Tradin' in Soill:

This last Sunday was a sunny day. I met up with Jeff and Andy at Drapers Bluff around 10Am for some climbing. These guys both frequent Drapers so they were so kind enough to let me lead everything first :)
"Dental Bill" was the first climb. There are a number of different ways to get up this section of rock. I chose the 5.9 way which contains a very "lovely" off-width crack. (An off-width crack is a crack that is too big to "hand jam" and to small to get your whole body into stem.) My arms and back (which I only found out about later that evening) got cut up something fierce. There were a few groups of people out just hiking around that day so every now and then we'd get a "Hi, how are you". Pausing only to stop and look up at these people climbing up the bluff and wonder just how sane they where.
Up next was "Dust Doctors" The roof it the hardest part of this climb. (See photo to left) The rest of the climb fun with great protection. I think I was able to place a piece every 5 or 6 feet., after getting to the top and running the rope though my own lockers. I cleaned when I be being lowered.

Up next was "C" crack (see photo at right), I have been wanting to do C Crack since March 07 if even it was just to second it. However, I was gonna lead it. The climb is broken down in to two sections, the first a lovely 5.8 crack with great pro all the way up. The second is a 5.8 10-15 foot traverse with two horizonal cracks, one two shallow to use for protection, the other crack was at an awkward height to place anything and only 1 foot hold (a small pocket about the size of a half dollar). Guess which part was really humbling. Judging by the amount of old gear left right before the traverse...I knew I was in for a treat. I placed a cam, as well as used a cam that was over cammed and the trigger wires cut (this thing was not going anywhere...) as my anchors. I started off across the traverse...."TAKE" Took a whipper right there. That was my first fall on gear. The sounds were something else. All the gear held.

I decided to lengthen one of the runners to give the rope some more play. When I went for a second go across the traverse, I made it to the end....Oh....SHIT Z-CLIP! (I believe those were my exact words) When I had gone to adjust the runner length from one of the cams I had re-clipped the carabiner to the wrong side of the rope. "TAKE!" my second whipper. This time however, due to the Z-clip, two of the nuts I had placed about 5 and 10 feet below my last cam "zippered" out. (Note: there was a sold #2 C4 below the nuts) While I was falling I remember just watching the stems of the nuts go 180 and then made an awful sound as they where ripped from the rock. The two cams I had above me were still solid. I fixed the Z-clip and climbed the traverse and belayed Jeff and then Andy up. I for sure learned a lot from this one climb.