Gunks- RMC 5.5 * 1st pitch

Another classic at the Gunks. First climbed in 1948 and my first use of an old rusty piton. This climb included face, crack and a bit of chimney climbing. The belay ledge is above and to the left. The climb continues to the left of the belay ledge.

Gunks- RMC 5.5 * 2nd pitch

A beautiful upper pitch with lots of horizontal ledges for plugging gear.

Gunks- Betty 5.3 **

Betty is a classic. First ascent in 1941 by Betty Woolsey, it is described as a route that involves all types of climbing making it people's first real rock climb.

Marty lead both pitches to the top and set the rope for my mock lead. It was great, I could just sew it up where ever I wanted. The tree above me was the belay ledge.

The Gunks!

If you want to learn trad, this is the place. There are 4 main faces and I climbed on 'The Trapps' for all 3 days. This 'face' is 1.8 miles long and is about 200 to 300 feet high.

The first route went up in the 1940's on quite primitive gear. Most in a ground up fashion. In the 1980's went bolting was introduced to North America, the Gunks established itself as a trad area and no new bolts were allowed, only existing pitons and bolts. No sport climbing here!

I had an absolutely excellent time. The first day I climbed about 5 multipitch (two or three pitch) climbs, all of them Gunk Classics. Day two I started my trad course proper. It started with basic review of placements, anchors and rope work. For the rest of the day I did mock leads and Marty analysed must placements and anchors. That day I 'lead' two 3 pitch routes.

The next day we climbed a Gunks Classic "High Exposure". It should be called Shit Scare or Sphincter Spasm or something that implies the significance of that 'high exposure'. High Exposure is a 3 pitch climb with the crux being at the onset of the 3rd pitch. You climb an easy face to get under a roof. Using an under cling, you step onto a small ledge and reach way out and above to a nice hold you can't see. The problem is that you have about 120 feet of free air under you. This was the scariest 5.6 I have ever climbed.

This is a picture of one my guides climbing High Exposure with his wife. She is sitting on the belay ledge an he is just under the roof section. My hands sweat just looking at this.

After this, I did a mock climb of a 3 pitch route. The placements were few and far between making me run out the climb in places. What an excellent way to get your feet wet for trad climbing.

More pics to come on future posts.

Gunks In 3 Days

With luck I will be climbing at the Gunks Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The weather might actually agree...right now it looks like it won't rain but the temps are 1-3 degrees, kind of cold. It might warm up. If you are curious here are a couple of links to area websites.

Gunks.com is a website about activities in the Gunks including rock climbing. It has a limited list of routes. It does list 'must do' routes and ones good for TR and etc. Also has some good trad advise.

NEClimbs is an extensive North Eastern States Climbing website. Lots of great links locally and globally.

Alpine Endeavors is the guiding company that I am going to take some lessons with if all works out.

Hopefully I will have some good trip reports.

Food for thought on the Gri-Gri

I posted an incident of how I was accidentally dropped a couple of weeks ago. This was secondary to improper use of the Gri-Gri. I posted a link to the Petzl website concerning the proper use of the Gri-Gri for lead belay.

Last night Leo told me that he was going give a free course on a standardized way of using the Gri-Gri for lead belay. It was not the way recommended by Petzl!!! I was initially concerned. I listened to his argument but I was not totally won over. I came across a different source concerning the use of a Gri-Gri for lead belay that supported Leo's argument. This is the page;

http://www.8a.nu/eng/articles/grigri.htm

Regardless, I have been climbing on and off since 1995 (steady for the last 5 years) and I have never heard of a failed belay with the use of a tube belay device (ie ATC). My fall was the third failure of belay in St. John's using a Gri-Gri. I am not saying it is unsafe, but I will say it is a lot harder to lead belay. Be EXTREMELY cautious when learning to belay with the Gri-Gri and going to Leo's information session should be at the top of your 'to do' list.

Noel

Yellow Fever

Yellow Fever 5.9 is a classic climb on Main Face. The movement is consistent and fun with a few high steps. There is one bolt about 10 meters up and 2 top bolts for anchors. It is about 25 meters in height.

This climb changed Main Face for me. Prior to climbing Yellow Fever, the only climbs I had done on Main Face were Hucuna Matata and Flaccid. I usually went to Spankies Playground.

Little did I know what I was missing. I spent the rest of the summer exploring Main Face and loving it. The rock is solid and for the most part friendly.

Newfoundland is a tricky place to learn trad climbing. Cracks here are not very consistent and vary greatly in width. You just don't get nice easy splitters. The other thing is that there are not a lot of developed 5.2 to 5.8 trad climbs, especially at Flat Rock.

New areas are opening up!!