Two Blondes and a Monkey

Who: Alison and Emily (with BRC BoeAlps)
What: Climbing Monkey Face in 4 pictches
Where: Smith Rock
When: (I think) July 19th, 2009

[awaiting pictures from Emily!]



On Saturday when Emily came back from her climbs with another student she asked me “Did Oscar tell you the plan?” Unaware of any plan, my curiosity was instantly peaked. “No…” I hesitated, a little excited, trying to hide my enthusiasm; any day worthy of a “plan” sounded enticing to me, especially if it was with (my new idol) Emily.

“Follow me” Emily beckoned and without hesitation I was a step behind headed to the car to unmask the elements required for the “plan” the following day.

When we got to the car Emily pulled out a pair of aiders (also called etrier’s) as she unveiled the plan of climbing Monkey Face the next day. This climb has one pitch (a section of rock that only requires one rope length) that required aiders, which I had never used. Aiders kind of look like ladders made of webbing (they ‘aid’ you up the rock face). This section of the climb is bolted, so you would hook the aider to a caribeaner and then hook that to the bolt, giving you an instant ladder. You’d have two ladders so while standing on one, you could reach the next bolt, clip in with the next ladder, shift weight onto the new ladder, and then unclip the old ladder from the lower bolt.

Emily scanned the area for a tree worthy of demonstration. The only reasonable tree happened to be in front of the crowed of classmates (this is while we were still waiting for some classmates to get back to the parking lot). Emily made two makeshift “bolts” in the tree (just caribeaners on varying lengths of cord). She showed me how to adjust the personal anchor that’s attached to the aider to assist in reaching the next bolt.

Then it was my turn to try. It was a little awkward climbing the tree, a rock face would be much wider, but I could at least get the idea of what was going on. Climb as high as you can on one ladder until you can reach the next bolt. Bolt your second ladder in, climb it until you can reach the next bolt, rinse and repeat.

Emily also mentioned the possibility of leading this pitch. The class specifically said that it did not cover leading, so I was surprised to hear of the lead potential. I told her it sounded awesome, but I’d give her a final answer the next day. At this time I’m not sure if the head instructor was aware of this part of the plan or not—it was surely his call first if it was going to be OK.

Sleeping at night was hard. I’m not sure if it was because of my excitement of the next days climb, or if it was just because it was super hot out (I’m assuming mainly the latter, but the former didn’t help). The night before had been rather cold, but this night I had my 30 degree bag unzipped and was still sweating.

While trying to sleep I went over how to use the aiders in my head and went through the calculated risk of leading this pitch. It seemed like there was basically no risk of falling. Not only would I be secured by the rope, but each aider had its own anchor to hold me on, the most that could happen is I loose my balance and swing into the wall, this is no worse than any other fall (in fact, it is probably better than falling anywhere else, because it is a completely vertical pitch so I wouldn’t be falling onto strange poking rocks). I decided if Emily/Oscar (the head instructor) said I could lead, I would love to take the opportunity to do so. Maybe they’d even let me lead a real pitch at Squamish (rock wall in BC) in a few weeks! (Don't worry Mom, leading for this part was basically the same as following).

When we got to the parking lot in the morning, after another French toast breakfast, Emily and I headed out for our destination before the other student/teacher partners were called out. We were on a mission. We talked excitedly about the climb during the 45 minute hike to the base. I went over different techniques/skills that I wanted to confirm the correct order of implementation.

Once we got to the base of the climb and were flaking out the rope (making sure there were no knots or tangles) another group of 2 came along. These boys were from Oklahoma and had just spent a month climbing all over the west. We quickly made friends and decided to climb together.

To get down there is a 60m rappel off the face, so you need two ropes. If we went by ourselves, we would have had to either carry one rope in our backpack, or lead with two ropes. Neither are fun options. We decided that we’d tie our rope with the guys’ rope to rappel down, allowing both parties to carry one rope a piece. Emily would still lead and I would follow cleaning her gear. Then one of the boys would lead the same pitch, and the second one would clean his gear.

One of the climbers had a lot of experience and led all the pitches. The other guy was a pretty good climber but he was definitely new to aiding as well.


The follower


The leader

The first pitch rated 5.8 had a tricky spot with little hands and virtually no feet. It was hard for Emily to protect the route well and a challenge for me to clean the route too. After that beginning section the rest of the pitch was pretty straightforward, going up and over flakes.

The second pitch had a nasty 5.8 chimney finger crack, by far the hardest part of the day. When I finisehd the pitch and met Emily at the belay station she told me “yea, but it had great feet” and my reply was “I couldn’t find one good foot, it was terrible.” Apparently I need a bit more practice. I was also carrying a backpack up the route (another first for me) and I think the backpack took on another added challenge level, especially in the chimney. I found some pretty good spots for my hands/fingers but with all my weight on them, I couldn’t hold the position very long.

While climbing that crack I wore out my arms quickly I asked to “take” (this means the belayer should take in all the slack on the rope) so I could rest for a moment. I was saddened as I was let down a few feet (ruining the progress on my last few moves). Emily’s new rope had a high elongation ratio and Emily moved to get in a better position to hold me, and while doing so, some more slack was necessary.

A bit disheveled, knowing the boys were watching me from below, I tried to get back to my old position a few steps higher, staring at the vertical face with no obvious feet and the small crack expected to help me progress. In retrospect, this silly finger chimney crack was actually overhanging a bit, no wonder it was hard!

Once I got to my old position I jammed my hips into the sloping chimney and held there for a moment--flailing with my feet. I felt like a newb, but eventually I got a good enough foot hold that I could move my body up. Hopefully I didn’t look too much like a wiggling worm.

Normally I’d try to squeeze my back into the chimney, but with the backpack on this wasn’t an option. I wasn’t really sure how to navigate.

Once I topped the chimney the holds for hands and feet increased exponentially and I was back to feeling good about myself. I thought ‘the next time I climb that, I’m going to do much better.’

Yes, there will be a next time.

Once I reached Emily at the belay station it was time to unpack the backpack. We pulled out the aiders and Emily once again suggested I lead. I was excited and nervous, even though leading this section was basically the same thing as following it.

I ran through the basic scheme of things, Emily approved, and encouraged me on. I started up the wall in what felt like the slowest pace ever. About 3 bolts in, I had made a small tangle with the rope and the ladders and my personal anchors. I had to ask for slack and unhook a few things to re-arrange.

I wasn’t about to let this mishap happen again. By this time it felt like the guys were already at the belay station (either they did really fast getting up that chimney, or I was really slow, or I just didn’t notice when they got there, but anybody watching makes you self-conscious).

I worked up the rest of the route as Emily shouted encouraging words and commented on my fast pace. I didn’t really believe her about the fast pace because I felt slow as a snail, but I had my routine that enabled my aiders to be clutter free and slowly made my way up the rock.

I kept hearing about how you had to “whale” yourself into the mouth of the monkey. I wasn’t really excited for this part, but soon was able to experience it. I didn’t think I had to “whale” too much, and although there were no handholds I felt like I was able to kick myself up with the aiders instead of beaching myself into the mouth.

I belayed Emily up and she was a speed daemon, I couldn’t believe it. When she got up I commented on her rocket speed and said there was no way I was fast at all. She claimed that she’s had a lot of practice and went on to tell a story of the first time a VERY experienced climber led this pitch and he was at least 2-3x slower than I was leading it. I felt like this would be a silly story to make up, so I went with it, and took the compliment, feeling a little better about myself, and less like I was holding the other dudes up. Emily said that the dude’s even commented on my speed up the wall. My conclusion: aid climbing is slow no matter what.

Soon we were ready for Emily to lead the last pitch up out of the mouth. This is the “most exposed 5.7 move in the world.” It looks like a “1500ft drop but is only 150ft.” I think I was more scared when Emily was leading then when I followed (though I’m not sure why, I was more than completely confident in her skills, maybe it was just because it was an awkward belay stance and if she did happen to fall it was going to be another adventure getting back up).

When it was my turn to get out of the mouth I stuck my head out to try and find the next hold. I wasn’t confident in where it was, and I hesitated for a what seemed like a few minutes, trying to gain confidence in just “going for it.” I went over the facts in my head: worst thing that could happen is I fall a few feet and have to prussic up the rope (due to rope stretch) to get back to the mouth. No biggie.

I felt lame for hesitating, especially when there were so many spectators watching (I swore somebody called out my name too). I felt like I wasn’t putting on a good show. For the spectators, if I fell, that’d be epic, or if I climbed it, that would be just as awesome (for them). When Emily climbed and got to the top, many of the tourists cheered and many took pictures with thier telescoping cameras.

It was really odd knowing that you were going to be in all these climbers photographs. We decided we were in at least 50 peoples shots (not to mention the guys with the super crazy telephoto lenses that you could hear constantly shooting). We should have shouted out our emails or held up a sign so they could email us the pictures!

Once we got to the top (wohoo!) we waited on the flat head (that strangely has no anchors/bolts) for over an hour while the two guys climbed the aid section and joined us at the top. When I left the mouth, the lead guy was in the mouth, but the second guy must have taken FOREVER to do the aid section. He apologized about the wait and said it was his first time using aiders (hey, it was mine too!).

Either way, it was super sunny weather and there was a slight breeze so it was rather enjoyable (the delay was just was going to make us get back a bit later). We took the boys photo’s (after asking them to take one of us) and then we all started the rappel. There is a very short rappel to the double rope rappel station where we tied our ropes together so we’d have enough rope for the 50/60m rappel.

This was my first real free rappel (free as in you’re not going down the wall/touching any rock, you’re just hanging in midair!). At one point Emily yelled up to tell me to do a leg wrap and then let go of the rope so I’d be freely suspended in the air. I’m pretty sure she got a picture of this too.


Emily walking home

By the time we walked back to our bags (less than 20 minutes from the rappel station) it was time to race back to the meeting spot. We hadn’t brought any lunch to the summit (opps in retrospect, but it would have made the bag heavier!), so we grabbed a quick bite and then skedaddled back. We were surprised to see almost nobody on the wall (especially nobody from our group—yesterday there were many groups over 2 hours late to the meeting spot). Perhaps since today was round two and it had been so hot out everybody decided to call it quits early (and to make up for their tardiness the day before!).

We were the last to arrive and everybody wanted to know how Monkey Face was. I claimed it was “totally friggin rad.”

Before making it back onto the highway we stopped at this tiny climbers shack where our carpool enjoyed a scoop each of mtn huckleberry and blackberry ice cream. Delicious!

Bob Rocks, err, Smith Rocks

Who: BRC BoeAlps (namely, Bob B, Vermon, me!)
What: Rock Climbing! (Learning how to climb cracks)
Where: Smith Rocks, OR
When: July 18th, 2009



We woke up early to ensure we had enough time to grab a bite to eat at the local diner. Filled with French toast we were off to climb at Smith Rocks.

At the parking lot we were all assigned instructors. I was stoked when I found out that Bob B. would be my instructor (Vermon’s too). Bob B. is one of the intsructors who attended 2 of our climbs for the BCC class. He was obviously one of the more experienced climbers who helps out with the BoeAlps programs. The 2 weeks before this climb he had been up having a crazy time at Yosemite doing some really big wall climbs. His stories by far beat any i've ever written. Though I’m not sure if I’m jealous or not...

It was really fun to also note the interaction between instructors. Especially the youngish but more experienced ones. There was tons of playful banter; the better you can give it back, the more respect you earn. My kind of team!

Every group was assigned a starting area as well (to space us out on the rocks). As we walked to our assigned spot, Bob asked us about our skills. We admitted to not knowing anything about cracks, but we showed a lot of enthusiasm to learn. Bob decided that our wall would not be as fun for learning (for on the second pitch is when we really get into the crack section) and brought us a bit further down for some practice crack climbing.

Before getting on the wall Bob told us of the many methods for holding on such as fist jams, hand jams, and finger jams. He noted how some people use tape gloves (tape covering your fingers/back of your hand to prevent the rock from scraping it up) but wanted us to know that he didn’t use them. He claimed he didn’t feel tougher than others, but it was just his preference not to use them.


Climbing my first crack. Bob is belaying

I personally wanted to wait to use tape. I wanted to see what the cracks felt like first, because the tape is only going to lesson your feeling (perhaps in a good way!). All in all, after a day of climbing cracks, my hands were barely marred. For now I’ll be tape free.

After practicing crack methods we crossed to the other side of the wall to the Spiderman Buttress Area. Apparently this area is always SUPER crowded, but this weekend, there were no lines. We hoped on Spiderman (a 2-pitch route) and Bob led with two ropes. This way Vermon and I could climb at the same time (well, relatively, about 15 feet apart). With a reverso (a model name) belay device Bob could belay us both from his position on a ledge above. Once we got to the ledge, the process repeated, with Bob leading and us climbing.


Bob leading Spiderman

It was a super fun climb. At the beginning of the second pitch there’s a really awkward exposed move that got my heart pumping a little. Later on up, there’s an overhang roof that we had to navigate. I just kept telling myself that this pitch is supposed to be easier than the first pitch so there’s got to be really good handholds somewhere. I just have to find them!

By the time we got down it was about noon and all the rocks were hit with the suns oppressive rays. We found an overhung section and decided to take a lunch break and we got to hear some of Bob’s ridiculous Yosemite tails. If other climbers passed by, we’d just tell them we were projecting a route (planning how to go about it). Some people joined us in our "project". Side Note: the route we were actually sitting under was rated as a 12d, once thought to be just barely under the edge of an impossible climb rating.

Once there was some shade available we made our way back to our practice wall where there were some BoaAlpers climbing. They recommended the climbs adjacent to their current spot claiming they were good routes.


Look at all those secret footholds!

So we jumped on. There was this one route, Bookworm, that is rated a 5.6 (not very hard), but I think that’s if you use the face. I tried to only use the crack, and it proved to be one of the most challenging routes of the day! But I really wanted to get a full crack experience, especially since that’s what most the routes will be when we go to Squamish, BC later in July.


Vermon starting a climb

We squeezed in another crack and when we came down from the last crack we noted that the time was right for us to head back, if we had jumped on another climb we would definitely be late. We moseyed back to the cars (and by mosey, I really mean, suffered while walking in the heat up this uncessessarily steep hill leading to the parking lot. I’m not sure if it was good ending, getting your muscles stretched, or if it was just depressing (and oppressive), because you had to use your last few ounces of energy). Either way we made it back to the cars, first.

I think Bob was a little disappointed that his reputation might suffer--if people found out he was first back, instead of being the hardcore-always-late-climber. Alas, soon a few other climbers joined us. Unfortunately, it took the final climbers 2+ hours past the deadline and we ended up being late for our dinner reservation.

It’s ok though, we were still served, and the greek hummus pita was most excellent with a glass of strawberry lemonade!

Leavenworth -- BoeAlps

Where: Leavenworth, WA
When: June 19-20th, 2009
With: BRC (Basic Rock Class, BoeAlps style)
Goal: Learn how to place and clean pro, set anchors, rescue techniques, knots etc


Trad Gear!

Andreas and I had car camped Thursday night in Leavenworth to avoid an earlier than 5am wakeup call. Andreas isn’t in the BRC class but opted to come east so he could paraglide in Cashmere.

The BRC team left the parking lot for the Playground rock area slightly after 8am. Our first steps were tying basic knots. We went over all the knots we learned in the BCC, including the waterknot, double fishermans, figure 8, bowline (on a coil and on a byte and the regular bowline), and coiling a rope. We also were introduced to the SUPER handy clove hitch and munter hitch. The clove hitch is an amazing way to set up an anchor while you’re tied into the rope (without using any additional piece of gear – just the rope you’re tied too). The munter hitch was also really cool because you could use that to belay yourself if you were found without an atc belay device.

We also practiced tying off a fallen climber. The scenario this would be used for is if you were at a hanging belay (or belaying from the top of the climb) and your climber screamed and suddenly all the weight was on the rope and it continued to be this way for quite awhile. It seems that your climber is hurt (or it could have been your lead climber who took a nasty whipper (aka: huge fall) and they are hurt). Perhaps the wind is too strong and you can’t hear anything from them when you call down to see if they’re alright. So, you need to start figuring out what’s necessary to get everybody out of harms way. First you would tie off the fallen climber! While you’re belaying the responsibility is on your brake hand to make sure the climber is safe. You need to releave your brake hand from work to be able to climb down and see what is wrong or to be able to continue on to other rescue techniques.

Although we had practiced this in the BCC and I was fairly confident in my skills, it is surely good practice to go over all rescue techniques. I can’t imagine the stress involved if there was actually a problem, so you want to make sure they’re second nature.

There was a lot of comradery and if anybody was struggling with something students and instructors would come together to help out. This experience may be heightened because everybody is working on techniques that are life dependent.

Soon we moved on to rappelling. Many of us had experience with this, but it can be scary because of the height and once again, you can never be too comfortable with a climbing skillset. We practiced basic rappels, rappelling with a backup prussic (if you’ve been climbing for 20+ hours you may not trust yourself – it never hurts to have a back-up. Rappelling is one of the only things in climbing where your life is dependent on yourself – interestingly this is also where the most climbing mistakes happen). We also practiced using a munter hitch to rappel. I enjoyed using the munter hitch; the only problem with rappellings off of it, is that it puts a lot of twists in the rope, especially the smaller diameter ropes.

After this it was time to practice climbing. Every student teamed off with another student and climbed between 3 and 6 routes. Brian and I made a great team – both of us are efficient climbers and we’re somewhat similar height and weight (basically, this means Brian isn’t a 6 foot giant). It was fun to see the difference in our techniques up the cliff face. My favorite route was touted as the hardest route. I was rather embarrassed at the end of it because when I came down from the route I received many compliments about how fast I did the route and how easy and graceful I made it look as well. I liked how it was a multi-faceted route—you had to change your balance mid-hold to be able to reach the next hold. Pretty much every route we worked on was slab (not totally vertical, but the hand holds are almost non-existent and you really have to rely on your shoes gripping the rock. The temperature was great—sunny but with a breeze and the rock shoes were able to grip well.

We ended Day 1 with a Italian dinner in downtown Leavenworth where I had a scrumptious dish of cheese tortellini with basil pesto sauce.

Day 2 started at 7:30am at the Mountaineers Dome. This is a great section to practice crack climbing.


Charlie on a crack

After the short hike to the cracks we were given a lecture on traditional protection (hereon referred to as trad climbing or placing pro). We learned the good and bad of placing cams (old name: friends), hex’s, nuts, and tricams (a real love or hate piece that is almost obsolete these days).


A cam rooted in a crack

We were then given a rack (rack = all the gear necessary to climb, so you’d have varying sizes of cams, nuts and hex’s. This gear would be at least $1000 worth) and told to build anchors. For a solid anchor you want at least 3 pieces of well-set pro. If you have an iffy piece, like a really small nut, say half the size of an acorn placed, it is recommended that you place another nut to offset this.


A solid bolt

I was done pretty early and Emily (an instructor) challenged my protection by having both of us hang off it and jump on it. Fortunately it held and none of the pieces even tried to move. She then started pretending that my pieces of pro had fallen out and would test to see that my anchor was still solid, once again, my anchor won. Then she challenged me to place the entire rack on the wall within my arms reach while we waited for all the students to be done and the next lecture from the instructors. I had placed about 12 pieces (out of 30+) before it was time to learn about the hanging belay. Then I had to take them all out... *sigh*


Vermon at the hanging belay
The hanging belay is essential! I had seen it implemented before but had never used it myself. This is what you would use if you were multi-pitch climbing. The lead climber would climb up, set up an anchor in the middle of the route, and then belay the second climber to the same spot (hopefully a nice ledge, but not always). The second climber would either continue climbing (leading the route) or you would switch spots and the original leader would continue to climb. I’m super super excited to climb multi-pitch routes.


Emily and Oscar making anchors for the hanging belay station.

After the lecture we practiced lead belaying (when you belay a person setting up a route vs regular belaying where the ropes are already set up), and also cleaning pro that the leader had set. For instructional purposes, the leader set pro about every 4 or 5 feet (normally you’d set this between 6 and 15 feet depending on your comfort level while taking into consideration what you need to put on the wall to not take a ground fall).


Emily placing pro. I had to figure out how she got those pieces in there to be able to get them out.

Cleaning pro was really fun when it was on the route. For most pieces you could just hit the trigger of the cam and it would release from the rock. Other pieces, mainly nuts, might be a little harder. Some of them would come out if you jerked it up, but others were jammed in cracks and just didn’t want to come out. This meant you might have to use your nut tool (a slender tool that can slip in the crack that you can use to jar the nut) to assist in getting the piece out. Sometimes this wouldn’t work either and you’d have to really think “how did this piece get into the wall” and reverse that process. It kind of made it like a puzzle or an investigation, both which I enjoy greatly.


Matt rapelling past a knot, looks like he's using the one-handed prussic technique!

While some students practiced cleaning pro and the hanging belay other students practiced rappelling past a knot. This is another skill that will hopefully not need to be implemented, but if you don’t know how to do it, you may be screwed.


Jet soaking in the rays.

Each of these two skills took a lot of time and there was downtime for some of the students. During this time some people made tape gloves (to protect the back of your hands when you're jamming them into the cracks). Others basked in the sun, and others would borrow pro from the instructors rack and practice placing it in the cracks or making anchors.


Deborah making a tape glove

Once this was done we got back into groups and did some top rope climbing (where the ropes are already set up; either an instructor led them, or somebody climbed an easy side of the rock to get to the top of the route and then hung the ropes down).

The day ended a little after 4pm when I met Andreas in the parking lot. We split an ice cream in celebration of the weekend (or perhaps moreso because of our denial of an ice cream stop the weekend before) and then made our way back to Seattle.