DISCLAIMER: this is a trip report of one day of climbing. Climbing is an inherently dangerous sport, treat it seriously and get proper instruction. All the jokes, opinions, and comments in this trip report are just such, and not to be taken seriously. Use your own judgement, and above all, my cardinal rule of climbing: "Never do anything which you don't feel comfortable of doing". If anyone gives you trouble for following this rule (ie you are in the middle of the mountain you dont want to go on, and your partner is coercing you to), just say "that is what Hector says". PS: you can find some of the lessons learned from this adventure directly at the end of this massage. Hi, In order to maintain my license to climb, I would just like to share my experiences and lessons from my first miniepic (keyword _mini_). It all started during a normal day of climbing at red rocks during spring break. Julie Ma and I were carpooling with Dave Anderson and Alex Hoelke. we were going to do Cat and the Hat (5.6+) 5/6 pitches, and they were going to do Crimson Chrysalis (5.8+) 9 pitches. Considering the differences of our climbs, I felt confident that we would return much earlier to the car than them, and hence the day initially took a very relaxed form (boy was I wrong). Finding the climb, I guess is the hardest part, and probably leaving it or descending it is the second hardest (sure there is route finding, loose rock, and other objective hazards, but these two have gotten me repeatedly). So it took julie and I probably and extra hour after the hour hike in to find the base of the climb. Fortunately we found it; I was already eye-balling some non-in-the-book lines up the rock, which Julie was not so eager in taking (she had to stand tough, but she would be soften in no time). Suprisingly, there was no one at the base or on the climb at 10 or 11am!!! this was a first. And of course, this was one of the reasons that it took sooo long to find the climb!! (why isn't there people around when you need them!!! arghh). Anyways, I talked Julie into bringing our pack and all of the stuff with us, due to some strange unfounded weird soon to lose ethic that I have (had). I guess just the feeling of self-suficiency. In reality, is a stupid idea, since the descent involves rapping down to the base of the climb!!!. I led the first pitch which took us into a nice ledge. Little did I know I would be doing a couple of laps on this pitch later in the day. Julie then got us to the nicer and bigger ledge higher above. On this ledge, we spent sometime finding were the route went. The topo map in the book shows this as a windy(wrong spelling) line. while she was looking for the route, I was drooling at the nice ramp on the left that lead to a small roof, and then followed onto a second roof with a huge flake on it. There was some chalk on it, so someone must have been on it... Not finding the route quickly, allowed me to start convincing Julie that liberating our souls from the guidebook, and letting our spirits soar into the unknown would be more fun and adventurous...(of course it did not sound this nice at the time...). In addition, perhaps known or not known to Julie was the fact that if we would need to bail and leave gear behind I would tak resposability for its cost (that is the reason I have been secretly building my booty rack, to be given back to the mountain when the day comes...) 5 minutes of bribes and fantastic and mystical stories (and the fact that I would be leading this thing not her :) allowed our climb to continue in a new direction. The third new pitch was excellent, the ramp takes lots of nuts (I was saving my few cams for the crux). There is a nice finger crack running on the right of it that allows plenty of contact; a couple of layback moves gets and a high step gets you over the first small roof. This is the point were I learned two things, first I am not flexible (need to develop this), and second, when you are leading you got to do what you've to do. I got to a point were I really need to place protection, but no easy rest position was to be found, until I looked way left for a good foothold. Key word here is way left!. After convincing myself that I would not break, I strechted my leg (with a little help of my hand) to the foot hold for a stem. This was somewhat painful, but needlees to say, very easy on my guns (arms and hands). Lesson #1, need to become more like gumby (or Kate who beats us all in flexibility by doing a full split), the advantages to climbing go beyond better climbin (ie better resting position available). The second roof, is completed by doing a hands traverse right under the flake then going over a bulge. At this point Julie was relieved that I was at the top (or rather that I did not have to endure her through a leader fall). I courteosly offered to haul up the pack (did I mention what a pain in the arse was carrying this pack? which was not light). This is where having a pulley with you (and not in you home) would be useful. hauling the pack arm over arm was tiring (I was relieved by the fact that Julie would be leading the next pitch). Julie followed the route no problem (that is why I go in adventures with professional top-notch climbers); although I faintly remember her first curse words at me: "You suck!", I am still trying to understand what she was meaning by that. I was suprised at first how easy she accepted to lead the next pitch (of course until I remembered I would be carrying the pack). She went up a crack diagonally left for about 30-50 feet, when I heard "off-belay". I was "what? that's it?". She had found the crapiest smallest weakest rap bush I have ever seen. But it was a good place to stop, since the only other way was either up or down, and stopping there was good for minimizing rope drag. I caught up with her shortly after. The view from this belay ledge was very nice and solitaire (you could not see the crowds on other climbs). Scouting around for the line of least resistance, did not prove to be easy, i.e. there was no obvious 5.4 chimney to take us to the top. no problem. A minute later, my eyes caught what seemed to be a biner or a rap ancher about 50 feet higher up. "Hey Julie, we are saved, I am going to go up to that rap anchor, that must be part of some route not in the book". The first protection above the anchor is very important, and considering we were in a small slanting ledge, and I was going up a thin crack, I wanted to place it very early. This is were my smallest ball-nutz came in handy, I placed it in a nickel slot size crack, it was beutiful (ie you had to be there). climbed up this thin crack onto a small ledge. Then proceeded diagonally left up a better protectable crack (there was an off-width crack directly up, but not really protectable). Lead climbing is not as unsafe or dangerous as it seems as long as the rock features take gear to protect or bail out of the route if need be; and yeah there is the thing of "don't fall", but with time, you learn to eye things that are at your skill level of which you know is very unlikely to fall, and the things that you know you are likely to fall (in which case you place gear every 4 or 5 feet to minimize the distance fallen). And sure there are ledges to which you can deck out, but as long as you are ready to use your 10% reserve power to overcome the moves right above the ledges and protect it soon, you are ok. Ok, after finishing the diagonal crack a small right traverse leads me to the biner we saw at the bottom. To my suprise, it was no rappel anchor, it was a leaver bail biner!! (actually two biners and two nuts). Normally I would have put that booty gear faster in my rack than you can say "is that booty?", but considering that I was still climbing, and that I actually needed protection, I clipped to it (needless to say they were pretty bomber). Traverses are fun, they have lots of exposure, require a lot of delicate balance, not so much strength and good concentration; on the downside, they require lots of protection, since a second's or follower's fall can be as bad as a leader's fall. At this point, the options for going up were thinning out, and I felt that if I traversed right enough I would eventually join back the route we came to do (remember "Cat and the Hat"). So I decided to continue traversing right and protecting (I even placed a #3 nut if you know how those look like). The next 15 feet of the traverse were really fun, they involved pulling yourself in and down with a shallow undercling. For me, it was about at waist level which made it awkard, but I think it was at a good level for Julie (I wanted to make the climb also pleasant for her). The end of it dumps you at what I believe is the crux of the traverse: a traverse around a blunt corner which slopers or small handholds. And yes, the exposure was excellent, nothing to be seen under it!!!. Reciting some songs that I had learned some days before allow me to clear my mind for doing this without leaving the mountain wet (if you know what I mean), few seconds later I was on the other side, with nice juggy black barnished sandstone. Traversing right 15 more feet lead me to a secure big chimney/crack to setup a belay anchor. As always except for two details: I was very short of gear (the traverse had deprived me of all my quickdraws), and yes your faithful recurring enemy, rope drag!. The first problem was easily solved by the fact that I was carrying a nice long sling somewhere in the back of my harness (without even realizing it). The second problem required 3 trips to the crux corner to extend the sling to minimize rope drag. In each trip I would use a biner and a nut (with the nut slid into the middle), to improvise a poor man's draw. This allow me to extend the distance between the protection and the rope 10 inches. I did this, went back to the anchor, still too much rope drag, then went back to it, ad naseum. Finally they cry of relieved to the belayer: "Julie Off-Belay" (which now after considering other options, I am thinking of using the word "Safe" as opposed to "Off-Belay" as to not be confused with "On-Belay"). Je je, Julie had no idea of what was ahead for her, I had gone through the route in a special state of mind, that allow me to go through it without being scared or put out of concentration (all those years in the Buddist monastery inn Tibet really paid off). I suggested to Julie, in order for a more comfortable travel and better balance (and minimizing the chances of her falling and ripping all my gear out, which would tarnish my reputation), that she can leave the pack at the rap anchor. I would simply later rap to it and ascend up with the pack. She accepted with no contest. I will admit Julie is a very cool partner, I have put this text here in the middle so that she wont actually read it and most likely neither will you since it is unlikely you have read this far... but anyways Julie is a cool partner for climbing, she maybe hard to convince at first, but a couple of baby faces, extra fleeces, and dinners you can convince her, she climbs well, does not complain (which could be good or bad: good because she is having fun, bad because she might be hiding something, but I think is the former), and she is usually game for fun trips. Anyways, I was not able to see her during the climb (remember the blunt corner?), but the rope moved up a constant undisturbed pace (except for the occassional stop for her to clean pro). I was also praying for her to clean up the booty gear (I mean is there any other reason we did the climb?). Every once in a while I would hear some faint words from her, but I thought it had nothing to do with me, or the climb, and if they were she would obviously say them louder. I found out what does words were as she got closer, they were something like you suck!, you are nuts!, you are insane!. It is hard to get compliments these days you know!. I think her compliments stem a little from the fact that she had to do some harder climbing than I in order to clean my reachy placed protection. This is lesson #2, place protection thinking of your second and the position she or he will be. Although in this case I am able to use Relief Clause #7 which says "In times of hard or on-sight or unknown leads, you can forget lesson #2". I think she was very impressed with my metal artwork and nut patched up last piece of protection. Ahh it all would have been dandy, if it wasn't for the fact that I still had to go down and fetch the pack! (I would have ditched it, but it was pretty new, and it had my pop tarts in it, and sure shoes, water, fleece and other stuff...). We climbed 30 feet higher to reduce the pendulum. At this point we were relieved to see the parties on the actual climb "Cat and the Hat" just 40 feet right of us. A simple question like "how hard does it look to get from here to there" was positively answered by the Oregon girl "looks very easy" (did I mention there were many Oregon girls and people in Red Rocks?). The plan I told Julie, is that I would rappel to get the pack and then ascend up on the rope; but there would be a small chance that I could ask you to belay me up, in which case I would anchor myself, and then you would put me on belay. It was a long rap, probably 100-150 feet, unfortunately it was also way to the side (about 50 feet), yikes. I was relieved to find the pack untouched (not really, I would have rather been suprised to see people there, or rather amused if other parties would have followed our route thinking they were on route!!). I decided that ascending the rope would wear my soft sensitive skin too much, and that it would hurt my little toes having to put my feet in the prussik slings. So I told julie to put me on belay. The only risk involved (or rather fun adrenaline rush) would be that if I fell, I would pendulum 50 feet in the air across the face of the rock. Having double ropes makes this possible accident safer because it would be very unlikely that both ropes would be cut should there be any hidden edges. (the real reason is that I felt pretty good about repeating the route, but I have to make it sound more sensionalistic, otherwise people would not read my trip reports, no really, I am really a safe person...). Unfortunately this time, I was on the blunt end of the rope (as opposed to the sharp end), and now the difficutly of the rope became apparent to me!!. Fortunately for me, I had a new song stuck in my head (I see a bad moon rising...), this song allowed me to go up this route yet again, without being scared out of my willies. Although it did require the same level of concentration as before, just because a fall could potentially scrape my skin more than when I was on lead, just before. fifteen or twenty minutes later I was back with Julie, in the comfort of the closeness of the standard or normal route. A quick downclimb and upclimb brought us to the belay rock of the second to last pitch of cat and the hat. At this point it was about 4:30. Unfortunately I had been told by Alex that the last pitch of the climb is most excellent. This was really ingrained in my head. To make matters more difficult, the girls from Oregon were bailing out. They said something about "the summit is more important than the journey but they are meeting some guys at a bar", or was it "there is a $50 fine if are not back to the cars at 7:00". Ahh I remember they said "the Journey is more important than the summit". Yeah, yeah yeah I have said that before, but not when the last pitch is soo good, and when you have to finish the climb for the new variation to count... We called Dave and Alex to check on them. They replied that they were at the top of the seventh pitch, but that they would start rapping down. Ok, I though to myself, we have only one pitch, and only four rappel down, our approach is shorter, cool we'll still make it to the car before them, including finishing the last pitch!!. Julie stood tough to start the descent, it was actually getting late, and she was cold. I solved the last problem, by giving her my fleece (in addition to hers). I also started my latin charm, that I would buy her dinner, that the pitch is really short, that is super fun...5 minutes later I had her belaying me up!!!. This last pitch is a beauty. It first traverses right (they call this pitch 5 in the book, no real reason to be a separate pitch), and then it goes up nicely shaped straight crack in which the fingers ooze of joy everytime they touch it. Then it goes into a thin face, with a bolt in the right place to reduce the willies. And it tops out onto a 3 bolt anchor. Julie followed up and also enjoyed it very much. Ok, time to go home. But of course as every climber and mountaineer knows getting there is half of the journey, meaning that getting down is the other half (and it almost turned out to be equal in time for us). We threaded the rope through the cold-shuts and both rapped to where we were just 20 or 30 minutes ago. So far so good, then we pulled the rope as per standard procedure. Except the mountain said, "Hey Hey not so fast my friends..." The rope got stuck!!! arghh. Ok no problem is still somewhat light. we tried all the tricks in the book, whipping it in all possible directions, pulling on the other rope...nope the mountain refused to let go. Ok if she wants to be that way let her be. The only other option would be to climb back to it. With the remaining ends of the rope, Julie belayed me up this pitch again, (fortunately it was not a hard pitch 5.6+, and not really long). The knot had gotten stuck on a crack. Ok I though to myself, this will require advanced rapping techniques, but then it will allow us to rap down without getting the knot stuck. I told Julie to pull on one end, until the other end is just about to leave the ground, this allows the knot to be a as low as possible during rappel, minimizing the likelyhood of getting stuck. I rapped down, used a prussik brake, moved the knot over the belay device and got back down. This time the rope came down with no problems. I thought to myself, ok we should be down in no time, with no more suprises. the next rappel was a little tricky just because we were venturing into new territory (part of the normal route we had gone around in our variation). Fortunately I had taken the precautions to ask and get a visual of where the next rappel was while doing the variation. I told julie, you will find a tree with slings. Julie is really good, with this set of directions she found the tree. We again played the trick of moving the knot down in order not to get stuck. At the end of the next rap (second to last), we encounter of next problem, darkness and orientation. Although we had seen the big rap anchor while going up, we were on the right side of the route, an area we had not stepped on before, and hence we could not find the rap anchor. At this point I receive a call from Dave "down at the base, starting to head to the cars", (I heard at this point a big Home Simpson 'dough' in my head), I radio back "doing the second to last rappel, Julie cant find the next rap anchor, dont worry we'll find it soon". Julie luck to find the anchor was waning, so I told her to find a safe spot, I would try to search for it. I rapped down all the way down to the end of the ropes (which for safety as always had been tied together to prevent rapping past the end of the ropes). A little scouting and a streak of luck caused my flashlight to reflect of one of the bolts of the anchors. Dave called again, it most have taken 20 minutes, although it felt like less, I replied "finishing second to last rappel we should be down in no time." Ok last rappel, good we'll be finally down from here. Julie rapped first and got all the way down. Then I go down, while going down I see an intermediate rap anchor. I paused for a while and think "hmm it might be better for me to stop here and do one more rap, this would minimize the chances of the rope getting stuck... but then it would also increase the time to go down... come'on hector do you really think the rope is going to get stuck again...", ok I proceeded all the way down. To my misfortune, the rope got stuck a second time!!! arghh, I was thinking to myself, "when is the mountain going to let us go!!!". Fortunately by having 2 200 foot ropes, we had plenty left, for me to re-lead the first pitch (for the second time) to get the rope unstuck. This pitch is a 5.5 so I was not too concerned in doing it at night, plus is easy to follow the route, is not very windy. The rope was stuck on another crack. Ok I thought to myself, I will split the rappel like I considered while going down, I should finally be down in 15 minutes. I rapped off the same anchor as last time, cleaned half of my gear on rappel. Threaded the rope through the intermediate anchor, cleaned the remaining of the gear on rappel. Ahh finally at the bottom, only 70 feet or so from the intermediate rap anchor, finally nothing more can happen.... we pull, the rope goes out of the ring and it stops!!!, at this point a climb became a mini-epic when I screamed out of the top of my lungs "Nooo" (I cant take it anymore). Fortunately (or unfortunately) there was no one in a 2 mile radius. It was already like 9 o'clock or 10 who knows. In retrospect, it is a bad idea to scream "noo" just because people might think you are in trouble. (although maybe not, they may only think so, if you scream "help"... then again there is so much screaming while climbing that I think "help" would be the only thing people would be concerned about...) anyways this is all to say, that screamin "noo" was a bad idea fortunately without any side effects than raising the outing from climb to mini-epic. Ok, I got myself together, and with the remaining rope proceeded to lead the first pitch for the third time!!!!, got to the intermediate anchor and found the rock stuck under a boulder. There would have been no way to get it unstuck by whipping it from the ground. I threaded the rope through the rap ring yet again, and proceeded to rap, paying particular attention to the direction of pull, and making sure that we would clear the boulder. After getting to the ground, the mountain finally acquiesced and allowed us to go home!!!. We informed Dave "roger we are finally heading out, we should be in the cars in about an hour". Ahh the hike back actually turned out to be better than I expected. I expected us to get loss, or have a hard time finding the nice sandy trail that would lead us back to the cars. I mean we had a hard time finding the base of the climb. Fortunately luck cooperated and put us in the right path in 20-30 minutes. (the only bad thing it happened, is while crossing a stream, I wanted to step on a rock to avoid getting my foot in the water, and interestingly enough the rock was actually under water so I got my nice sensitve foot wet :-()) Halfway through the hike back, we got confirmation of the right path by the standard three flashes from the car, followed by a radio transmission "did you guys see that"...excellent. We got back to the cars after sometime. We were both pretty suprised to find out that it was 11:30pm!!!, yikes, it was a 16 hour day considering that we started the approach at about 7:30am. We dropped Dave and Alex at the campsite and rewarded ourself with a big meal in IHOP (which is right on Charleston Blvd). I will say Dave and Alex were very patient and always willing to help, Dave always finished the transmissions by saying "Just let us know if you need anything..."; and never complained about the 3 hour wait in the car (of course I know I will have to pay for it somehow, couple of years from now, but what are friends for). Overall, I had lots of fun during the climb, especially trying something new, but within my limits (or finding out that it was within my limits). Julie was a great company. I had lots of frustration during the descent, I underestimated the possible problems that one can encounter during the rappel descent, and hence next time, I would actually skip the last pitch in order to get down before dark. Hector Lessons learned Lesson #1, need to become more like gumby (or Kate who beats us all in flexibility by doing a full split), the advantages to climbing go beyond better climbin (ie better resting position available). The second roof, is completed by doing a hands traverse right under the flake then going over a bulge. Lesson #2, think of your follower when placing protection, not only in terms of traversing, but also in terms of reach and positioning Lesson #3, rappelling off non-blank, non-vertical rock faces can lead to the rope getting stuck, make sure you think of the path were the rope is going to travel, keep both ends snug while pulling them, so that the know clears any bluges. If possible move the knot down so that it can't get stuck while the last person is rappeling. Add this into the considerations for the total time of the descent Lesson #4, ahh descending on gullies is so much safer and deterministic than descending on rappels... Lesson #5, make sure you tie (and later untie) the ends of the rope together while rapping (especially at night) so you dont rappel past the end of the rope. Lesson #6, if you are going to rappel at night, make sure you have a good idea where the rappel anchors are, it can take time finding them. Lesson #7, when venturing into new territory make sure you have a wide variety of gear. I wished I had more cams, although I was able to use the five I had effectively. I also had plenty of nuts including the really small one (which came in handy for protecting the traverse).