| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2006-05-07 21:00:40 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Whitney-Gilman Ridge (5.7)
4.29.06 Woody Hoburg and Dan Walker So it starts with the usual dilema: go up late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Originally Darren was going to come too, so we called him to let him decide. Well, now he couldn't make it, so it was up us to decide. After nearly calling him back to let him decide anyway, we decide to just pack and go now. We figure on about an hour until launch. Just enough time to go to Shaws and stock up on pork products. mmmmm. Woody and I roll up to Camelot and manage to get to bed a bit after midnight. We get up at the entirely reasonable 6am and head up to Cannon. Awake, cleaned up and out of the cabin, and in and out of D+D in less than 30 min. Try that during winter school. We head up to the base of the climb. Hey look! there is some ice in the black dike. sort of. Woody does not seem too impressed, and fortunately I didn't bring my tools to push the issue. As we hike up, we think we are in luck -- nobody else on the climb. Unfortunately, a party has been hiding at the start, and befins the first pitch just as we get there. bummer. We decide to give them plenty of head start to keep the rockfall off our heads. Another group comes up before too long, so it is a climbing sandwich. I take the first pitch up a fist-ish crack that seems harder than it should. I decide that I just suck. [update: Chauvin Guides sez this is 5.7 instead of 5.4] Up then to some face and low angle stuff to a big ledge. Woody runs up and takes the next pitch up a steep little spike with a big step over to the main rock. Then some easier stuff to another ledge. I take the third pitch wandering through some thin (knifeblade) cracks and recently detached rock to the third ledge. Woody does the pipe pitch, with a dicy move series up into a overhanging-ish block and high step arount to thin face. Then up a runout thin crack. when seconding, I avoid the thin crack by an airy traverse up through some blocks. The belay is halfway up the next pitch, so we think we can exit in only one more pitch. Woody takes another lead up some face/crack stuff, then around left through steep blocky terrain with a couple thin sections. After hanging out at the top chatting with the guide from the group below us, we head down and Woody calls his mom (it's Woody's Mom's Birthday. how does that song go? '...has got it going on.'). Since its still 2pm, we figure we need some more climbing. On to Rumney for some "sport-climbings". After getting lost in the forest, we watch some huge dudes climbing some crazy stuff. Eventually we go up to Jimmy Cliff for some climbing of our own. Hey, its Mina and some other MIT cats. We climb a facey 5.10d, a nice sustained 5.10a, and an interesting 5.8. We figure the 5.8 was the hardest. At least a bit of inflation is good for the self-esteem. Then back to Camelot for some fantastic BBQ and inspection of the sweet work the keyholder dudes did. Nice ditch! -dan |