothing to prove. I finally did say no it just took me a minute.
– Eye Opener ( 5.9 )
At this point I was fucking scared shitless. I really thought I was going to die on this route and that there was no way I could get up it. This time I started out but I had to eat something first. I started up and got the first clip easy. Cool. The second clip was pretty good too but my route choice from this point wasn’t good and I had to back down a bit and then I looked down and realized what the fuck Rich can’t help me I’ve got to keep climbing up! That was more like it and while I was scared I could feel that connection to climbing that I’ve felt before. I sailed the rest of the way up.
Came back down and was hoping to not do it again but then I did it anyway and this time I rocked up it like a rockstar. I don’t know what the hell I was afraid of…
We headed home after that as it was close to 5pm…