Monday 25^th.

Uh oh.

I’m standing in my bathroom brushing my teeth and I have this prickly itching sensation just below my right knee. It’s the morning of the day after an afternoon’s climbing at Sleeping Giant State Park.

Poison ivy.

I grit my teeth and scrub away. One day I’ll actually know, without a doubt, what poisonous ivy looks like, but for now I can only guess. Pretty soon the itching passes and I start remembering what turned out to be a pleasant afternoon’s climb.

Late last week I bumped into a friend I hadn’t seen in a few months. His name is Rush … James Rush. A fellow antipodean he hales from Sydney, the city of recent olympic fervour. We talked of the lack of climbing in which both of us had been wallowing and swore blood-oaths that we would lift ourselves from this mire on the following Monday afternoon.

“Right. Cheers mate.”
“Yep, cheers … see you Monday.”

I perused the rough guide I had (passed to me by a so-far patient David Fasulo for beta-testing) and initially thought to take James up the classic Wiessner’s Rib (5.6). But my lead head isn’t what it used to be, and James hasn’t been climbing outside for many years (his lead climbing experience is limited to following on two ascents somewhere in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney), so I changed my mind and aimed for an easy climb called Rhadamanthus Corner (5.4).

Before Leon and I knew about existing named climbs in this area, we actually climbed up Rhadamanthus Corner last December, in the snow. At the time we named it You Don’t Know Jack Frost. For that trip report, click HERE.

Come 5.30pm Monday I picked him up at his place and we puttered off to the Giant in my lethargic little Subaru. It was a brilliant day, quite warm and relatively uncluttered. The locals reckon it gets a tad humid in these parts, but coming from the tropics I know better. You want humid? Try wet summers in Papua New Guinea.

We reached the car-park at around 6.00pm and, after grabbing our packs, started to wonder if we had enough water. A gentleman hiker returning to his car heard us talking about our limited supplies of tepid tap water and promptly offered us some of his own, advising us to keep well hydrated. Marvelous bloke. If he knew we were Australians he might not have worried so much, we drink copiously only of beer.

So James and I hiked up the white trail towards the chin while we caught up on each others recent and up-coming adventures. We also agreed that if either of us don’t feel so happy with what’s happening during the climb that we shouldn’t be shy of bailing. In addition we have also minimized many potential worries by attempting one of the easiest climbs on the list.

From the trail we looked up at the chin and quickly I located where we wanted to go, pointing out our proposed start to James and trying to get him familiarized with it before we plodded up the boulder field. It’s an approach of about 50 yards of scrambling and the long limbed lad forged a passage before me with no difficulty whatsoever. Having indulged in sloth for some time I found myself huffing and puffing a bit. I had to call out to him stop as he was approaching the deadly green.

“James, better wait there mate.” I managed. “Gotta watch out for poison ivy.”

He nodded, sat down on a rock and waited a minute for me to catch up. “What’s it look like?” He asked.

Standing in my bathroom I remember this and absently scratch at my knee, grinning ruefully (and frothily) into the mirror.

Bloody hell, I thought as I looked over a writhing barrier of green between us and the wall, I dunno. “Um, look for an ivy viney looking thing … leaves arranged in groups of three, perhaps slightly darker green?” I struggled to recall John Peterson’s descriptions. I pointed at something that might have been the leafy beast and advised that we keep out of it.

“It’s bloody everywhere.” James observed, frowning with disbelief.

Yes. It is.

We were pretty close to the start and I picked out a path which would minimize our exposure to dermal discomfort. The base of the climb, was a mess of tangly thorns and lots of potential poison ivy. Egads! So we moved to the left a little and found another starting point about twenty feet away, a very easy series of ledges above us. James spotted another plant which also fitted my description of what poison ivy might look like. The truth is everything was starting to look like poison ivy. Here in the shadows the mossies were beginning to whine about us too. Great, let’s add the west nile virus to our concerns as well. At least I remembered the insect repellant this time.

We suited up and I loaned my ATC belay device to James so he could belay my lead. We sorted out our mental approach to the climb a little and then I went up. Very very easy start. Nice and gentle. Scrubby ledges, probably not poison ivy, just a scramble really. Pass a couple of scratchy thorn bushes and up onto the little ledge which marks the start of the true climbing. I call back that I’m going to stop here and set an anchor. As soon as I was secured James took me off belay and went back to swatting at mosquitos. I took up the slack and then belayed his ascent. He managed to remove the two token pieces of protection I had placed on the way, even though he didn’t have a nut tool to use (I had forgotten to bring mine along, it must be lying at the bottom of my gear chest in the laundry).

Hmmm, I should go and look for that after I finish brushing my teeth.

Soon he was up beside me and agreeing that it was a trivial bit of climbing up to here. The next bit, however, genuinely looked the business. A bit steep but not vertical, smallish and occasionally spaced foot/hand holds, however the protection looked a little thin (i.e. prospective placements for gear were neither obvious nor plentiful). Ah well, it is an easy climb and should be well within our grasp. I asked James how he was feeling and he replied that he was fine and enjoying the experience. Great! Me too. So I set off for the next pitch feeling pretty good.

The scarcity of protection gave me pause for concern the higher I went, but in the end I never did run it out too far and rest spots were easy to find if I wanted one. It was a feeling I described to James later that evening as the thrill of uncertainty. My lead head was getting a light testing and even if my voice was getting a little warbily during the climb I thought I was doing ok.

A small cliff-tree, maintaining a death-grip on it’s tiny ledge, offered a good chance to place a sling around its girth. The rock here it was just a tad loose and I didn’t feel comfortable placing pro. Onward and past the tree I reached a small bushy ledge and then a big comfortable pocket just beyond, where I stopped, just a few feet below the end of the climb. This is a nice spot to pause and look around. I slung a hefty stone with my big four foot sling and set a belay anchor from that. I called down to James that I was off belay and he let me pull up the remaining slack of the rope. I settled down to wait as he sweated loose the belay anchor down below. Quite a job of it he had too, having to use his bare hands to lever out a chocked tri-cam (often a following climber’s nightmare), but he eventually wrenched it free and was able to follow my line up the cliff.

He had no trouble as far as I could tell, none at all. Hopefully it was still an interesting enough climb. Pretty soon he was up beside me again handing over all the gear he had collected on the way. I pointed out the classic Weissner’s Rib climb to our right, and spent a little time just appreciating the view. We then looked up at the last little bit, which was the most interesting part, and then just went for it.

It took a little thought, some stemming, and I didn’t place any pro (it was only an eight or nine foot slightly overhanging dihedral). At the top I just mantled over, slung a tree, set the anchor and belayed James up. Too bloody easy, sort of. James grimaced a little as dust cascaded down into his eyes but he had no great difficulty with it. At the top we shook hands and both felt pretty good.

Walking down back to the car we yammered on to each other about all manner of things, enjoying the slow cooling of a great afternoon and not really paying too much attention. Suddenly we were right on top of an orangy brown rope-like creature! Snake! James leapt right over it and I danced back as the thing writhed its way off the path. After the dust settled and the shouting died down we went to have a bit of a look at it (maintaining a modest distance) and James identified it as a copperhead (James counts at least one herpetologist amongst his friends). Apparantly poisonous too. It's the first snake I have seen in the US so I never even think about them.

Afterwards, back in New Haven, we met Leila and some of the others at TK’s for a celebratory beer. James soon went off to a prior engagement at nearby Bar, but he came back to us eventually … he’s a good bloke.

“What are you doing in there? Any teeth left to brush?” Leila asks me from the bathroom door. “And stop scratching your leg.”

"Hey, have you seen my nut-tool?"

"Your what?"