Successes!

 Our second day of camping at City of Rocks started off at Elephant Rock, where we planned to climb a route rated 5.9.  This number probably means nothing to most of you, so I'll quickly explain.  Rock climbing ranges in difficulty from 5.0 (basically hiking up a steep trail) to 5.14 (CRAZY hard, like climbing up a sheet of metal that has been rubbed with cooking oil - okay, maybe not THAT hard!).  If we are top-roping (see Climbing 101 post for more info), I can do a 5.9 pretty well, but it's about as challenging as I would like.  I could do a 5.10, but probably not without some hanging on the rope.  Until this day, I had never lead-climbed a 5.9.  That has always been Spencer's job.

But today was a strange day, and Spencer was not feeling up to it.  So after attempts at leading the climb by Spencer and Ski, they had only managed to clip into 2 bolts before coming back down.  We were ready to throw in the towel and call it quits, when I said, "I think I'll give it a try."  Spencer was shocked, but I harnessed up, put on my shoes, chalked up my hands, and I was off.

I made it up to the first couple of bolts, where the rope was already clipped in.  That was the easy part.  Then I started making my way further up the cliff face.  I had to keep telling myself I was safe, and if I fell, the rope would eventually tighten on the previously bolted spot and catch me.  Soon I had made it to the next bolt and clipped in.

I kept climbing up until I found myself in a spot where I couldn't quite find the right hold and I slipped.  4-5 feet to the previous bolt, and another 4-5 feet after that, and the rope stopped me.  It was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be!  I regained my composure and climbed upward, eventually reaching the 4th bolt.

 
I was pretty close to the top of the climb by this point, but I was also pretty worn out.  I decided that was as far as I needed to go, and I didn't feel bad about not finishing the climb.  It was a successful failure!  Even though I didn't make it all the way to the top, I did clip into two bolts all on my own, and I had my first fall on a lead-climb!

By this point, the sun was beating down on the cliff where we were climbing, and our little spot of shade was shrinking fast.

So we decided to head up to another spot to do some bouldering.

Now another lesson for you - bouldering!  Bouldering is like climbing, but without a rope.  Usually bouldering is done on really low cliffs, with a pad at the bottom so if/when you fall, you don't fall too far and you have a pad to land on.  Some people consider bouldering a climb with an easy enough difficulty that you don't need a rope, no matter how high you go.  Kristi and Ski, our climbing buddies, believed in the second definition of bouldering.

A quick drive up the road took us to Bath Rock.  Following the persuasions of our climbing friends, we "bouldered" up Bath Rock.

I am no expert, but I would have rated the difficulty around a 5.6, maybe even 5.7.  During and after that experience, I decided that I would rather climb a 5.10 with ropes any day over a 5.6 unprotected climb.  I like to be challenged, but I don't like to be risky.

It was, however, a great view from the top!

Wow, this post is getting long, so I am going to skip a few of the day's events and go right to Spencer's big accomplishment.

Evening was closing in, and I for one was getting a little worn out.  But Spencer wanted to redeem himself from the first climb of the day, so we hiked down into a valley to do one last climb.  It was on a west-facing cliff, with the heat of the late afternoon sun beating heavily upon the rock.  But more importantly, it was a tall cliff.  Really tall.  I think it was rated a 5.8.  Spencer loaded all of our quickdraws (what is used to hook the rope onto bolts in the rock as you lead climb) and all our friends' quickdraws onto his climbing harness.  14 in all.  We figured it would be enough to get to the top.  Little did we know...

Spencer climbed and climbed up this rock, clipping into bolts as he went.  The bolts were placed really closely together, so he even skipped a couple of unnecessary bolts.

I belayed him from the bottom of the cliff.  I felt like I was melting in the sun, and all I was doing was standing there feeding the rope up to Spencer and being ready to pull tight if he fell.  I can't imagine how hot Spencer was as he climbed!

 I wish the picture did a better job of showing how tall this cliff was.  Kristi and Ski took the pictures for us, and they couldn't even back up far enough to fit it all in the frame!

After 40 minutes of intense climbing, Spencer made it to the top.  Success!  He had used almost the entire length of our friends' 60 meter rope, and all of the quickdraws!  With most of the rope length used to get to the top, coming back down was going to be a little tricky.  But don't worry, we were prepared!  Our friends brought along their knot-tying book, and they had been practicing the knot used to tie two ropes together.  So we tied our 50 meter rope onto the end of the first one, and after some tricky finagling, Spencer was able to rappel safely back to the ground.  We were all exhausted by this point, so the hike out was not much fun.  I did manage to snap a few pictures of the pretty cactus flowers that were blooming all over, and some of the scenery as well.

Here is something that I learned at the end of this day.  I love rock climbing, and I love camping.  But when the two are combined, and it's a hot day, and there are no showers, and I'm covered with sweat and dust, I would give just about anything for a nice cool shower and a soft bed with clean sheets.