Seneca Rocks: Oct 17th 2006

Sunday's clouds had accurately predicted rain. The wet stuff had poured down all night, lulling me asleep as the drops hit the nylon tent fly. Unfortunately, it was still raining when JJ and I met up. The Navy Seals had already claimed the entire inside climbing walls for the day, so we hiked to the cliffs and took shelter in a cave.

Between the cave itself and the overhanging walls above, we found enough dry rock for today's class, the start of my "Learning to Lead" course. When leading vertical rock routes, a climber needs to place pieces of protection into the cracks and then clip those into the rope. If the protection holds, then the potential fall is greatly reduced in height.

For the first hour I sat and absorbed as JJ went over all the various kinds of protection (cams, hexes, stoppers, tri-cams) and how to place them (which belong in parallel cracks, which work best in constrictions, how to get the most holding power from each). I couldn't shake the feeling that I was a monk or Hindu mystic, sealed off from the world in a cave learning esoteric knowledge from a master instructor. And the view out the cave mouth only reinforced that mental image.

The Southern Pillar completely dominated the scene with its improbably steep walls and light brushwork of yellow leaves. Since first seeing the pillar on Saturday, it has never failed to remind me of Chinese and Japanese landscape painting, especially the zen-inspired landscapes of rock cliffs disappearing into the clouds.

My next task was to wander about the cave and put all the information that JJ had imparted to use. With a rack full of cams, hexes, stoppers and tri-cams I evaluated every crack I could find, always looking for a potential fit among the ironmongery at my hips.

The next lesson was how to build a reliable anchor by connecting and equalizing multiple pieces of protection. Afterwards, on the dry walls just outside the cave, I was to continue placing protection, and build my own anchors for evaluation.

Finally, it was time to put it all together, at least in a mock-situation. JJ setup an anchor that I would climb up to, placing protection as if I was leading the climb and then build my own anchor near his. However, during the actual climbing, I'd be safely secured from above my JJ's rope and anchor and not really relying on my own to hold a potential fall.

Using this short rock climb, JJ had me practice several alternative means to belay up the second climber, lower the second back to the ground and rappel from the anchor. We also practiced other self-rescue techniques, such as escaping the belay if a leader falls, so you can go for help.

The rain had finally let up, but it was getting late. After I let JJ know that I'd already spent a night indoors on the climbing wall practicing placing protection, we decided to use up what daylight we had with one last climb. But first, JJ made sure I had packed my headlamp.

The rock and cracks that formed the route known as Candy Corner were still wet and somewhat slick. JJ lead up as both of us pondered why we didn't pack any climbing chalk today. Instead of drying out our hands for better grip with a bag of chalk, we'd just have to wipe off excess moisture on our pants legs. On JJ reached the anchor, I climbed up to him, removing the protection as I passed each piece and happy that my shoulder wasn't bothering me too much. Pulling it late yesterday was actually the best timing I could have had this week, since the first day of the lead climbing course involved little actual climbing.

Once we were both at the ledge and anchor at the top of the first pitch of Candy Corner we threaded the rope for our rappel. The light was slowly fading and I wondered if I should have packed the headlamp up the climb, instead of leaving it in my pack back at the cave. Seeing a bat fly by didn't offer much reassurance.

As we coiled the ropes at the base of the climb we both commented on how quickly the light was fading. Every few seconds you'd take stock of just how much light you remembered 10 seconds prior. After hustling back to the cave I dug out my headlamp and all concerns disappeared. After repacking and negotiating the slick rocks back to the gravel road, I turned off the headlamp and we were able to hike with just the limited light from the visitors center and other buildings back in Seneca Rocks.