Friday 11^th

Leon, Leila and I have been planning a lead climb on either a cliff called "the chin" in Sleeping Giant National Park or somewhere on Ragged Mountain the next day. The weather forecast for Saturday looked really grim. Rain, lots of it, floods were also in the offing! It didn't look too good at all. Still we thought that maybe there would be a chance. If the next day dawned miraculously clear we would head for Ragged, if not we would think about hitting the closer Sleeping Giant. Of course, if it rained then we would bail. As Leon had to leave for Long Island early the next afternoon a very early start was thought prudent. So Leon brought over a video, we cooked and he crashed for the night in the guest room. Rain fell for most of the night.

Saturday 12^th

Woke to an alarm set for 6am and at once checked the weather. Rain (as predicted by local forecasters) would mean a precipitate return to bed. No rain, patchy clouds in the sky. Looked promising. Leon also woke quickly, had a look outside and immediately dived into the shower. Leila showered next in an effort to wake herself up, tea and coffee were put on the boil, breakfast was had and gear arranged. Eventually we hit the road and reached Sleeping Giant National Park by about 8am. Unpacked and distributed the gear. With topo maps and cliff-photos in hand we headed out to the "chin", a 70 metre cliff only 10 minutes walk away from the car park. The sky was grey and a little threatening, not as hopeful looking as two hours earlier, still we decided to at least walk to the base.

Leon and I had lead-climbed up a very easy route (which we rated at 5.3/5.4 at worst) a few days ago thinking we were on a climb called "Weissner's Rib", rated at 5.6 (easy). We weren't, but today we would try to find it again. This time we were pretty sure, comparing the cliff face to the topo and photograph we had brought with us. By about 8.30 we had scrambled up the scree-slope and found a likely starting point. The weather still looked uncertain, no rain yet, but it didn't look like it was out of the question either. However, we had come this far and the wall was too tempting to turn back from it now.

Half an hour later we were standing and ready to go at the bottom of what was to be a very short first pitch, maybe only four metres or so. Leon and I had played paper-scissors-rock for the first lead (he won) as Leila expressed no interest in doing any leading just yet. Leon went up and placed a single piece of protection on the way, more for the sake of practise than anything. The climb was very easy. He spent a while setting up a belay anchor and then belayed Leila as she seconded, removing the single piece of protection as she went. Leila then took over the belay as I went up a slightly different and just barely more difficult route to the left. Leon's anchor looked good. The ledge we were on was big and allowed us ample room for reorganizing ropes etc. I was to lead the second pitch, to be followed by Leon and then Leila third. The idea here was to give Leila a chance at "cleaning" the route of our placed protection.

This pitch was immediately felt to be a serious climb, as opposed to the very easy start. I narrowed my focus on climbing and looking for opportunities to place frequent and solid protection. For the first time it seemed possible that a lead fall might be in the offing. The actual climbing wasn't that difficult, mostly 5.6/5.7 and a couple of 5.8 moves (including one scary friction move right under the end of the pitch about a metre above my last protection), but it certainly wasn't like climbing a ladder. I took a while setting up the anchor. First setting a sling around a large stone that was wedged into a big crack and then securing myself to that and yelled down to Leon that he could let me off the belay. Not perfect, but until I set up the belay anchor it would do. I got three wired wedges into a close series of cracks (two of them bomb-proof and one looking a bit exposed but jammed in tight) and tried to recall everything we had learned from Alain in New Hampshire about equalizing the cordalette in the direction of pull during the belay. He must have done a good job because I (eventually) managed a decent anchor, even if I do say it myself! It had taken a long time to set up, but the two 25 metres below me weren't complaining. The only worry was that they both reported feeling a couple of drops of rain. Not good, if we bailed from here we would have to leave behind some equipment.

Leon came up and seemed impressed with the climb and indicated it was a bit of a decent lead. I got him tied off and secured and sitting on a ledge slightly higher than the belay. Leila followed and cleaned the route of protection as she came, having no trouble with either the climb or her chores. The ledge I was standing on to belay was quite small and just barely fit us both, with Leon sitting on the other (higher) ledge. We all discussed our position for a while and felt that we may be a little off-route, that Weissner's Rib might actually be a few metres to our right. We picked out a line of ascent for Leon (he was taking over the lead again) and agreed that a traverse was called for somewhere on this pitch. During the discussions some of us thought we may have heard distant thunder.

So up he went, Leila belayed and I crawled up onto the ledge where Leon had rested before. He started with a terrific lay-back move, placing two pieces of protection on the way, before switching to standard crack climbing. As he went he meandered a little, which led to some significant rope drag as it zig-zagged through protection points behind him. High above us (perhaps 30 metres or so) he seemed to come to a halt on an arete, probably feeling really exposed, the wind was whipping away really strongly, but at least the rain was still holding off, he appeared stuck. He wanted to make the traverse to a ledge he knew was just to his right around the corner, he had spotted it from below earlier in the pitch. But he had no idea about hand or foot holds or even exactly how far away this ledge would be. So, hanging on for dear life, a piece of pro about a metre below, he reached around and blindly searched for a grip. At the last moment his fingers slid into a beautiful and welcoming pocket of solid stone, it must have been quite a relief. He swung gently around and found a handy step over to the ledge. He was now out of our sight.

An eternity later (now I know what it's like to wait below for someone to set up an anchor in a less than ideal situation … patience is an absolute necessity) Leon had taken the time to clean out some dirt- and moss-filled cracks and set himself what was a bomb-proof stance. Eventually he called down and indicated that he was ready to belay. Leila seconded, coming up with an ingenious solution to the section that Leon laybacked (I'll leave that explanation up to Leila) and finished the climb smoothly. She and I had discussed the rope-drag problem … which was severe … and she proposed to remove a couple of Leon's protection pieces to try and straighten the path of my rope that she would be dragging up behind her. This she did and it worked very well. After Leila had been secured I went up, trying to repeat Leon's layback (I did, but with somewhat less elegance) and following his arete line to the traverse. Taking out the last piece of protection I managed to easily get around (mostly because I was getting pretty clear instruction as to where I should place hands and feet on the move). The whole pitch was at minimum a 5.7/5.8, some of it felt like 5.9 (our limit in the gym is currently 5.10) and I realized that this was a hell of a lead for Leon to do only second time out. He's a brave boy that lad.

The place Leon had chosen to set his anchors was … ok … it would have been absolutely perfect but for one small detail. Some days/weeks before we climbed this route, a small tree must have come down from higher up and sort of got wedged right-over-that-ledge! It looked heavy enough that if it did come loose while we were under it it would certainly knock us around quite a lot. The anchors did not seem to be in any danger however. Another point was that this was the last available ledge before topping out, and the rope-drag Leon was experiencing would have made continuing extremely difficult. It was this ledge or nothing.

I led the last pitch, very short, perhaps seven metres. It was damp, mossy, dirty, slippery and ever so slightly desperate until I got in the first piece of protection. After that it was easy. Topped out, scoped for an anchor, recruited a small tree for the job and set to work preparing for belay duties. Leila and Leon followed, in that order. We had done it, a four pitch lead of just under 70 metres of climbing total … it was 1 o'clock. It had taken us FOUR HOURS! Argh. The weather had been unexpectedly kind. We felt pretty lucky on that score. But otherwise we felt very satisfied with a well-executed (albeit slow) job. No corners were cut, no suspect anchors were accepted, everyone knew what everyone else was doing or should be doing, rope management went very well, there were no tangles, no problems. Knowing we did it and did it right left everyone feeling pretty good.

Re-examination of the topo and the photograph showed that we may have actually missed the first three-quarters of "Wiessner's Rib" by a fairly wide margin, we had spent the first two pitches of the climb way to it's left. We were probably somewhere between "Rhadamanthus" (5.10) and "Bolted" (5.9). That doesn't mean we were necessarily doing a particularly tough climb, just that we were off-route. Leon's crux climb (the third pitch) was actually almost entirely on "Bolted" and finished with a traverse to "Wiessner's rib" (5.6). The last pitch (mine) was the only one that was definitely on the "rib".

If this can be considered a new (hybrid?) route I hereby name it in honour of Leon's battered subaru, "The dude" (5.7).

Almost 8 months later in April of 2001, I would discover that we had indeed climbed the first half of “Weissner’s Rib”, before moving off-route to the right.