Index with Rudy

Published on 2004-7-22 by Michael Stanton

Index Climbing, 7/22/04

Rudy and I were back (3 weeks later?) for a quick morning climbing fix. He led Japanese Gardens to the mid-pitch double bolt anchor as a warm up. I top roped it, found it fun and fairly easy - a great warm up. Leaving gear in place, he re-led, then reached the first crux after a tricky lieback/offwidth section. Getting good gear above a bulge, he set off on shallow cuticle jams (5.11b), and lobbed off just as his right hand reached a great fingerlock. It was an exciting 20 foot fall, which woke him up nicely. The tiny TCU he placed in a finger pocket held. After sending the move, he reached the second crux (5.11c) and had a similar problem, again overcome after one fall.

Now I had to somehow climb it, yikes! I repeated the first section, finding it harder now that the sun was beating on the crag. I had some trouble moving from lieback to offwidth, but got it on the second try. The first crux was incredibly hard I thought. I flailed around greatly, eventually "grokking" the 2-3 moves required to reach a great finger pocket. A bit tired, I climbed a hand crack up to a big stem, then positioned for the final crux - a real monster! I made the first moves but never did figure out the next two or three needed to get into a solid crack above. Once on the ground Rudy could explain the kind of dynamic nature of it - hands on a shallow ledge, walk your feet up quickly and lunge for the crack. Sounds so easy now! (yeah right). A few more moves reached the anchor. What a great climb, something to work on for me definitely!

The wall was baking even at 9 am, so we repaired to the Inner Wall. Rudy gave me beta for Toxic Shock (5.9), and I climbed up, a little frazzled from the previous hard climb. Nonetheless, I found my kidneys turning yellow from the shock of steep liebacking, then an awesome, bomber vertical hand crack. Rudy climbed it, then I scrambled the variation 5.8 start to the route. Halfway up Rudy tossed me a rope to tie on to so I wouldn't hit the ground if I fell. Good idea, oh wait, that was my idea! It's a great variation, definitely do both.

Off to work, sad to leave the granite planet!