Tag Archives: Rumney

Sep5

A very Rumney weekend: Technical climbing details woo!

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As is the usual with my climbing posts, this is split into two sections: the storytelling portion, and the technical climbing section. This is the technical section

 

Saturday, 21JUL12

 

Blackjack Boulders

Unfortunately, I don’t know the names of any of these climbs, so they’re listed under the very creative names I thought up at the time

  • Layback – V1 – A very fun route off to the side, by a neat little cave. Honestly, I spent half the time I was working this route just relaxing in its shade.
  • Dihedral – V0 – The first route you see when you walk up to this set of boulders. Easy at first, but it gets progressively harder as you move up and the crack tapers out. Very fun though.
  • Inner Cave – V1 – This… was… AWESOME! I was doing a bit of exploring, and found this whole system of enclosed rock, formed by the boulders laying on top of one another. This route took me from the sand floor all the way up between two boulders, finally exiting via a tiny shaft of light streaming down into the cave.

 

The Meadows

  • 5.4 – A “standard Rumney” route that we warmed up on. Lots of semi-good holds, but more of a balancing problem – as most Rumney routes are.
  • 5.7 – Again, same as above except a bit harder. This one, if I remember correctly, followed a slightly strange line up the rock, requiring some interesting foot-work to get up. Fun 🙂
  • Mr. Popular – 5.10a – Tough one, and one that actually hurt me a good bit – the first move tweaked a nerve in my finger, leaving part of my hand numb for the next two days. Aside from that though, definitely a challenge – the first move is the hardest, and it’s got a second crux right near the top to keep you on your toes.
  • 5.8 – our cool-down route. Simple, clean, and fun… but nothing really to write home about.

 

Sunday, 22JUL12

 

The Meadows

  • 5.8 – our warmup route, just one of my “go to” routes who’s name I have no idea. Very balancy, but with a few nice “hallelujah” holds that let you take solid rests.

 

The 5.8 Crag

  • Romancing the Stone – 5.10c – Ohh man. Ohh man this route. This route. Ohh man. I love it. Tough and burly, yet delicate and balancy, it’s definitely a well-rated 5.10c. Alex started it, but couldn’t get past our stick-clip, so I sent out into the void, finishing 5 out of the 6 clips. At the end though, my endurance (or lack thereof) won out and I had to raise the white flag.
  • Terrace – 5.8 – Gah. What. Just… damn man. This route is tough. It’s very simple, except for the crux in the middle, where… what? There’s just nothing to do – the trick is this tiny little crystal that you snag way out left, that gives you just enough pull to move up to a big rail. But that crystal’s the only way. So annoying.
  • Snakeskin – 5.7 – This one was fun, a good counter-point to Terrace. It’s full of solid layback holds, and the climbing is really fun and positive, if a little bit scary at times due to bolt placements.
  • ??? – 5.8 – Again, much like Snakeskin, I really enjoyed this route. It’s got positive holds, even though some of them aren’t super-obvious. A bit more burly than a normal rumney route, but definitely excellent.
  • ??? (to the right of the gully) 5.9 – this route was really fun as well, though it was very burly with little emphasis on balance. Foot placement was key though, as was shown when I climbed it. I climbed after another group had given up, and by placing my feet a bit differently I was able to break through the crux that they hadn’t been able to send.
Sep3

A very Rumney weekend: Camping and fun

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As is the usual with my climbing posts, this is split into two sections: the storytelling portion, and the technical climbing section. This is the storytelling section

 

Friday, 20JUL12 through Sunday, 22JUL12

 

It started with a moonlit drive.

And when your adventure starts with a moonlit drive, how can it go wrong? Seriously, it’s like a law of nature or something.

I had left Medway a bit after 21:00 on a Friday night, with the aim of setting up camp at Rumney just a bit after midnight – a nice relaxing drive where I finally got a chance to unwind from the week of applying to job, calling recruiters, and dealing with people who hire engineers, but honestly don’t even know what an engineer is, much less what makes one qualified for a role.

The night sky was perfect that evening, not a single cloud dulling the starscape, and so when I did finally arrive I didn’t even pull out my headlamp. Instead, I sat about near the car for a bit while my eyes adjusted – while there was no moon that night, the milky way was bright as day, and easily afforded me enough light to set up my small little tent.

But… I didn’t want to sleep in it. Not when the sky was that perfect.

So, instead of heading right to bed as I had planned, I carried my sleeping bag and pad into the middle of the field next to the campground, and stretched out to watch the stars until I simply couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

 

Saturday, 21JUL12

 

When I awoke, it wasn’t to my alarm.

It wasn’t even to the sounds of climbers getting ready for a day at the crag.

Instead, I woke up to the stiff feeling of sleeping with a rock directly implanted into my spine. And not implanted well either – this wasn’t some “Boston area hospital” implant, this was a “backwoods Mexico” job.

I had fallen asleep on my ultra-light sleeping pad, with a full three-inches of inflation keeping me stellarly comfortable… but unfortunately, the small leak that it had developed back in Auckland seemed to have widened, and instead of lasting 8 hours before becoming noticably deflated, it now lasted a mere four hours.

So, I rolled around until I found a more comfortable patch of moss, and went back to sleep.

A few hours later I was awoken again by Joanne – the woman who runs the campground. This time I actually fully woke up, and noticed why she was waking me up… or more importantly, why she was waking me up.

I thought I had parked and set up my tent snugly in the back section of the campground. Instead, I was in the middle of their hay field.

Not really sure how I did that, but Joanne politely reminded me where I should be parked, and gave me the morning to wake up and move the car over to my correct campsite.

After moving the car and my tent over, I prepped myself a bit of breakfast, relaxed a bit, and set about waiting for the others to show up. Daniel, Stef, and Erin were inbound from Boston and aiming to arrive around eleven, so I made up the time by reading, sunbathing, and going for a quick swim in the river.

On my return, I found a text message waiting for me: “slow morning. Leaving now, eta 15:00”. Meaning, that I had another four hours to kill before I could actually start climbing in earnest… nope, screw that. Rumney may be known for its sport climbing, but that’s not all it has – there’re also a few rather interesting boulder problems that were calling me by name.

And so, I spent the morning bouldering.

It was nice, relaxing, and a bit boring if truth be told. I enjoy bouldering every so often (usually when I want to feel manly and burly) but this weekend I was looking forward to a bit more relaxation – the relaxation and purity of focus that a long and difficult sport route can give. And bouldering just wasn’t doing it for me.

So after only an hour or two of bouldering I got bored, and headed back to camp to do some reading, maybe a bit of writing as well. I wandered a bit, and found myself perched up on a sandbank on the river that borders the campground, letting the current lap at my legs as I typed away on my little netbook.

The time passed quickly enough, and finally I got a call from Erin that they were pulling into the campground. We took a bit of time to unload her gear from Daniels car, since Him and Stef were leaving early, and Erin was catching a ride home with me, before I finally snapped and started dragging them towards the cliff, berating them on their lateness the whole way.

It was possibly due to the drama that had kept them trapped in Boston so long (drama I wouldn’t be privy to for nearly two weeks), and possibly from the fact that the cliffs were nicely crowded, but climbing went slowly. It wasn’t bad, actually quite relaxing and fun, but I was a little disappointednon- overall, especially since I had been waiting for it so long at that point.

In total, we were able to bust out three or four routes each before Daniel and Stef gave up the ghost and headed back into Boston. Not a bad catch, by any metric, though I did have the dubious honor of being the only one to actually incur a legit injury – I got my fingertip caught in the rock when I fell on one of the harder routes, pulling it sideways and somehow tweaking a nerve in it. Tweaking the nerve enough, in fact, to loose all sensation in that finger for the next few days.

After Daniel and Stef left, Erin and I debated staying on to climb a bit more… but in the end chose to follow their lead and head into Rumney proper for a proper bite of dinner at the nearby pizza place. We chatted, ate, and waxed poetic for a while, keeping a more-than-interesting stream of conversation flowing all the way through two pizzas and back to the campground where we finished setting up camp and starting up a cheerful little fire to relax around.

The nights conversation was one of the better one’s I’ve had around a campfire. Not to insult the awesome fire-side chats that I’ve had with everyone else, but this was unique – Erin and I hadn’t hung out in years (literally at this point), and had a lot to catch up on. And, for one reason or another, we were both feeling rather open that evening, allowing the conversation to stray to non-standard topics such as relationships, the idea of love, politics, and even humanities role in the universe itself. And to make it better, this whole conversation was held while completely sober, if you can believe that.

 

Sunday, 22JUL12

 

A few minutes before midnight Alex pulled into the campground, so we took a quick break from introspecting in order to help her park and set up her tent.

Events took an interesting turn when Alex accidentally locker her keys in the car, but seeing as we couldn’t really do anything about it at midnight, we gave up on retrieving them and decided to relax for the night and deal with them in the morning when we could call AAA.

But, that problem put a bit of a damper on Alex’s mood which unfortunately spread to the rest of the night. Erin and I stayed up continuing our chat for a bit, but the momentum died out around 01:00 or so, when we finally gave up and turned in for the night.

It was another amazing starlit night, and I slept comfortably under the stars yet again.

 

In the morning, Erin and Alex set to unlocking the car while I tended the campstoves and made us up some quick breakfast. It took a while, and some assistance from Joanne and her husband (the couple that run the campground), but in the end the car was unlocked thanks to some very dexterous manipulation of a coat hanger. Keys retrieved, we laid into breakfast with a passion. It was simple, but honestly perfect for the day – nice toast and berries with a pot of pressed coffee is the perfect way to get started for a day of climbing, in my personal opinion. Not too heavy, but gives enough sugar to give you that kick.

After breakfasting we headed to the Meadows to warm up, but quickly got bored with the “same old routes”. Meadows is a nice relaxed crag, and it’s where I really cut my teeth with sport climbing, but it’s gotten a bit dull – the climbing is fairly regular between the routes, and the plethora of climbers there means that waiting in line is almost a requirement for any fun sections.

So, we moved along. Not far though – our walk took us over and up a bit to the 5.8 crag. The perfect median section, where we’d have fun warmup routes as well as a few quite heady challenges waiting for us.

And, as it turned out, a few friends too. When we arrived we found a whole group of climbers from Vertical Dreams, a climbing gym that both Alex and I used to climb at, already encamped around the crags. We had a rather amazing time – we each got to lead at least one route, and I ended up nearly sending a 5.10c that would have been the hardest that I’ve ever climbed on lead. And, thanks to the guys next to us, I didn’t even loose any gear since they were able to climb up and bring it back down for me.

We climbed for most of the afternoon, until our arms finally gave out and our fingers went numb… or at least, the rest of my fingers went numb.

From the crag we headed back to the campground to break down our tents, but took a nice “shortcut” through the swimming hole – there’s really nothing much better after a hot and sticky day of climbing than jumping in a nearly-ice-cold stream with a whole gaggle of random bostonians. Many of whom I had known before, it appeared – I actually met one girl who said that, a few years back, I had been the one to teach her how to belay for the first time. NUHOC did have some advantages, it appears.

But with swimming completed, and our tents packed up, it was time to say goodbye to Rumney once again. Or, at least, until the next time we all swung back to make a weekend of it…

Jun30

Weekend of 23Jun – Climbing at Cathedral and Rumney

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Saturday, 23Jun12 and Sunday, 24Jun12

 

Saturday: Cathedral

Alex and I parked at the base of the cliff, and headed straight up towards the rock. Our goal was Black Lung, finishing up on the two pitches of Upper Refuse. A super-classic line reaching from the bottom of the cliff all the way to the top. Unfortunately, we hadn’t parked anywhere near the base of that climb, and instead found ourselves in the position of needing to hike all the way back to the car in order to find Black Lung.

Nope. Instead, we found a few climbs in the area, and headed up those:

 

Still in Saigon (5.8+)

This route was scary. Seriously. This route was so run out I thought we were on whitehorse, and the moves were insanely thin – small, friction moves without any sort of protection nearby. It was good though, honestly was more of a sport route than Trad – out of the 7 or so placements Alex made, only two of them were actual gear. The rest? Bolts. Boo.

I don’t know how Alex led it, to be completely honest. Maybe back when I was leading insane routes every week I could have, but as of now… dang.

In the scheme of routes, I wouldn’t recommend it as a “definitely do it!” climb… but if you’re in the area and want a challenge, definitely try it out.

Note: it was hot. Hot as in “My hand hurt from the heat of the rocks. I think I got burnt”.

Kiddy Crack (5.7)

This route is classic. It’s so good that it’s scary… every move is fun and interesting, but at no point do you get bored by the simplicity of it. This is definitely my favorite climb at Cathedral, hands-down.

I led this one, since it’s definitely my style – cracks and edges. There was one rough move right off the deck, but it was followed by super-clean crack climbing which closes out to some small face moves near the top.

It’s slightly challenging at it’s level, but so good. 100% recommended.

 

Child’s Play (5.6)

Child’s Play is another “super-classic” route, right near Kiddy Crack, rated at being one of the best routes in New England. In my opinion it’s not as good as KC, but still very clean and fun moves covered by very solid protection.

Alex led this one, and had a pretty good time of it from what I could tell. For me, seconding was a bit scary – not from any danger on the climb, but from the worry of rain. The sky opened up on us literally minutes after we finished rappelling off the top.

 

Sunday: Rumney

Unfortunately I don’t remember any of the route names from Sunday, since I wasn’t the one looking them up in the book. But the basic plan was that five of us (Alex, myself, Sean, Adam, and Liz) would climb a bit on the Main Cliff (since it would definitely be dry from the rain), and then we’d either continue climbing there, or head up to something a bit tougher as the day wore on.

 

Main Cliff:

 

5.7

This one I’d done before a few years back – it sits on the bottom tier of the main cliff, and leads up to some of the bigger and burlier climbs at Rumney. It’s got a quick tricky start, but once you master the movements the rest of the climb is classic Rumney – clean and fun face climbing. I think it was something like four bolts long though, so it doesn’t last long enough to really loose yourself in it.

I lead it and set it as a toprope for the others – simple and easy lead, definitely a good one if you want to try out the grade.

 

5.8

Unlike the climb above, this one you can get lost in it. Alex took the lead, and it was long. As in “we used almost half of the rope” long. And in climbing, that’s the farthest that you can go on a single rope… assuming you want to get the rope back afterward.

It was fun, but a bit boring to be honest. Most of the climbing was simple rock-scrambling, although near the end it did turn into a rather interesting and steep route. I’d recommend it if you want a long route with an amazing view at the top. Otherwise, don’t bother.

This was supposed to be a two-pitch route, but when we looked over to see the next pitch… it was nowhere to be found. I’m guessing that it’s very rarely climbed, and that lichen has overgrown most of the route in the meantime – we chose to rappel off instead of continuing, since missing the route up meant accidentally getting onto anything from a .10d to an .11a. Not safe.

 

G-Spot Wall:

 

5.10b

Oh man, this route. This route. Oh man.

This route was excellent – hard, challenging, but workable with very interesting and technical moves throughout. Alex again took the lead, busting it out after a few short falls / rests at the bolts; a very burly lead none-the-less though. I took the second cleanly (much to Alex’s chagrin), but cleanly due to the fact that I didn’t have to lead it.

100% recommended if you get a chance, and have strong faith in your outdoor leading skills.

 

5.7

This was a simple route that Adam and Liz had set up, since Sean had headed home after we left the Main Cliff.

This route was full of interesting moves, strange bolt locations, and generally sketchy bolting stances. Honestly, I didn’t enjoy anything about the route – the moves weren’t very fun, the route itself was scattered and unclear, and the bolts were never where they should have been – a foot above of below where they were would have been fine, but whoever bolted it was definitely not thinking about a climber of my height.

Not horrid, but unless you’re really searching for routes… pass this one over.