I led four more climbs this weekend and while on the forth, a new outlook on climbing came to me. I love leading trad. While i'm still learning gear placements and asking the person who follows, to critiqued my placements. I realized...it truly is a great way to climb rock, for me anyway ;) .
Saturday morning Jeff and I met up at Drapers. The temperature for the day was supposed to be around 95. A lovely August day in Southern Illinois. The first three climbs we did were 5.6 climbs, mixed protection, some bolts to avoid "run out" (area of a climb where you can't place protection). About noon we decided to do a 2 pitch 5.6 called "Bloody Nose". The lead was something else. This is a climb that would be imposable on Top Rope. You need to lead it. I led the first pitch, it was about 50-70 (was hard to tell) feet though a sort-a chimney crack type formation, (spider webs everywhere looked like it hadn't been climbed in a long while). Above an old winding pine tree there was the belay station. Jeff followed and led the second pitch, which is a 30-40 foot traverse to another anchor. Once he got around the corner I hear "Ouch..the rock is to hot to even touch. Gotta love those Southern Illinois summers. Most of the second pitch was in direct sunlight. After Jeff set up anchor. I climbed over and we rapped down. We needed to use two ropes tied together (for safety, we couldn't see if both ends of a single rope would reach the ground) because of the height. Probably about 100-110ish feet up. However about half way down there is another set of anchors. So we could have done it with one rope and two rappels. But a long, fun rappel. I wish I remember my gloves, ATCs get HOT!
(Picture: Me rappelling down from "Good Day")
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