Sarah H Demonstrates RAD
I think I’m starting to figure out how to live up here in Canada. It takes a little adjusting not being able to go rock climbing 10 months out of the year. But I’m learning to love the Vsion climbing gym and just starting to understand the strange sport of dry tooling. Majka and Sarah were up from the states doing a writing workshop in Banff so they dragged Sarah H and I out for a day of dry-tooling as the ice was not in great condition yet.
Sarah keeping cozy in green
Apparently Sarah mentioned that she was going dry-tooling with a bunch of girls while climbing in the gym the night before. As girls going dry-tooling is far less common than girls climbing in Indian Creek, there was a lot of jostling between the boys to come along. Somehow, though, we remained on our own. Which was good. Cause we never would have had those conversations about peeing or pleasuring oneself when the other half’s not around or the gentle teasing of male mountain guides. Really there is a time and a place for women to gather alone. And why not while climbing rock with lots of sharp points attached to our appendages?
While Sarah H showed us how its done and Majka went for it on heady leads, I bitched at how strange a sport this is as I continued to break holds with my tools. I decided not to lead anything- other than the five feet to move the top rope. Today was my day to be a gumby. And I did a great job. My pants exposed my bare ankles as I popped tools and skidded crampons. I hobbled around for a while with one crampon on to the delight of my comrades. I really felt like I could be my silly old self for a while while hanging upside down on overhanging rock. And somehow between the girlish giggling, the womanly sending, and my goofball antics, I realized I might just like living here in Canmore.
My favorite down jacket for ice season is 10% off right now at backcountry.com. Check out Mountain Hardwear’s Sub Zero SL Down Jacket here.
Sean had to go to Vegas on a business trip. Apparently, business has been good so he invited me to come along. He warned me that he would have to go to meetings most of the time, but that we could go to dinner or shows in the evenings. We would have to stay at the Luxor, he tells me, which is a bit far from Red Rocks, but I could use the car during the days. I told him he would have to be a little more convincing than that, so he offered to jug Rainbow Wall while I tried to free all the pitches. I tried to remain calm pretending that this was not like sun coming out after years of rain or like a caged animal being freed with a guarantee of food for life or like winning the lottery (the big one).
I contacted Emily and Whitney who were down there climbing and started making plans. Sean and I got out on the first day after his meetings. We ended up insisting on clipping bolts in the dark with headlamps on. It gets dark at about five pm with daylight savings (whoever invented that scheme did not have climbers in mind), and we just could not get enough of the juggy, Red Rocks climbing.
Emily, Skylar, and I met the next day for some more sport climbing. They were recovering from their Mescalito ascent a couple weeks before, and I had barely been rock climbing in a long while. But we had a blast: getting to feel like both heroes and wimps before losing all steam.
Julia loving the pain
Emily pulling down
At this point, I race home to put on my party shoes. Sean and I go to the spa, then don our fancy clothes, and go out to eat at the nicest restaurant I have ever been to. Sadly, I could get used to this.
A few more days of this and its finally time to tackle the Rainbow Wall. I’m psyched to charge but unsure of how I’ll do with 13 pitches of stacked, hard pitches. Its starts well on a beautiful 11c pitch. I was just warming up so climbed slowly and methodically throwing my jacket down to Sean half way up. The next pitch was not so kind. Steep, sustained 11d climbing had me hanging on a bolt before long. Well, at least now I can just enjoy the rest of the climb without being attached to sending. This freed me up to have a blast on the rest of the pitches. The next couple of 5.11 pitches were smooth and fast. Despite the Mexican Food from the night before messing with my belly, I enjoyed every second of the climbing. We were surprised however, when on Rainbow ledge, we checked the time and realized we only had two hours of daylight left. There were three pitches of 5.12 out of five left to go. I gave up my hope of finishing the route realizing that we should at least start the rappels before dark.
I got to climb the first 5.12 pitch before heading down. I marveled at the quality- excellent stemming and jedi mind tricks were required to work up the blank, flaring corner. Super fun. I can’t wait to go back and redpoint the route. It was worth all the pain brought on by having to sit in an airplane for hours the next day.
Check out the Mountain Hardwear Transition Jacket for the perfect Rainbow Wall layer.
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I think this was my best costume in years. Cookie Monster maybe has it beat- but that was at least 25 years ago. I could have put some more effort into it by painting my nails black and getting bright red lipstick. And the fangs with blood on them didn’t actually stick to my teeth. But it sure beat all those costumes put together with whatever was in the car while living in Indian Creek or Joshua Tree. These were the costumes where a sarong became my cape transforming me into whatever superhero suited my magination- or when I found cat ears at the dollar store and called it good. This time, I actually had inspiration. My blood sucking mood was so satisfying- finally, I wanted to be a bad guy. I’m beginning to learn the real spirit of Halloween- be a little creepy, get into it, suck some blood.
