3 classics in the gunks

These days, I'm definitely more focused on climbing than running. Running has been great as a way to keep me aerobically fit and I've enjoyed volunteering as a coach for middle school cross country. I had wanted to ramp up to at least double digit mileage as soon as the temps cooled and humidity fell, but work has gotten a little nutty. October is primo climbing weather, so I've been training at the gym to make sure that I'm able to be successful outside. I've also added a second strength-training session each week and I think that's probably a good idea. It's replacing a day I'd be running and I've met some nice people at the Locomotion gym just down the street from where I live. It's convenient and the instructors seem to know what they're doing. It took me about 3 weeks so adapt so that I wasn't sore the next day. I'm also still trying to add one Zwift session per week. I'm sure I'll add more as it gets cold out there. Daily assisted pull-ups on the days I'm not at the climbing gym have also helped keep me in shape.

Last Friday, I had one of the best days out climbing in the Gunks. Chris and I are lucky in that the kids are old enough to get themselves to school, so we were able to leave the house at 6AM and meet our guide Ed by 8:20AM. Ed climbs at Rockville and basically lives in his van at the Gunks during the week. I loved the Stairmaster approach to the climbing area. Steeper, but much shorter than hiking in from where I've hiked in before. Not sure how we got so lucky, but we headed over to High E- Ed thought it's be a good warm-up and there was no one on it, so we hopped on. Pretty cool considering I spoke to another climber and he said just the other day, he arrived at the base of High E and there were at least 30 people waiting to get on. I thought the start of the route was a little awkward and the first pitch wasn't very flowy. The crux is getting out from under a very small crawl space onto the exposed face. There's a thin left flake to hold onto, then you need to reach up with the right hand and step out onto a small shelf. There are good holds to the left, but they aren't visible. It's pretty fun. There was someone climbing below us and he got a few photos of me getting onto the face. The rest is easy climbing to the top of pitch 2. Really happy that Chris finally got to experience High E.

Not the best angle, but here I am getting onto the exposed face on High E

My main goal of the day was to get onto CCK, which would be my first Gunks 5.8. We lucked out again, getting to the base with no one on the route. Ed let us choose between a 5.8 start up Erect Direction or the normal first pitch of CCK, which is about 5.5. I'm so glad we chose Erect Direction, because it was my favorite pitch of the day. It was blocky and weaved back and forth. It was a route where you really had to look around to find holds. There was also quite a bit of mantling. We got to the top of the first pitch and Ed gave us beta on the traverse. The traverse actually looks more intimidating than it is. When we got there, the sun was fully out so we got to experience it in all of its majesty. The wall was practically glowing. The start of the traverse is after you step onto a pillar. The first section has some very good feet, basically a ledge, but thin hands. The hardest move is pulling off of a left hand flake, while smearing with the left foot and trying to get a right foot up from a small nub onto another flake. It took me a few tries, but I managed it. I had to then collect gear off of the wall, then move onto the next section which was moving across a good shelf for my hands and basically no feet, only smear moves. The entire traverse is only 20 feet. When I first stepped onto the pillar, I did take a moment to look around. I loved the feeling of air all around me. So awesome.

So happy to finally get to experience the traverse on CCK

Crux move off of the flake

Monkeying over on the shelf to the end of the traverse

As I started the second pitch, I realized that I had forgotten to give Ed back all of his gear, so I ended up doing the entire traverse with a lot of extra weight. Before I started, I moved the gear around to try to spread out the weight.

After we rapped down from CCK, we attempted to get on Madame G's, but no such luck. There was a party on it and the leader did not look very confident. We ended up walking quite a bit. It seemed that there was no one on The Ceiling, so we started up on the route. Pitch 1 was pretty moderate, but I ended up hurting a few fingers on a deep horizontal ledge. For some reason, I started moving before I could get my fingers fully out of the ledge and then bent a few fingers backwards. They seem okay now, but immediately after, I was a bit worried that I had injured myself. We finally got hosed at the first belay station. The party above was having trouble. We ended up waiting at least 30-40 minutes for them to get off of the second pitch. The crux move on the route was definitely challenging. The route is only graded as a 5.6, but the roof move is easily a gym graded 5.11. It took me a few tries and I think the only reason I pulled it in the end was because Ed gave me a good yank on the rope as I finally pulled the move. It involved a very high right foot, rock over with not great hand holds. I don't have any photos of me struggling on the move, since the belayer is blind in this section. Was happy to finally be rapping down though. At that point, I was pretty tired and my feet hurt.

Definitely not yet peak colors, but still a very pretty day

We didn't get to our car until about 6PM- a long day for us and our guide. Besides getting hung up on The Ceiling, it was a perfect day of climbing. Of course, I never eat much while out and now that I'm dealing with Invisalign, I eat even less. I couldn't wait for dinner. We ended up enjoying a meal at Pho Tibet. Hopefully it's not another 3 years until we're back climbing at our "local" crag!