I convinced her a warmup lap on World's Toughest Milkman would be worthwhile, so we both led that to start.
"Fine, but I'm not placing any gear."
Next on tap was The Horrors of Ivan. I was going to lead it first, but she wanted to jump on it and it was her birthday. Her "I'm not placing any gear" strategy came to a spectacular end on this one.
Moments before a beautiful pendulum fall that yanked me off the rock and had me dangling in the air.
Naomi got her spanking, but by the time she was done with Horrors of Ivan the sun was long gone and my fingers were numb. After calling me a wimp (or was it something more explicit?) for not wanting to stay in the shade to do Horrors of Ivan, she was happy to let me lead whatever to finish the day, so we headed for the soon-to-be-sunny base of the Grand Wall to try Rutabaga.
Pitch one of Rutabaga
The first pitch has some sweet hand jams.
Pitch two gets more technical
The finish is tricky. And it was a bit moist up there. I blew a foot and took a nice fall trying to pull through the top of the corner. This photo can't be more than a few seconds before my onsight attempt came to an end.
What a beautiful afternoon!
Yesterday was another beautiful afternoon, but a bit of a surprise. Too bad they didn't forecast that until it happened.
The rope came taut against my ribs on that fall. Several days later, have a look at my