Trad

It was such a beautiful day outside, we needed to get out. So when Char came over and said "What are you doing inside on such a day as this" (paraphrased), I said "Let's go climbing". So, we did. We threw some gear together and took off up Little Cottonwood Canyon. I wanted to climb Crescent Crack, a climb I (am/thought I was) familiar with. It was my first TRAD lead back a few years ago, so I figured it would be a good place to get back to. My climbing went fairly well in some fashions, but not so good in others. A few things I did well were that I remained very calm on lead, something I was rarely able to do in the past. I took things a lot more slow than I did in the past. I used to try to rush through the climb, over gripping my holds, and losing strength. Also, I was a lot better at keeping my cool at the protection placing times. Instead of thinking with emotions "dang, if I fall before I get this piece in and clipped, that's gonna suck" which is generally a bad thing, I thought "You're in a good solid stance, so take your time and look for a good placement. That looks like a good spot for a nut. Yeah, that's solid. Should I use a draw? Hmm.. a longer runner might be better to prevent rope drag from popping the piece."



Anyway, it was good. However, halfway up the second portion of the climb I decided to call it quits and build an anchor and let Jason finish leading the pitch. So, he lowered me and I belayed him up to my anchor on top rope. He then Led the rest of the pitch and set a real anchor. Then, he belayed Char up from the top. She did pretty dang good for her first time.

So, I've lost the will to write much more, so... it's over

Windy day. Really my first time back out this year. Went to Moab and goofed off, but my head game is still in disarray, so I didn't climb really.

Went up with Jason and Jordan. Lars met us up there. When we got there, there was a group of 4 climbers on the climb, so we sat around and socialized. They finished, and another two climbers came up as we were starting. Very nice, we had some good convesations. Jason led up. It was a kinda sloppy lead, but not overly. Jordan toproped it, and Lars went up. Next I went up. Done better on this crack, and definately done worse. Clean greenpoint (if there is a point to the greenpoint...), only sketched a little. Got some good bleeding going on my un-caloused hands. When I got down another climber had come up. He was just hiking with his wife and kid, but wanted a run, so we let him. We offered him use of a harness. He declined and tied in using a bowline knot. Perfectly safe for toproping, but not in the least bit comfortable if one were to weight it. He didn't. He made a clean ascent and at the anchor called off belay. This is normal if you're wearing a harness and are cliped into the anchor. He wasn't. He was just standing in a tree. Jason took him off belay and he proceeded to pull up slack as if he were rigging a rapell... which he was. But with no harness or belay device rapelling can be tricky. He took it with stride and wrapped the rope over his shoulder, between his legs and around something else... a technique (the dulfersitz) i've read about and attempted but never seen done so well, on such vertical terrain. He was obviously someone with a lot of experience and was very comfortable in the vertical world. When he got to the bottom we exchanged pleasantries, and Jason asked him his name. He was none other than Tony Calderone.

Tony Calderone is a local climber who deserves respect. He has many first ascents in Little Cottonwood and elsewhere. He wrote the guidebook to City of Rocks Idaho. This was his first climb in a few years as he is fresh back from Iraq. But this is not yet why I'm posting this.

On July 12, 2003 I was at Bushwack for my first time with Spencer. Spencer seemed to always have a story about Tony Calderone, because they climbed together on occasion. Jason was even there once. The climb directly left of buchwack is a face with a few chickenheads and not much else. Spence said Tony bolted it on lead (yikes). I asked him yesterday, and sure enough he had. We talked more after we knew who he was. He asked what Spence was up to these days. 1 year, 3 and a half months after he died in a car accident we still had someone that knew him, though not very close, that didn't know he had passed on. I've told several people about him since it happened, but they didn't know him, but it was a very strange experience to tell someone that knew him that he was dead. Someone Spence would tell us about, and I had never met before. Then through a coincidence we randomly met up at the base of a climb we had both climbed with Spence.

Jason went up again as he knew his lead was sloppy. Good clean toprope. Fun day: the climbing was good, but the other stuff was really great.

Originally went up to climb Neuromancer, as I wasn't in the mood for the Trad head game. Then decided that I wasn't in the mood for hard sport. I didn't pack my rack so luckily Howie had his. So I had a set of old school BD stoppers and 2 brand new Trango flex cams. Threw down the lead preety good. I was sketching out, and really wasn't in the mood to fall. So I french freed one stupid placement... grr... Anywho, got to the top, belayed up Howie and Jessica. Then we all chilled out on the ledge at the top of the first pitch, and rapped down.

Went up with Howie at 7 in the morning hoping to do beckys wall. Unfortunately it rained untill 1:00ish. We went back out at around 4:30 because they sun came out. We had planned on going to bushwack beause it was west facing and got lots of sun, but on the drive up he metioned Hand Jive and we couldn't resist. Went up and found the climb (a bit of a chore if you're not careful), and went for it. In order to get to Hand jive you need to climb Crack in the woods. So I led up it with no problems using only passive pro (as none of my cams were small enough). It was a really short pitch, I was really surprised by that. He followed up and we sat there for a while. I'm not exactly sure how to get over to hand jive so I want to go with Jason for it. So we rappeled from there, cleaned up and all was well. There is a gnarly old forged friend in the crack that I picked at for 5 minutes while rapping, but gave up on. Way stoked about the climb.

Took a newbie out. He has experience in gym and sport climbing but wanted to try out some trad action so we threw him on a crack. Jason Led, I followed (clean ascent) and rapped, and then Howie came up after. He did very well for his first crack. Beautiful day.