Seneca Rocks: Oct 15th 2006

Cindy and Manju had to leave early today to catch a flight, so our party of four started up another Seneca classic climb, Old Man's Route. We spent the morning in the shade, but the wind wasn't nearly so overwhelming.

The first two pitches of Old Man's followed less than vertical slopes and Cindy and Manju were climbing much more confidentially after the previous night's indoor practice. The third pitch is a traverse on a large ledge which brought us to another rappel anchor.

This descent would be about 150 feet straight down, requiring us to join two of our climbing ropes. As I stood on the ledge, straddling a small trunked tree, I confident that this was the longest rappel I'd ever done. Once again, I was sent down first to help back up the others. Backing off a perfectly good ledge and trusting the ropes and anchors is always the hardest part. Once the descent is begun, the ride down is quite enjoyable.

I watched Cindy and Manju each come down in turn as airplanes left contrails in the sky above. Justin helped our New York friends back down the cliffs to the trail so they could catch their flight. Once he returned he had me climb a route called Neck Press.

Once down, we moved along the cliffs and started our bid for the summit. With only two climbers we could move much quicker than a party of four, so we ascended Front C and soon found ourselves at the base of the Critter Wall.

I'd earlier admitted that since much of my climbing had been done in gyms, my ability to climb cracks was limited. These features aren't often emulated at indoor gyms and the various ways of jamming one's hands and feet in the crack for purchase were skills I lacked. Justin believed that the route called Critter Crack would be a great opportunity for me to learn.

With less skin on my knuckles and a new-found appreciation for the hand jam, I found myself above the Critter Wall and with only a basic scramble to the top. After waiting on another party of climbers, we finished the easy last scramble and Justin took the classic Seneca shots of me with the cliffs behind and standing on the South Summit.

Justin's radio crackled to life and the guiding shop owner let us know that he could see us on the summit with his high power telescope. Focusing his camera through the viewfinder, he proceeded to take a video of our impromptu victory dance on the dinner table sized summit.

Laughing, we finished signing the summit register then scrambled back down to begin a series of 3 rappels that would take us back to the ground. However, I don't fail to notice the mare's tail clouds that could signal a change in the weather in the next couple days.