21-Apr-13

Ok, so it wasn’t really a “catastrophy”… but it wasn’t particularly fun either.  At all.  I’d been looking forward to getting some Crow Hill action in for ages, and when we finally got there, all it turned into was a day of fighting with the ropes…

• I didn’t wake up crazy-early… later than normal for the week, but earlier than I’d normally want to be awake on the weekends.  But it was worth it – Marla and I had all the ingredients ready to make Omlettes by the time Daniel and Brian arrived at the house.
• My first omlette ends in abject failure, and I’m banned from making any more
• Daniel’s first omlette… no one knows how it turns out.  Because he, literally, welded the cover onto my frypan.  Seriously.  It was fused on, and no one could get it off.  We gave up, left it in the sink, and moved on to another pan.
• Food isn’t too bad, in the end.  Eating out on the Veranda helps, but I still would’ve preferred an omlette without mushrooms, or a fry pan that wasn’t welded to a random cover.  But hey, food is food.  We ate up quick, and then packed into the cars and onto Route 2.
• This is the first attempt at a playlist that Marla had made for me.  The title, appropriately, was “Ben’s driving way too fast”.  I kept to the title, and we made it there a good 10min before Daniel and Brian arrived.
• After chatting with a park ranger, we start the walk in.  The path leads us right to the bottom of a two-pitch climb called “Green Goblin”, which Daniel and I rack up for.
  • He takes the first lead, followed by Brian, then Marla, and then myself.  Not so bad, to start.
  • Daniel takes the second pitch as well… which is where everything starts to break apart.  The rope drag is insane, X goes wrong, Y happens, etc etc etc…
  • After I follow Daniel up, we realize the problem with our plan – we can’t get the rope back to Brian and Marla.  We try, but it keeps getting jammed into the crack.  Daniel descends to try and help them out from below.
  • I end up hanging out up top for an hour or so, until we finally give up and bail on the route.  I send a rappel rope down, clean the anchor, and walk off
  • All I want to do is climb, at this point, so I convince Daniel and Co to let me set a toprope down at the eastern end of the cliffs.  We climb, and it’s rather nice.  Don’t get to lead or anything, but it’s still enough to make me feel a bit better
  • We walk off just as darkness settles in over the cliffs.  The drive home is nice, relaxing, and clean.  Especially with an excellent soundtrack to back it up!