Friday 14^th.

Drove to Conway, New Hampshire, a trip which took about 5 hours. On arrival at the Beach Campsite (on the Saco river) we set up the tents and cooked dinner on our new Primus stove. Damn thing sounded like a jet engine! Talked and chatted about the days of climbing to come. Very excited. Slept like stones.

Saturday 15^th.

The skies looked a bit threatening in the morning, with heavy gray cloud and a light breeze, but we were confident that it would hold and remained undeterred. Met up with our guide, Alain Comeau, at the International Mountain Equipment (IME) store in North Conway at 8.45am. Alain explained our options and asked a few questions about our skills. Not wanting to overstate our abilities (and maybe end up being taken somewhere we shouldn't be) we quoted our strengths as being somewhere between beginner and intermediate gym climbers, preferring crack climbing to friction. So Alain took us to Cathedral Ledge, a very nice grouping of steepish granite walls and ledges that provide up to 500 vertical feet of climbing.

After parking (and a minor heart-stopping incident when Alain's excitable young border collie, "Shadow", nearly ran into the path of a passing car) Alain hiked us in along a short path to the bottom of the cliffs to the beginning of a route called "Into Thin Air" ... which of course brought to mind the (identically titled) book written by Jon Krakauer about an Everest climbing disaster. We organized our gear and Alain got right into it, explaining about what we were going to be doing and introducing us to a variety of lead-climbing concepts. We really had no idea what to expect, but from what we had read it was supposed that we might not be doing any leading ourselves at all ... at least not today. So we weren't too worried when Alain proposed to lead us and we would follow him on a short multipitch climb, using it as our classroom as we took our first steps into leading.

This route (Into Thin Air) is a series of three 5.6 pitches, the middle one being a traverse. After tying us all in, with a length of rope between each of us, Alain climbed up the first pitch simply enough, setting protection on the way. All the while he chatted to a nearby climber who was following a neighboring route and respectfully asking Alain for some advice. In very quick time, it seemed, he had secured himself on a ledge and informed Leon that he was off belay. Leila followed up easily, as did Leon and then myself ... Alain belaying all of us from above. As we climbed Alain would variously instruct us to remove an item of protection, with the last climber removing all that remained, perhaps using it as an opportunity to gauge our skills on the rock. Anyway, he seemed satisfied that we were competent enough for some basic climbs and concentrated on teaching and demonstrating what was involved in good safe leading and seconding. At the beginning of the second pitch, the traverse, Alain covered things such as good rope management, people management (there were four of us on one ledge!), the importance of making sure that everybody understood what was happening all of the time and that everyone knew what was expected of them. His instruction on safety and communication was delivered very well. We learned a great deal about the mechanics and consequences of falls, how they load protection and how to minimize being surprised by them. There was much more and overall it was a valuable experience. Suffice to say that Alain seemed thorough, was patient and obviously enjoyed teaching beginners his hard-won skills. Additionally his own experiences (he has been climbing for 30 years) and knowledge of the climbing world has left him with the vast repertoire of a really good story-teller. This is not a boring guy.

OK, back to the climbing. We finished the traverse, each of us a bit nervous as we had never done this sort of thing before (well, we've bouldered along at ground level heaps of times, but being over 50 feet up puts things into a different perspective) and for me taking the protection out and carefully stowing it on my harness (while maintaining my grip on the rock!) really highlighted the difference between this and what I was used to with top-roping. At the end of the traverse we noticed a large group below us who was gearing up to follow the same route. The instant their leader started up the wall a terrific rainstorm hit us. For a few minutes we were drenched by a relatively heavy deluge. It stopped that group dead in their tracks and I thought it might end our climbing too.

Alain was a great sport, he suggested that we could go down or we could continue up if we wanted to. Little did he know he was in the presence of real nuts ... of course we would continue. To hell with the rain! He explained how that the water really didn't effect climbing much, that wet shoes worked just as well on wet rock. The trouble comes when the shoes are dry and the rock is wet, then you get significant slippage. I don't know if he was appalled at our lack of timidity or not, but Alain seemed to shrug it off and then carry on up the wall. There's something about watching a guy trailing a rope underneath him while he moves up a rockface in the pouring rain, something which suggests a twinge of madness I think. Nevertheless, the conditions didn't make any noticeable difference to the rate of his progress. The three of us, shivering like half-drowned cats on a ledge less than a foot wide, watched him finish the climb just as the rain tapered off.

Leila and Leon climbed only a few feet apart (on separate ropes) as Alain demonstrated how it was possible to belay two climbers at once (he uses a deceptively simple device called a gi-gi to do this). It was amazing how our shoes still functioned as he promised, and any doubts in our ability to follow him quickly evaporated. After I joined them all up to the top I saw that we were perched on a nice triangular ledge with a spectacular view out over some New Hampshire forests. We laughed and joked between us, Alain all the while making us note details of the ropes, anchors, the gi-gi and told us we would be abseiling down. The plan was he would go down first, to a lower ledge and then he would be our safety as we followed him. Confirming that we had all done this before as he started over the edge he was a little surprised to hear that Leila had never abseiled in her life! So after a minute or so of quick instruction he trusted that she (and Leon and I) knew what to do ... besides he had us prepped enough before he left such that all we had to do was step over and head down ... no technical rope wizardry necessary on our part ... we just had to know how to brake. Leila picked it up easily and we joined Alain at the lower ledge in next to no time at all. For the second and final abseil he fixed it so that Leila and I would be going down together, with me working the brake ... a small demonstration of one of the techniques of self-rescue I think. It was a great morning's climb and at the bottom we could hardly wait to go up again.

As everything was wet, including our packs (Alain's pack actually had a small pool of water inside it!), we decided to go into town and grab a coffee and some lunch to revive the drive. After lunch we headed straight back to Cathedral Ledge, to a different place. Alain had judged our abilities and decided he knew a route we would enjoy and he could continue the running clinic.

Well it was great ... a 500 foot climb starting with "Fun House", a 5.7 pitch, and a final crack climb at the top rated at 5.9 ... all the while we were being introduced to further concepts and ideas. For much of it Leon and I were tethered about 15 feet apart on the same rope. At times I found this particularly stressful. I can appreciate how this would save time for Alain, as he could belay all three of us at once on two ropes. But I was acutely aware that if I fell I would drag Leon off the rock with me. I was so aware of this that I took excruciating care to maintain a 15 foot gap (and not build up too much slack between he and I, in the event of a fall on my part any slack would add to the force that Leon would feel) and I was determined not to fall at any cost. I can't imagine how Leon felt, never knowing when 70-odd kilos of aussie would suddenly tumble away and rip him from his stance. It must have been pretty nerve-wracking for him too ... I'm not known for being a particularly careful climber on top-ropes. As luck would have it I didn't fall while being tethered to Leon, and neither did he. A few days later Leon told me that he felt considerable pressure too, also trying to maintain the gap between us and keeping pace with Alain's belaying. I did have a fall on the first pitch, but we weren't tethered then. In fact that fall of mine was the ONLY fall the whole group had that day.

After getting over the top, where a bunch of mildly surprised tourists owlishly watched us clamber over the safety fence of their look-out, we were pretty hyped and happy. It was the first big climb any of us had done and, even though most of the climbing was not technically difficult, it felt great to have finished it. We walked down the tourist road to get back to the car. We thanked Alain very much for his instructions and attentions and arranged to meet him at the coffee shop the following morning. Had a slow dinner at a busy mexican restaurant (where we scored free beers because the service was so slow) before collapsing in the tent to dream about ropes, cams and anchor points.

Sunday 16^th.

Woke up to a brand new freshwater lake outside the tent. It was raining, heavily. According to Leila it had started sometime around midnight. Leon's tent was practically floating. Rain. Damn. Alain wouldn't want to climb in this ... and to tell the truth neither did I. I was wearing my last dry clothes and I was pretty sure that climbing in the wet all day and then driving 5 hours (soaked to the bone) back to New Haven would not be a pleasant experience. Leon and Leila looked more hopeful than me. In any case, we broke camp and packed everything away ... trying to ignore the incessant rainfall.

We met Alain at a coffee-shop just before 9am. His expression was no more cheerful than ours. He did however have a plan, we could do an anchor clinic in a dry spot at the ledge which was protected from the elements ... from there we could monitor the weather and decide what to do after lunch. Good plan, we needed work on our anchors (I needed it badly as it turned out) and we all headed off back to the Ledge. A short hike, past a tree or two that had come down in the night and left a spectacular mess of leaves and branches across the trail, brought us to the overhang he had mentioned. We spent several hours in there learning good anchoring techniques and how to use our protection. Alain had us put up our own protection (he made me do it twice, my first one was woeful) and got each other to pick holes in our setups and then gave his own critiques. There were some sport climbers there hangdogging on some very difficult leads, but the distraction they provided was minimal. This was probably the most valuable couple of hours of the whole trip and Alain gave us a great deal of advice on how to safely approach our continued learning of traditional lead climbing. The rain, however, did not let up and there wasn't much else we could do in these conditions. Back at the coffee shop he spent some time just shooting the breeze with us and telling us some more stories. He invited us to contact him again next time we were in the area and said that he would point us in the direction of a few appropriate climbs. August we said, and we're still saying it now ... August we will return, and it had better not bloody rain!