Sunday 31^st

Rain. Mmmmff. Even before I wake properly I know the weather and its significance. I swim up through layers of unconsciousness and peer blearily at the bedroom window. It's underwater. Actually, it's under water ... but the pertinent space, in this case, is meaningless to me. All I know is that my plans for climbing this day have been sunk.

For some reason I get out of bed anyway. For some reason I go and sort out my climbing gear. For some reason it stops raining. For some reason Josephine walks through the door at 9am ready to go climbing. For some reason the sun suddenly bursts forth.

For some reason ... it's hard to keep the silly grin off my face. Awesome.

Approximately two hours later Josephine and I swing into a tiny little carpark (it's just a pullout really) off a dirt track at a trailhead which supposedly connects with the Appalachian Trail. We are very near the township of Kent in central west Connecticut, and we are very near St John's Ledges. During the winter John Peterson marched the length and breadth of the state scoping out dozens of little crags all over the place and trying to locate the ones with any merit. This one made his short list. I had never been here before. It took mere minutes to march up the trail and reach the big slabs.

These are pretty large slabs alright, big for Connecticut. The lower crags close to the carpark are big enough to warrant interest, but the upper slabs are what I was after. Friction/face climbing for up to a full pitch (100 feet) and no bolts whatsoever. Delicious. We walked along the base for a bit, spotting a solo top-roper working what looked to be a beautiful and isolated crack running from top to bottom of the face. We slowly got ourselves organized while I convinced myself that this, the most obviously (pure?asthetic?) line on the whole face, was going to be a real doddle and that I absolutely had to lead it. Just I saw that the soloist had finished and was pulling up his rope, I noticed a figure wandering up the trail towards us. Ah, this must be Brandon.

Brandon? Who? Right, ok, so here's the explanation. I met Brandon the last time I was at Cathole. Back in February I think. We got on famously (natch) I took some spiffy digital shots of him and his girlfriend both on and off the rock and sent them to him some time afterwards through the wonder of the internet. Out of the blue he emailed me on Friday wanting to know if I was going climbing on Sunday. Of course I was.

You see on the Friday that Brandon emailed me I went climbing with another New Face. Dana Perry and I went to do a couple of leads at Sleeping Giant, afterwards he and I tentatively agreed to back that great day up with another one out at St John's Ledges on Sunday. Sure dude, sounds cool! So I had fired off an email that afternoon to the troops ... only Josephine was able to answer the call. The rest were disabled by the religious observances of the season, apparantly it's Easter, or were just disabled (possibly by alcohol).

Anyway, there was Brandon huffing and puffing his way up the trail with his rack and his rope. We made with the greeting thing and I introduced him to Josephine, all was sweet. The soloist had disappeared, the line was mine. My confidence was high and I felt my kung-fu was strong so I launched myself at the route.

Very, very quickly I was getting a wake-up call. After the first ten feet there's a bulge which coincides with a temporary withering away of the crack I wanted to follow. Ouch. I looked left, right, up and down (all the while fiercely keeping hold of the little undercling) and was unable to find anything satisfactory for my feet. The crack above the bulge offered a lone fingerlock at best, perhaps even a two-finger jam, these I just might be able to do on top rope. But not here, not on the lead and not when I couldn't find anywhere to put my feet afterwards. To ease the tension I plugged a #0.4 camalot into that little space, effectively subtracting it from my list of things that I might be able to grab, and clipped the rope in. Instead of further contemplating a difficult move up into uncertain territory which (if it failed) could send me crashing to earth, I found myself grabbing the camalot and thinking about french-freeing it.

Now wait a minute boyo. There are people watching. This is not something a real trad climber does. A real trad climber does not put a piece in the wall so that he has something to haul himself up on. A real aid-climber on the other hand, now that's a different story. So what's it going to be, are you going to start down that long slow road where all of the aid-climbing lunatic fringe inevitably end their days as hollow empty husks swinging gently among cobwebs from a single rusting rurp up a wall which finally and irrevocably went completely blank. No lad, there's always another path. Sure enough, to the right, there was an alternative way around the bulge. It was still a little tricky, but it offered the surety I needed.

I stepped back left to the crack and recommenced operations. Ungh. Up we go. Oh wow. Ow! Damn, my feet hurt. A paucity of features on either side of the crack was forcing me to pretty much keep my hands and feet right in there. I kept going higher in the hopes that I would find a decently comfortable rest. Dude, I kept saying to myself, this is harder than you thought. You idiot.

"Shut up." I ground breathlessly out between my teeth.

At one point I realized that I was trying to rest on a foot which was efficiently (if painfully) jammed in an offwidth. Hey cool, look at that, I'm a real crack climber now! Crack climbers are masochists, believe it. I'm not a masochist, ergo ... let's get a flippin' move on! Ow. Ouch. Don't fall here, don't fall here, don't fall here. Or here. Or bloody anywhere.

Actually, falling really was a bit of a concern beyond the usual fears it held. Down below Josephine was belaying for me. She has belayed me on lead exactly once before, and that was in the gym. If I couldn't keep my head here she was going to get a real hard lesson very soon. Hope she doesn't fail the test. Finally I found a big enough ledge to stand on with both of my pinched feet.

I spotted a family of three trotting up the path. That must be Dana and his family. I called out and sure enough it was them. Excellent, they made it.

I turned back to the route and finished off the last easier section pretty well. At the top I found a tree with webbing and rap rings. Here I set my anchor. Down below I counted out eight separate pieces of pro. I think I had climbed about 35 to 40 metres. Jeez Loise, I must have been gripped. The climb felt about 5.8 and that's not counting the crux really early on. Phew.

Off in the distance Dana was leading it up what would turn out to be a grieviously unprotectable face, forcing him to run right for the saftey of some trees.

Josephine was ready to follow up. That crux really really was hard, she fell twice making the attempt, so she changed tack and followed my escape route at the right. Then she worked her way up the crack. This was only her second day climbing outside, but in the time between her first and this one she had put in a lot of good hours at the gym ... her improvement was obvious. She was also used to trusting the rope now and had no fear of falling. She did slip a couple more times, but she didn't need any help to get where she was going. It was a strong showing and hopefully she'll want to continue climbing outside.

Josephine had trailed Brandon's rope, so I anchored her and sat her down somewhere safely away from the edge before putting him on belay. Brandon moved up to the crux and worked at it with real determination. Eventually he mashed his fingers into place and just hauled upwards, in mid-stride he lost his footing and seemed about to tumble down. But no, his fingers heroically remained locked in place and he caught the fall. Straining for purchase he swung his right foot over the bulge and pushed his body upwards enough to reach a higher grip. Toes arched into the crack and suddenly he was standing above the crux. That was one sweet move.

Brandon finished the rest of the climb without incident, no falls, no uncertainty ... it was a nice clean run. Soon he was beside Josephine and I. He filled me in on the crux and its worth and we agreed on a general rating. The only thing I don't know is what it's called ... oh well, lets call it The Saint (5.9) ... although I went around the crux and encountered nothing harder than 5.8 myself.

A few days later I got some (more accurate) information about that climb, including it's real name ... (thanks Bill!)

Stinger (5.8)
Climb following the crack near the left-most side of the upper slabs. Watch the early bulge crux, which is far harder than it looks. There are rap rings at the top, but a 60m rope may not be long enough for the rap. There's a walk off trail going to the right end of the slab.

Brandon and I hauled the lines over towards the smooth northern face and set up a couple of top ropes not far from where Dana was belaying for his wife's ascent after his lead. We spent the rest of the day climbing these and the line that Dana had set. I hadn't done true friction climbs in Connecticut before and they were pretty challenging for mid-level gumbies like us, but they were much fun. I took a handful of pictures as well. In the words of the great Billy Shakespeare... 'Twas indeed a way cool day, dude.