Friday 22nd, December

I woke fairly early and noticed that the small window in our bedroom was obscured by a fluffy white powdery stuff. Snow! It had snowed in the night ... excellent! Realizing it was closing in on 8 oclock I crawled out of bed and woke up properly in the shower. Stepping into the kitchen and glancing out another, less obfuscated, window I saw ...

"IT'S SNOWING!" I shouted. Leila probably nearly fell out of bed. If she wasn't awake before, she certainly was now.

"Great." Came the somewhat unenthusiastic reply.

Excellent! Snowing! Alright! It was exactly what I had hoped for. Days ago I insisted to Leon that we should go climbing at Sleeping Giant, in the morning, in the cold. I reasoned that we had to squeeze in at least one climb before we left for the Gunks meeting.

We were planning on joining a gathering of climbers that we knew (well, we knew one of them) at the Shawangunks (the Gunks), in New York state on Tuesday the 26th. The weather predictions said it was going to be cloudy and cold ... very cold. I thought that it would be a good idea to test our readiness for such conditions by first trying something relatively small, certainly familiar, and much closer to home.

In addition to this there was something about climbing in the snow, while it was snowing, that for me held an immense appeal. Leon and I had already climbed in a range of conditions, under pouring rain, in total darkness, or burning sun. This would be another feather in an odd-looking cap. So some minutes passed with me looking out the kitchen window and grinning madly at the prospect of what promised to be some unmitigated misery. Of course I called Leon to wake him and make summary demands.

"Aarrgh ... Hewk!" Was pretty much all he said. I let fly with my instructions (wake up, get dressed, grab gear, drive over, we go, capiche?) and hung up practically rubbing my hands together with glee. Boy oh boy oh boy, this was gonna be fun.

Hey, you have to appreciate something here. Snow is pretty important to me. I love it. Can't get enough of it. After three decades of living in places where snow hadn't fallen from the sky in about 40000 years I kinda appreciate the wonder of it all. One of the coolest things I can imagine is to go lead climbing while snow is painting the world a soft white. So I was pretty much out of my mind with expectation.

While I was busy sorting gear, counting gear, clipping gear onto harness and sling, resorting, recounting, and reclipping (somewhere in there I managed to eat some breakfast) Leon went back to sleep for another forty five minutes. So I was getting a little impatient when he finally staggered bleary eyed through our front door at 9.30 am. He had made himself some fingerless gloves and that seemed to be his only real additional concession to the weather. I, on the other hand, looked like the michelin man with my layers of cotton, fleece and gortex. I dragged all my stuff together and, with a jaunty fairwell to Leila, lugged it downstairs and dumped it all into the "Dude" (Leon's subaru).

"You ready?"
"Yeah."
"Ok?"
"Ok."

We drove off. Leon was waking up and getting as excited as I was. We hadn't been to the Giant in ages, not since early October, so it would be a fond reunion. A light snow continued to fall ...

We pulled into the Sleeping Giant carpark at ten minutes after ten, a light blanket of snow covering everything to a depth of barely a centimeter. Pulled on the harnesses, slung the slings, racked the ropes and clinked off into the Park. We followed the usual trail. It was a beautiful day and everything looked amazing. The park had changed hugely since we were last here. No leaves, just the grey bareness of denuded wood. The snow deadened the sound of footfall, and our voices seemed unnaturally loud in the surrounding stillness. We reached the main path which swept beneath the cliffs and discussed our options. Would we do something old? Maybe "Ah, cabron" again now that the poison ivy is dead? Eventually we decided against repeating any of our previous climbs. Leon and I both preferred the idea of just walking up to a new line and just going for it. So we found something likely, something doable under the conditions, and headed up into the scree.

The scree field was pretty awkward. Snow and ice covered everything, I worried privately that we might put a foot through an unseen hole and snap an ankle or something ... but there really wasn't enough snow for that yet. Just a centimeter of the white stuff making everything look very pleasant indeed. But it was still difficult to ease our way up over the boulders without slipping. We spent a few minutes looking for "Ah, cabron" and "The Dude", while "Raindance" and "Nightcrawler" were easy to spot, and "Gumbies delight" was way off to our left. Our line of choice was between "Cabron" and "Dude", I already had a name for this new climb ... "You Don't Know Jack Frost" ... a bit clunky, but it suited both the climb and our state of mind at the time.

We got to the base at about 10.40am and debated where we should start. I reckoned that we might, just might, be able to do this in our hiking boots. Besides, we were standing among the scratchy spikes of a winter thinned thorn bush and I didn't want to sit in it while changing shoes. After a bit of chat Leon said I could go first, particularly if I thought we should do this in boots. So, with lots of bravado and an equal measure of trepidation, I started up. The boots would be totally useless in situations calling for friction, so it was ledges and edges or nothing. With such poor reliance on footwork the hands and arms suffered pretty heavily, but the feet were finding just enough to make me think we were going to be ok. I was placing protection fairly frequently, mindful of how easy it would be to lose footing and slip off. Leon had made some recent purchases, among them a trio of "aliens" (very small active camming devices) which I had borrowed for the pitch and used one along the way. Mostly, though, I used the MacGregor hexes. Every time I placed one, and felt the hard thunk of it jamming solidly into place I give silent thanks to the MacGregor for loaning them to us. I ran out the end of my pitch a little, traversing to the left under the belay ledge to follow a fairly easy line among some thorns. Once at the ledge I spent a little time securing myself and setting up a nice three point anchor. #9 nut, #2 fcu, big hex (gracias MacGregor) and it was done, Leon took me off belay, I dragged up the slack, etc, etc.

Leon followed my line except he eschewed the traverse and took a much harder direct ascent to the belay ledge, although he admitted that doing it top-roped was a proposition entirely different from leading the same line, particularly in boots. Sneaking it up by me he secured himself a position on the ledge. The snow fall had become a little heavier now. Leon was also in some discomfort, his right hand was freezing cold. So I gave him one of my gloves to try and warm it up a bit. It was cold, but I had been working since the get go ... Leon had to stand still during my climb and while I belayed for him ... well ... I was pretty much warmed up. Anyway, he was ok in a little while so he returned the glove, grabbed all the gear he wanted, got organized, sorted the ropes, etc, etc. Up he went ... but he didn't get terribly far at first.

He had managed to put in one piece, but good hand and foot placements were suddenly nonexistent. He attempted to find some friction in his boots and got a little freaky as he started to skid back down. I lowered him back down to the belay ledge and he immediately set about changing shoes. We had a brief argument over his decision to not wear socks (his argument: shoes too tight, mine: your feet will freeze), of course the socks missed out. Leaving his boots and the odiferous socks with me Leon got back onto the wall and this time moved confidently and smoothly upwards.

Snow was tumbling down out of the sky. Clots of it would burst on my arm and I could, for the first time in my life, see the regular star-like crystal shapes that you find depicted in cartoon form everywhere. Astonishing. Off in the distance the University of Quinnipiac's chapel started tolling it's bell and then, weirdly, the bells were playing "Santa's coming to town". It was like we were in some sort of tv special, any moment now some overweight geriatric with a red coat and a horrible cold was going to swoop by behind a train of speed-freak reindeer. Ho ho ho.

Actually, I was getting quite chilled. Standing on that ledge, I hopped from one leg to the other thinking that doing this would warm me up. Nope. I put my hands in my pockets for a few minutes whenever Leon stopped moving up, but never let go of the rope. Ah well, this is still fun, I told myself. No really it is. Up above, Leon was finding the protection very difficult. He had to run it out a stretch up to a tree, which he promptly slung, before running it out to the end of his pitch. It was amazing to see him moving up through the snowfall. Little drifts of snow had gathered in every nook and cranny, and he had to sweep some holds a bit before using them.

Out of sight Leon called down that he was setting an anchor, eventually he was off belay and not long after that it was my turn to follow up.

"Are you going to change shoes?" He asked.
"No."

I should have though. It would have made things a lot easier. I fell three times trying to get past that bit which had given Leon a fright early in the pitch. It was truly exhausting having to drag myself up principally by arm-power, not trusting my feet to maintain any sort of solid purchase on the rock. If I had worn climbing shoes I could have better judged Leon's effort, unfortunately I have only the slimmist grasp of how difficult it was for him. I reached his belay perch, a scant 15 feet below the top, totally worn out.

The last bit looked formidable, truly the crux of the climb, it was overhanging and not really friendly as far as hand/foot holds were concerned. I was too tired to change shoes, let alone do any leading, so I asked Leon if he would kindly get me out of here by finishing the lead. He grinned and quickly sorted things out. I put him on belay, it was about all I could do, and he went up.

Tough finish. Overhangs are always tiresome. But he cranked it over with only two placements, mantling onto the top and quickly finding an anchor. My following was not pretty, grunting, groaning, moaning ... struggling in the boots, but somehow not falling and somehow actually making it up and over the top. We were done.

We shook hands and grinned at each other like idiots. Woohoo ... survived the Giant again! Unbelievable. The snowfall had stopped and the sun, bursting through the clouds, coloured the world in pale gold.