Summary

Description

Lisa taught Alex the ropes. Alex had been climbing at Inner Peaks in Charlotte once before, but this was her first outdoor climbing experience. Lisa and I each had a climbing harness, shoes, and helmets. Lisa had an extra pair of shoes for Alex, but they had to trade off Lisa's harness and helmet each time. That meant that I was belay slave for the day. :)

Lisa climbed Body Surfin', explaining what she was doing as she climbed so Alex would have a warm, fuzzy feeling when she had her turn next. Alex was nervous as she started climbing (and while she was climbing), but she did great! She's a natural. She climbed up to the big ledge on Body Surfin' and decided that was enough for her first pitch. (And rightly so since the final section of the climb above the ledge was noticably harder.) After Alex came back down, I had a crack at it. At the ledge, I decided to try going up the overhung crack to the right of the anchor. It was tough, but I grunted a lot and pulled up through most of it. While we were climbing, Tomm had made himself comfortable in a folding chair he had brought with him, and he (as usual) played the role of photographer and took some great pictures. And speaking of pictures ... Lisa decided that she could get some great pictures of Alex climbing by going up to a small lower ledge, taking gear and anchoring in, then untying from the rope so Alex could climb. So we did just that. It was complicated by the fact that Lisa and Alex were sharing a harness, so Lisa had to take her harness off and stay anchored in to just her backup harness (a piece of 1" webbing tied around her waist). It was a lot of fun to setup and watch, but by the time Alex was done with her second climb -- including trying climbing a little bit above the big ledge -- Lisa was definitely ready to be lowered off the little ledge and back down to terra firma.

After we all had climbed, we had a picnic lunch at the base of the route. Lisa and I had made trail crackers and brought salami slices and sharp white cheddar cheese. We also brought wheat bread and squeeze tubes of PBJ and applesauce. Quite a feast in a beautiful setting on a beautiful day.

After lunch, Alex, Lisa and I decided to move a little further down the cliff band and climb Scarface. Tomm decided that he had been sitting for long enough, and decided to keep hiking the trail along the base of the cliff and meet us at the cars later. Tomm took a radio and we kept a radio so we could stay in touch (within the range of the FRS radios, of course).

As I was getting ready to setup the anchor on Scarface, Alex and Lisa were boulder in the chimney/scramble to the right of the route, and Alex wanted to see what was up at the back of the chimney. So I setup a quick anchor, clipped in, and dropped a rope down to her and belayed her from the top just to make sure she was safe. Unfortunately, what she found wasn't as exciting as she had hoped: just a jumbled pile of rocks.

I setup the anchor on Scarface -- a process made much simpler on both of these routes by having bolts to clip to, although I did bring a light rack as well -- then rapped down. Lisa climbed, then Alex climbed (again doing a great job), then I climbed. Alex was interested in learning how to belay, so Lisa put on my harness and tied in, while we got Alex setup to belay with me keeping a hand on the rope as backup while watching and teaching Alex how to belay. Lisa climbed the lower half of the route about a dozen times while Alex learned and practiced how to feed rope in both directions through the belay device and how to lock it off. She did well.

At this point, Lisa and Alex were both about done. I wanted to try climbing the crack just to the left of Scarface. I had a couple of false starts, but the third try was the charm. It was very interesting. I struggled at a couple of points with my feet on very sketchy holds and my hands jammed back in the crack. I eventually muscled and grunted my way high enough to put my shoulder and back into the wider, deeper part of the crack higher up and jam in there like an offwidth. At that point there was a bit more exertion left to go, but I knew I had it. I got to the ledge and had Lisa lower me since I had already climbed from there on up. It was worth the effort.

We packed up, climbed the nearby gully, and hiked out. Stopped to watch a skink in the leaves near the trail on the way out. Met Tomm in the parking lot, had some cranzers (cranberry juice and seltzer) that Tomm made for us then headed out for El Torrero in King to share with Alex and Tomm our traditional dinner spot after a day of climbing.