The Blind Leading The Blind

(Photo: Will setting off on pitch two of Arrow (5.8).)

With this year's climbing season in its last days, I wanted to achieve something. I'd been out twice in November and while I'd redpointed one of my longstanding Gunks 5.10 projects I needed more.

Right after my easy Uberfall Sunday with Gail it was due to get pretty warm-- on Tuesday the high in the Gunks was supposed to be 52.

I had to get out again.

I couldn't end the season yet. I arranged to take a day off from work and found a partner on Mountain Project named Will.

Like my other new partner Andy, Will had learned to climb out west and had very little Gunks experience. I was happy to introduce him to some of my favorite local climbs, and I hoped this time to get on at least one 5.10 and maybe something new and challenging as well.

I was thinking about hitting Balrog (5.10b), so we warmed up nearby on Absurdland (5.8). The climbing was free and easy. I felt really good, and much less tired and tentative than on Sunday.

Unfortunately Balrog was wet, so we took a pass on that route. We moved over to the Arrow wall, where we ended up spending the rest of our day. I sent Will up to lead the 5.8- pitch one of Three Doves and he did a fine job. I had only done it once before and I was surprised at how good it was. I think this is one of the best of the lower pitches on this wall. It has two pleasant little overhangs and then an interesting, delicate, it's-all-there, face-climbing crux at the top of the pitch.

(Photo: Will on the 5.8- pitch one of Three Doves.)

I led pitch two of Three Doves (5.8+), one of my favorite 5.8 pitches in the Gunks. The face climbing past the pin is just so good. And the finishing traverse is great too. But this time I decided to skip the usual traverse and to do something new instead. Once I passed the crux moves over the pin I headed left instead of right, finishing on a roof problem at the top of a climb called Hawkeye (5.9+). (Below its roof, Hawkeye is overgrown and does not appear to be well protected.)

(Photo: Hawkeye (5.9+) goes through the big roof at the cleft that is at the center in the above photo.)

Just getting up to the Hawkeye roof from Three Doves involves a thin step up past a horizontal. It is good climbing. And then the roof itself is OUTSTANDING. There is great gear at the base of the cleft that splits the roof, and the move up over the roof is technical, burly and exciting. Clean rock, unique moves, great gear: what more could you ask for? I thought this was as good a 5.9 roof as I have experienced in the Gunks. It is every bit as good as the roofs on Grim-Ace Face or CCK Direct. It is a great way to finish Three Doves.

(Photo: Will just past the Hawkeye (5.9+) roof and about to move over to join me at the Three Doves (5.8+) anchor.)

After we got down from Hawkeye I decided to introduce Will to Feast of Fools (5.10b). I led pitch one and I'm proud to say it felt almost casual. I had no worries at the initial overhang and at the second crux I found it so much easier than the last time to hang in, clip the pin, and then step back down to shake out. As I fired through the moves up the little corner and reached the chains I felt like a different guy from the leader who slowly wormed his way up this same pitch last year.

Vegan POWER, my friends.

(Photo: Will on Feast of Fools (5.10b).)

We ended the day with two of the best climbs in the Gunks. I led the 5.6- pitch one of Limelight (not bad climbing but surprisingly sparse gear), and then Will took the lead for the crux pitches of both Arrow (5.8) and Limelight (5.7).

(Photo: Will at the Arrow (5.8) crux.)

I saw that Will went to the right at the upper bolt on Arrow. This is one of those great Gunks debates. Are you a left-at-the-bolt person or a right-at-the-bolt person?

I have always gone left, doing a pretty tense mantel move on the beautiful blank face-- the same move I worked out the very first time I climbed Arrow (my first 5.8 lead back in 2009). When I followed Will this time I tried going to the right instead and I was shocked to find it much easier than going left! I think if you go to the right at the upper bolt, Arrow is actually 5.8. If you go left it is harder. Who knew?

On Limelight, we had a little bit of drama. Will pulled up over the overlap that begins the crux portion of the route, and then I could see him start to struggle. He was standing on the unusual thin flake, perched on tiny footholds, barely keeping it together. He was tense and kept shaking out both of his hands. It turned out that his hands had both cramped up at the same time. This was a new experience for him, probably the result of dehydration plus the stress of leading. His left hand was clenched up so tight that he couldn't get it to open! He ended up using his mouth to pry his fingers away from his palm.

Eventually he worked through it, placed a piece, and resumed climbing. He sent the pitch.

Good work, Will.

The sun set as we were finishing with Limelight, so our day was done. We packed up and started walking out. By the time we got down to the carriage road it was completely dark out. On the way out I mentioned to Will that I'd never really climbed at night by headlamp, and that it might be fun.

As if on cue, as we passed the Madame G buttress, we heard a male climber yelling from high on the cliff to his partner, telling her that he had alerted the rangers. This got our attention.

We called up to the climbers, asking if they needed help. It turned out that the leader, a climber named Bob, had led the second and third pitches of Madame G (5.6) in one pitch, as leaders often do. But he'd started late in the day and by the time he'd put his partner on belay it was dark. He'd given her his headlamp but she was inexperienced and she was very afraid to follow the climb in the dark. She'd tried to do it but eventually she gave up and retreated to the tree atop pitch one.

Bob had asked her to untie and pulled the rope all the way up. I gather he was planning to rap down and get help. His partner was stranded one pitch up, and all of Bob's gear was left hanging on pitches two and three of Madame G.

Bob's mess was an opportunity for Will and me to be heroes. We sprung right into action, ascending the treacherous (unpaved!) approach trail to the base of the cliff and gearing up for the technical (5.4), lengthy (50 foot) pitch one of Madame G. I took the lead, volunteering for this dark journey into the unknown, my path lit only by my (insanely bright) headlamp. If I could successfully climb to the ledge where Bob's partner was stranded, I would then have the challenge of rigging a rappel in the inky black gloom of night using only my wits (and the fixed rappel rings on the tree).

In truth this may well have been the easiest rescue in the entire history of mountaineering. We had Bob's partner down in about ten minutes. She was a bit shaken up by the whole experience but she was fine. Once Bob knew Will and I were on the case he walked off from the top and met up with the rangers back in the Uberfall. As Will and I walked back down to the carriage road with Bob's partner, the rangers drove up with Bob in tow and we all got a lift back to the parking lot in the rangers' truck.

Will and I had a good time doing a very minor good deed and I finally got to climb at night. So it was all good fun from our perspective.

But poor Bob lost a lot of his gear. I hope he learns a little bit from the experience. He might have been wiser to stick to some single-pitch climbs until he had a better idea of what his partner could do. Certainly doing a long, wandering route like Madame G, so late in the day, was a poor choice. Bob placed himself in a position where he could neither rap down to collect his own gear nor descend directly to his stuck partner.

Bob sure learned his lesson the hard way. He posted to Mountain Project, asking politely for the return of his gear, and it appears he has gotten nothing but abuse for his trouble. Some of the abuse is perhaps justified but I don't think he deserves to lose all of his stuff. I'm sure someone has cleaned all the gear by now but no one has come forward to return it. I hope the person who cleaned the gear is just letting Bob suffer a bit; maybe eventually he or she will return it.

We all make mistakes.

Case in point: I was back in the Gunks on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and had the opportunity to make a big mistake of my own, though my mistake had little to do with climbing.

Right after my warm day with Will, an early-season winter storm came through the area, dumping six inches of snow on the Gunks. The temperatures hovered at around freezing for a few days thereafter, but on Sunday it was expected to reach 46 degrees, which was warm enough for climbing but not so warm that we'd see a total melty slushfest. Or that was my hope, anyway.

Gail thought I was crazy. But she was up at her house in Gardiner anyway so she agreed to climb with me if I really wanted to make the trip.

Of course, I did want to make the trip. Forget the snow-- I was still clinging to summer! And I'd been feeling so good lately, on Try Again (5.10b) and Feast of Fools. Maybe we'd find a dry 5.10 to send. It could be a last hurrah for 2014. We had to climb.

I woke up that morning and as per my usual routine I started to insert my contact lenses. I was using some cleaning solution that I'd never used before. This was a sample-sized bottle that I'd picked up as a freebie at the optician when I'd bought a new supply of my lenses.

I assumed this was the usual saline, but in fact it was a hydrogen peroxide solution. I had never used such a solution before; I didn't know anything about it. I hadn't bothered to look at the directions and I had failed to notice the special case that comes with this type of solution. I soon found out that if you don't neutralize the hydrogen peroxide solution with the special case, the hydrogen peroxide can severely burn your eyes.

Ignorant of all this, I rubbed my contact lens with the poison solution and then put it into my right eye. It was as if I'd lit my eye on fire. The pain was intense. It took all the effort I could muster to pry my eye open and remove the lens.

With the damaged eye clamped shut and the other one in tears, I tried to read the blurry, small print on the sample bottle and saw that it said something about how this solution is not intended to go directly into your eye. There was also some nonsense about the red tip on the bottle, which in theory is supposed to act as a warning. It remains a mystery to me how the uninitiated are supposed to know that the red tip is such a warning.

At the time, believe it or not, my main worry was not my eye but my climbing day. I needed to get moving or I was going to be late!

I flushed the affected eye with some water and in five or ten minutes it seemed like it was improving. I could keep the eye open, which was progress.

I got my crap together and drove off to the Gunks.

When Gail and I arrived at the cliff the conditions didn't look so bad. We were not the only climbers attempting to make a go of it. There was snow on the ground and the ledges but many walls were basically clear and dry.

We walked in and saw a lot of sun hitting the Jackie/Classic wall so we decided to set up shop there. I threw down my tarp, took my gear out and led Classic (5.7) to get us started. It was my second time on the climb this year. Again I was impressed at the quality of the face climbing, with really nice moves for the entire length of the pitch. It was a little bit wet under the finishing roof, and my fingers started to freeze a bit as I held on in the dampness and placed gear. While she was belaying me Gail occasionally had to dodge melting snow bombs as they fell from the trees. But these were small concerns. It was good to be climbing.

(Photo: Gail on Classic (5.7).)

As Gail followed the pitch I noticed my eye was getting worse. It was sensitive to direct sunlight. I couldn't stare up at Gail for more than a few seconds. There was a burning sensation. And it felt like something was stuck in the eye. It was hard not to rub it constantly. It was becoming a struggle for me to keep it open.

Nevertheless I soldiered on. Neither of us had ever done Classy (5.8), a variation to the right of Classic. So we did it. I led again. The first several moves of Classy are shared with Classic but then as Classic goes left, Classy heads upward to a left-facing corner system. There are some interesting moves up the corner system and then a pumpy traverse left (with good hands and thin feet) to the roof, where after one move up you are forced to merge again with Classic for the finish.

(Photo: Gail on the Classy (5.8) traverse.)

Classy is no Classic but it is good, and worth doing. I liked the moves up the corner and the traverse. And the gear is decent. The guidebook says it is 5.6 R before you reach the big corner but if you clip the third pin on Classic and go straight up there I don't think it is worse than PG. The rest of the way there is good gear; there is a great slot for a red Camalot right in the middle of the traverse.

I tried to put my injury out of my mind while I was leading Classy but as soon as I came down I realized it was getting worse and worse. It dawned on me that whatever I'd gotten in my eye was not adequately flushed out and it was continuing to do damage.

Gail and I tried to get some water into the eye at the base of the cliff using my Camelback but this effort was ineffective and a little ridiculous. What were we even doing there? I couldn't continue like this. We had to abort our climbing day.

Gail drove us in my car back to her house in Gardiner. She and Mitch and her son Max were incredibly kind, helping me set up a water bath for the eye in their kitchen sink. I flushed the eye repeatedly until I couldn't take any more. The eye was so inflamed, it felt like a smoking, radiating ruin. Curtis LeMay would have approved.

I needed to get home to Brooklyn but I wasn't sure I could drive. Gail and family had to head back to Philly and they quite reasonably and charitably offered to drive me in my car most of the way to NYC. But I wanted to wait. I hoped that in a few hours I'd be more sure that I could drive. So I insisted that they should go, and I would wait at Gail's house until I felt fit to drive. I could even wait until the next morning if I really had to.

I stayed a few hours and then decided to go for it. I couldn't say the eye was any better but I thought I could force it to stay open for the drive.

It turned out to be really hard to force the eye to stay open. The drive home was a nightmare. I was in pain the whole way and I worried that I was creating a hazard on the road. I stopped repeatedly to flush the eye with more water. When I finally got home I debated going to the ER but instead I sat in a dark room with my eyes closed until I fell asleep.

The next morning it felt a little better, though everyone who saw me was quick to tell me it looked terrible. The eye was still quite red and swollen. I resembled the Hunchback of Notre Dame after a bar fight. I saw the ophthalmologist and she gave me good news. Even though the white membrane covering my eye was distressed and swollen, my cornea looked surprisingly good and I would likely be fine in a few days. She gave me some steroid eye drops and sent me on my way.

The eye has since improved and is pretty much normal again, thank goodness.

What a way to end the year-- with both heroism and ignominy.

It has been a good year for me overall. I had some great climbing trips to Yosemite and the Red River Gorge. In the Gunks I've made incremental progress, working my way just a little further through the 5.10 grade. I've made some new climbing friends and I hope to just continue the same trends right into 2015.

And who knows, maybe there will still be a little more climbing in 2014 yet!

Gunks Routes: Lost and Found (5.6), Unholy Wick (5.8), Diana (5.8) and More!

(Photo: Doing the fun traverse above a roof on Lost and Found (5.6).)

Another sunny Sunday in May, sure to be a crowded disaster in the Trapps. But I had a plan.

I've been repeating myself a lot lately. I wanted to try some different routes. I proposed to Adrian that we could get ourselves up to the GT Ledge in the area between CCK and High Exposure, where there were several quality climbs I'd never tried. I was thinking in particular of climbs like Diana (5.8), Unholy Wick (5.8), Jim's Gem (5.8 and new for me by the higher traverse), Exit Stage Left (5.9), and Psychedelic (5.9+). We could kill most of our day on these climbs, most of which no one seems to do.

At the last minute Gail decided to join us for a few hours before her husband Mitch arrived at the cliff, but this did not alter our plan. She could rap off whenever she needed to go.

I got to the parking lot in high spirits, ready to hit it hard. Gail and Adrian, on the other hand, seemed a little droopy. They had both been climbing for the full day on Saturday and they were feeling tired. They were happy to follow my lead, but it looked like I was going to be calling most of the shots.

We headed on down to the area just left of High E and looked for a warm-up climb to take us to the GT Ledge. No one was on Lost and Found (5.6) and I had never done it so I decided to embrace new routes and lead it. Gail warned me that she thought the bottom bits were run out but I wasn't worried. The guidebook calls it PG and I figured a little bit of run out climbing in 5.6 territory would be no big deal.

The opening moves go up and right over a little bulge to the right edge of a roof. The climb traverses back left over the lip of the roof then heads straight up from there to the GT Ledge.

I placed a piece quickly and then started to move through the bulge. As Gail had predicted, I found a lack of options for my second gear placement. I ended up getting an Alien I wasn't thrilled about in a shallow pocket. But I figured after a move or two I'd be over the bulgy bit and it would be smooth sailing. I had each hand on a good crimper as I moved to the right, so I thought everything was fine. Suddenly my right handhold snapped right off. The hold went flying (hitting no one, luckily) but I didn't. Somehow I managed to stay on the rock. It could have been a little bit ugly if I'd fallen and the iffy Alien had popped. I would have decked.

I tried to just laugh it off.

Gail said, "I can't believe you didn't fall!"

"Well, the reason I didn't is that I'm really kind of awesome," I blustered. "I don't like to talk about it, but it's true..."

Meanwhile, I tried to stop shaking so I could get back to leading the pitch.

It went fine from there. After the slightly sketchy early bit, the traverse left over the lip of the roof is fun and well-protected. Then the climbing from that point to the GT Ledge is easy and kind of undistinguished and dirty.

I wouldn't do Lost and Found again. It isn't that nice. The Last Will Be First (5.6) is just to the right and it is so much better.

When Gail and Adrian joined me on the GT Ledge we took a look at Unholy Wick, which was right in front of us. This climb goes straight up a 5.6 face to a little roof. There is no gear on this face and Dick Williams suggests that you can avoid the runout to the left by following Ken's Blind Hole (5.6) to the little roof. I haven't done Ken's Blind Hole but it goes pretty far to the left and if you go just a step or two to the right instead as you start Unholy Wick off the ledge you can get some gear in the left-facing corner over there. After just a few moves you get to the ceiling where there is ample gear.

(Photo: Climbing up to the initial roof on Unholy Wick (5.8).)

I enjoyed climbing up to the small roof, and the rest of Unholy Wick as well. The climb isn't a great classic and it is kind of broken up into sections but there are a bunch of good moves on it. The guidebook advises you to do it in two pitches from the GT Ledge to the top but I took it all the way in one pitch and it worked out fine. The little rooflet is the first challenge, and then you have to get in and out of a small alcove, moving left along a horizontal and then making steep moves up to a large flake and a small tree. (This is where Dick would have you belay.) All of the climbing to this point is allegedly 5.6, but I thought the moves in and out of the alcove were a little harder than that.

(Photo: Gail has almost reached the flake and tree where there is an optional belay on Unholy Wick (5.8). Despite appearances the route isn't choked with lichen-- it traverses behind the lichen-covered flake and climbs the clean corner barely visible at the bottom of the photo.)

Once you reach the flake and tree the regular route moves left to a right-facing corner, where a single 5.8 move gets you to jugs and then the finish. I thought about doing a 5.9 variation to finish called Bow Tie Ceiling, but it looked very dirty/licheny and difficult, so I just did it the 5.8 way.

(Photo: Getting set to rappel from the top of the cliff.)

After we rapped down to the GT Ledge, Gail checked in with her husband Mitch and found out he was on his way, so she left us and Adrian and I continued climbing from the GT Ledge.

We decided to look into the top pitch of Diana (5.8) next. This pitch starts at a distinctive multi-forked tree that is easy to find on the GT ledge. The line Diana follows isn't that obvious from below but it makes sense when you do it. After some face climbing and an easy 5.6 roof, the climb heads up a little right and then left to the right edge of a larger ceiling. You move up diagonally onto the face above the ceiling, which ends up feeling like a roof problem. It is a really good roof problem and I thought it was a little stiff for 5.8. Then the pitch heads up and left again to another crux on sloping holds up into a notch, where you meet CCK for the final couple of moves.

(Photo: Adrian pulling into the final notch on Diana (5.8).)

I really enjoyed Diana. It has two nice cruxes and good protection (though I did not see the piton mentioned in the guidebook). If you are stacked up on the GT Ledge waiting to do CCK I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't do Diana instead. The top pitch is very good.

Adrian and I rapped back down to the GT Ledge and now I was ready for a challenge. My eye was on Psychedelic (5.9+). I was totally psyched to climb into the dirty chimney at the back of the High E buttress. I was ready to fight past a tree to get to the tough roof problem. After that the wild 40-foot 5.6+ traverse would be a fun payoff.

But Adrian had a request:

"Can we do something facey/slabby instead of another roof?"

He was a little tired and a little bored.

(Photo: Unknown climber on Modern Times (5.8+). "I hate you a little bit right now," she said to her belayer.)

I had to admit that all of the climbs I'd planned at this one location above the GT Ledge were of the roofy variety. If we were going to do something different we'd have to look elsewhere. Reluctantly I acquiesced and we descended to the ground to find another climb.

This turned out to be a mistake. It was a nightmare down there.

Everything was occupied. We started out looking for a good climb that wasn't a roof problem-- something like Airy Aria or the first pitch of Carbs and Caffeine-- but when that didn't pan out we just started looking for something, anything that was open. We kept wandering around, always coming up empty. Doubleissima? Forget it. Insuhlation had a group of climbers plus some wailing babies. Another group of adults and children had a top rope on Double Crack and Lito and the Swan! I'd never seen anyone at all on Lito and the Swan before, and I never thought I'd see some pre-teens top-roping it.

We headed back towards CCK and Erect Direction, but no dice.

Finally we arrived beneath Proctoscope and it was open. I needed to get the redpoint on Proctoscope so I volunteered to lead it.

(Photo: In the middle of the crux face on Proctoscope (5.9+).)

It went really well. I think this first pitch could become a climb I come back to again and again. I like the easy off-width that starts it off and the crux thin face is beautiful. The fixed nut at the crux I mentioned last year in my first post on Proctoscope is long gone but I think I was actually hindered by that nut the first time I led the pitch. This time I placed the good cam a few feet below and just climbed right through the crux sequence. My footwork was solid and I felt like I used the handholds just right. It was a nice feeling.

(Photo: Adrian on Proctoscope (5.9+).)

Adrian really liked it too. It was more the sort of thing he was hungry for, something technical and not so thuggish.

By now it was getting late and Adrian had a long drive back to Montreal ahead of him. We could see that the pleasant, casual first pitch of Arrow was open so Adrian suggested he could lead that one and then I could lead something from the ledge to the top of the cliff. I hoped that pitch two of Limelight would be open and it was.

(Photo: Adrian climbing the beautiful flake feature on pitch two of Limelight (5.7).)

If there is a better 5.7 pitch than the second pitch of Limelight I want to know about it! The moves on Limelight are just exquisite and the white sickle-shaped flake that the second pitch ascends is very unusual. It looks as though it will be very difficult to climb but then the holds present themselves, as if by magic. The final traverse is delicate and satisfying.

It was a fitting end to our day. Though we wasted some time searching for open routes we still got on several climbs that were new to me and one that I was familiar with but that I felt proud to send. I plan to make a point of working more of these unpopular climbs into every climbing day. I really enjoy on-sighting and I like the feeling of exploring the more obscure parts of the cliff. And sometimes, as I learned by doing Diana, a less-popular route can become a new favorite.

Gunks Routes: V-3 (5.7), Limelight (5.7), Arrow (5.8) & Horseman (5.5)

(Photo: Starting up V-3. Right here there's this one little reachy move. This move has given me a moment's pause both of the times I've led the route.)

This past weekend I played tour guide at the Gunks.

I was climbing with Deepak and Chin, two climbers I know from Brooklyn Boulders. They had little trad experience and wanted me to show them what trad climbing in the Gunks is all about. They knew how to belay and they'd been outside to climb, even followed a few trad pitches before, but had never rappelled or done a multi-pitch route.

If you wanted to introduce someone to the Gunks, which climbs would you choose?

I wanted the climbs to be classics. I wanted them to be interesting, and unlike the gym experience.

I thought V-3 (5.7) might be a nice place to start. It has a short first pitch, with a good crux that is totally unlike any gym climb. You have to use your body to get into the v-notch at the top of the pitch, and then you have to figure out how to get out of the notch to finish the climb. I was sure Deepak and Chin would have no trouble climbing the route, and I hoped that it would convert them to the way of the tradster, forever changing their view of the outdoor experience vs. indoor pulling on plastic.

My plan was that I would lead the pitch and stay at the top, bringing them both up.  Once we were all there at the belay I could set them up to rappel, instruct them, then lower myself to the ground and give each of them a fireman's belay for their rappels. (A fireman's belay involves simply holding the rope while a person rappels. In the unlikely event that the rappeller loses control of the rap, the belayer pulls hard on the ropes, which stops them from going through the rappeller's device.)

I figured that if the climbing and rappelling on V-3 went well, we could then go do some multi-pitch climbs on the Arrow wall. But if Deepak and Chin were not into doing a multi-pitch climb after V-3, we could do any of a number of good moderate first pitches that were close by, like Alley Oop or Cakewalk.

(Photo: Getting up to the notch on V-3 (5.7).)

Everything went according to plan, at first. I led the pitch and liked it even more than I did last year. It isn't just about the v-notch. There are some good moves right at the start and just underneath the notch. The notch itself is fun, of course, and well protected.

Chin followed me up and seemed to do well with the climbing.

(Photo: Chin making the final moves out of the notch on V-3.)

But it was hot and sunny at the belay station, and as Deepak came up to join us Chin seemed to wilt in the heat. She told me she felt like she might pass out.

Oh no! This was not good. It had happened to me once before. But that time I'd been in the middle of leading a pitch when my partner Liz said she felt faint. That was a hairier situation. This time around we were both securely fastened to a bolted anchor, so there was nothing really to worry about. Still I wanted to get her to the ground where there was shade and water as soon as possible.

Luckily Deepak was just about at the anchor so when he arrived I lowered Chin to the ground. She didn't pass out and felt better almost as soon as she got down. Once I knew she was okay I set Deepak up to rappel and then we both descended. Deepak rappelled like a pro.

I thought we might be done after just one pitch but to my surprise both Chin and Deepak wanted to continue. Chin was okay with single-pitch climbing but Deepak wanted to go above one pitch if he could. I decided to take them up Limelight (5.7) and Arrow (5.8). I would have Chin follow the first pitch of each, then lower her. Then I'd bring Deepak up and continue with the upper pitches.

I had done the second pitches of both climbs as recently as last year, but I hadn't been on the first pitch of either one since 2009. I remembered the first pitches as being unremarkable. And it is true, neither climb's first pitch is as great as the second.

But Limelight's first pitch isn't bad at all. It is quite nice. It has consistent climbing at an easy 5.6- level, with some interesting moves around the flakes at the top of the pitch. It is well-protected once you get going, but it takes while for the pro to appear right after you leave the ground.

(Photo: Relaxing atop Limelight (5.7), waiting to use the rappel station.)

Limelight's second pitch is one of my favorites. There is one hazard I want to warn you about. I think this is a recent development. There is a very loose block just to your right as you get above the GT Ledge and onto the upper wall. The climbing here is quite easy-- this is a ways below the Limelight flake-- so the block is not hard to avoid. But I think I have placed gear behind this block in the past. This time, when it easily moved as soon as I touched it, I placed nothing in its vicinity, causing a bit of a runout.

Once you reach the unique Limelight flake, the awesomeness begins. It looks so thin. It is hard to believe the edges of this flake will be as positive as they are. But once you commit to the big move to get on top of the flake, the hands and feet are all there. Beautiful, delicate climbing takes you up past a pin to the rooflet, and then a few thin steps take you left to the finishing jugs. Along the way the pro is good. The flake will take small nuts pretty much anywhere, and there are downward-facing slots for cams on the traverse.

(Photo: Deepak following me up the 5.6 first pitch of Arrow.)

Arrow's first pitch is not as nice as Limelight's. There's nothing really interesting about it. The second pitch is wonderful, though. A fun easy roof leads to great face climbing on marble-like white rock past two bolts.

Arrow was my first 5.8 lead back in 2009, and when I look back I'm not quite sure how I managed it, since I still find the crux move considerably harder than 5.8, even though I've led it three times now. I've gone to the left at the top bolt every time, because going to the right seems impossible. Even now that I have my strategy set in advance I find it challenging to commit and execute it. I'm still psyched that I somehow got it onsight. I don't want to spoil it so I won't tell you about the mantel/reach-through maneuver that I do...

Oops, I let it slip out there.

I did one thing differently this time that I'd never done before: I placed pro twice between the bolts. There are some thin cracks that will take pretty solid small Aliens. As I placed the second piece, which was just a few feet below the second bolt, it suddenly occurred to me that these bolts are bullshit. They are unnecessary; the pro isn't that bad without them. I resolved to come back to do a "fair means" ascent of Arrow, without clipping the bolts. Then after my perfect, truly free ascent of this compromised route I would have license to chop the the bolts on rappel, returning the climb to its natural state for the greater good and the glory of trad climbers everywhere.

I am kidding, of course. I don't think that would go over too well.

Maybe I'm 60% kidding.

It would be kind of neat to climb it without clipping the bolts.  I might try it some time.  I'm sure I wouldn't be the first.  Heck, I'm sure someone has free soloed the route wearing sneakers, in the rain.

Chin and Deepak both had no trouble climbing Limelight and Arrow, and Chin in particular wanted to do at least one more climb.  I felt a little bad that she'd missed out on the upper pitches of the climbs.  So I proposed we finish with Horseman (5.5), a climb that is traditionally two pitches.  We could do it in one pitch (as most people do these days), but Chin could count it as two, and she'd get to top out on the cliff.

Luckily we found it open and finished up with another great classic.  I love Horseman because it introduces you to so much of what the Gunks is about.  You get thin face climbing, followed by a fun dihedral, a traverse to avoid a roof, and then steep juggy climbing to the top. 

I don't know how many times I've climbed Horseman.  On Sunday it was a joy.  As I reached the end of the climb, I thought about how lucky I was that Chin and Deepak had asked me to show them around.  The climbs we did together weren't projects of mine, and I wouldn't have chosen them if I'd been out with one of my usual partners.  But climbing them was like being reunited with old friends. 

There's something to be said for cruising up old favorites.  It is a lot of fun.