Summary

Description

Lisa and I got out to Stone Mountain State Park for a nice day of climbing on Easter Sunday. We didn't stress about getting off a specific time in the morning and ended up leaving the house at 8:40am. It'd been almost exactly 6 months since we'd last been climbing outside. (Not really sure why.)

I was excited about getting out again, but I was also anxious about getting back on the sharp end and leading after not climbing for a while, and I ended up being a little gray rain cloud on the way out there. I turned into a little black rain cloud when we got out in the parking lot and it was cold with a bitter wind blowing. I put on thermals under my pants and bitched about the wind and wondered if I had on enough clothes. (Ended up that I had it just about exactly right, but I was cranky about it in the parking lot.)

When we got to the base of the wall, we found the the Easter Bunny had made a visit. Someone had put Hershey's Kisses, jelly beans, and M&Ms on a few of the lower ledges on the route we were climbing (U Slot) and the one next to it (Block Route). It was pretty cool.

Once I started climbing, things (a.k.a. my attitude) got better. Had to focus and didn't have room for negativity. I ended up climbing OK, although there was one spot near the top of the first route when I was trying to get a piece in to protect a big step up that I needed to make and was having trouble. Eventually got a piece in that I didn't really like and then realized that I wanted to make the step a few feet farther to the right, and it looked like a better crack to put gear in over there. I left my piece as-is and went to make the step anyway since I'd already spent more time there than I wanted, and my legs were starting to shake from standing on the slab. The step-up move was tough, but I did it.

We headed over to No Alternative and climbed 3 pitches of it. (The full-rope-length gear pitch along the crack and the two just-over-half rope length pitches above.) The climbing was good. The wind picked up at the top of the first pitch, and I put on my super light wind jacket which helped. Climbed the next two pitches fairly quickly, although there was a small detour in the wrong direction (down) at the top of the second pitch; Lisa could get a pink tricam I had placed to budge at all so when she got to the anchor, I had her lower me down to it so I could work on it then I re-climbed that section. At the anchor where we topped out, Lisa needed to pee to she headed on up and over to a section of trees where she did her business while I sorted some gear.

On the way down, we simul-rapped the 4 rappels. (3 to get back to the major ledge and one more down to the ground.) A simul-rap is where each of us is rappelling on one end (single strand) of the doubled ropes that are going through the rappel rings. We learned a few years ago as part of a self-rescue course we took how to simul-rap safely. (Knots in the ends of the rope, heavier person on the side where the knot connecting the ropes can't slip through the rap rings, the two of us tethered together for a backup if one of loses control, using autoblocks as backup on the rappel.) We made short work of the rappels: the first 3 took about 35 minutes, then is was another half hour before we hit the ground since we had to coils ropes, walk the length of the ledge, flake the ropes, and rappel the final pitch.

Overall, we were off the ground from approximately noon to 5pm and climbed about 650'. And I ended up wearing the right amount and mix of clothing to not be cold. It was a good day.