My First 5.12: Uphill All the Way

(Photo: At the final crux on Uphill All the Way (5.12a).)

I know, I know.

It has been a while-- over two years!-- since I published a blog post.

It's not that I stopped climbing. Far from it.

But for whatever reason, my blogging dwindled and then faded away. 

Seems like people don't blog so much any more. But that makes no difference to me. I was never much of a trend follower, much less a trend setter. I have no big platform, nothing to sell. I am ignorant of fashion. I started this blog because I wanted to express myself. I post because I enjoy it.

But over time I have blogged a lot less about every single thing I did, and blogged more selectively, about what seemed like significant events. And I guess over time the truly significant climbing events have become a bit less frequent for me? 

When last we spoke, I talked about how I was hoping to send my first 5.12, before my 50th birthday. I've never been obsessed with numbers, but I have tried to make progress, however glacial, over the years. And finally breaking the 5.12 barrier after well over a decade of climbing seemed like a nice goal. I could have found an "easy" sport 5.12 for this particular milestone, but for me that would not have seemed legit. I am a trad guy, and my first twelve had to be a trad climb, preferably in my home crag the Gunks. 

I thought this achievement would be a great subject for my next blog post.

Only problem was, it didn't happen! I did turn 50-- there was no putting THAT off-- but the 5.12 never came. 

Until now.

At the start of the 2021 season, I finally sent Uphill All the Way (5.12a). I'm over 50, but not by so much. 

I'll take it. 

It was a somewhat circuitous journey. Allow me, please, if you will, to share with you my own "road to 5.12." This is not meant to be a guide for others. If you'd like an actual roadmap as to how to climb 5.12 I think you can skip the rest of this post and follow this advice: try hangboarding. It seems to work.

The first step, for me, was to follow around a great climber like Fredy, who showed me several of the prime 5.12 candidates in the Gunks. He introduced me, as a matter of fact, to Uphill All the Way, in late 2018 (which I discussed in my last post). 

(Photo: Fredy heading up the initial crack in November, 2018.)

As soon as I saw the climb, I knew that this was the one: the 5.12 climb that really fired my imagination, even though it might not have been the most sensible choice for my first 5.12. 

Why might it not have been the best choice?

Because it is hard! It is intricate and complicated, with four distinctly difficult sections.

When I first did the climb with Fredy, I was unable to do two of these four sections. 

But I loved how this short climb was packed with varied and interesting movement. It seemed to build on itself, getting harder and harder with each bouldery sequence. The climbing challenges were not the usual big roofs or blank sections between horizontals we so often see in the Gunks. In a way, the climbing seemed more typical of granite, with delicate foot placements on ripples in the rock and even some vertical crack climbing. And the gear was good, good enough that after our first visit I thought I might be able to attack Uphill All the Way on lead, and feel pretty safe doing so.

So after following Fredy up it just once, I considered it my new project. 

(Photo: Fredy took this shot of me on my first attempt at the climb in November, 2018.)

I went ahead and tried to lead it, with Josh, in May of 2019. It didn't go well. Despite my conviction that the gear was good, I found myself struggling to commit to the moves on the initial vertical crack, the EASIEST section of the route. I took a hang before making it to the rest jug at the top of the starting crack, and then felt too defeated even to try the next bit. I lowered off of the fixed nut and we walked away.

(Photo: Toh took this photo of me trying (and failing) to lead Uphill All the Way in May of 2019.)

This was a setback. Mentally, I wasn't ready yet.

But I wasn't done with the climb. In pretty short order, I had the chance to climb Uphill All the Way again with Fredy. He had narrowly missed on-sighting the climb at the end of 2018, making it all the way to the final move before falling off, and naturally he wanted the redpoint. 

Funny thing: when Fredy wasn't juiced with on-sight energy, he found the climb much more mysterious. When he and I tried the climb for the second time together, in May of 2019, Fredy did not send, and in fact had a lot more trouble with the climb than he had the first time. He had to put some real work into figuring out the moves. He took several whippers at the top, off of the final, crux moves up and around an overhanging corner. Then he lowered, took a break, and offered me the lead. I top-roped up to his high point and led on from there, taking several lobbers off of the crux move. I got no closer to being able to do the move, but I did get more comfortable with the idea of blowing it and taking the whip.

(Photo: Fredy sending in June, 2019.)

Fredy and I went back again in June, 2019, and by this time Fredy had it in the bag. He got the send like it was nothing, and I got another chance to work at the climb on TR and to make some progress. This time I got my beta a bit more worked out, though things were still far from smooth for me. 

At this point, it might be helpful to get into the weeds a bit and describe the challenges of Uphill All the Way, in detail. This is what you came for, right?

As I mentioned above, there are four sections:

1. Moving up the initial vertical crack. Funky moves, thin feet. This section is probably 5.10. At the top of the crack you reach a big jug, and an optional step up left to a rest. 

2. Stepping back down to the crack and making tenuous moves to the right, following a right-facing flake, with poor hands and very thin feet, to another good hold and gear. This is crux number 1. 

3. Moving straight up into the slanted, overhanging corner, to an undercling hold. This move requires balance and strength. This is crux number 2, and it is harder than crux number 1. After you get established in the undercling, there is an easy move up to a horizontal that takes your gear for the final sequence.

4. The true, final crux: moving up and left around the overhanging corner and onto the face. You have to make a big move to poor crimps for the hands, and then a challenging reach to the left as you rotate your body around the corner using bad feet on the arete. 

After working on the route with Fredy, I had the first two sections pretty well worked out. I came up with this nice step-through beta that usually works for the second section. And as for section three, I knew I could do it, though I still needed to work on it. Sometimes I fell and sometimes I nailed it.

But the final crux was still very hard for me. Up until this point I had managed to do the move successfully just once, on TR, and had fallen there many times. I found the move to be very low percentage. I couldn't reliably keep my foot on the arete and I couldn't use the handhold all the way around to the left with any consistency. 

Still, I wanted to try again. This was my 5.12, and I intended to work on it, or so I thought. 

For the rest of 2019, I kept putting myself in position to try Uphill All the Way on lead again. I made sure I was in the Trapps every time I visited the Gunks, and would pick other climbs for warm-ups that were nearby. I would even walk up to the route and put my stuff down, with the intention of climbing it. But then, over and over again, I chickened out. I decided I wasn't feeling it and walked away without trying it. I told myself that this must be part of the process of breaking into 5.12. First you have to work up the courage to try. And I needed more time.

I got a lot more time to sit around and work up my courage when COVID happened. 

I'm hesitant to talk much about COVID and its effect on my climbing. I don't want to sound like I think I am some kind of victim of COVID. I am one of the lucky ones. I have a job and a place to live. No one in my family got very sick or died from the disease. Of course it touched my life, as it touched everyone's. But I have nothing to complain about. I'm grateful to have gotten through the last year with my existence, and my family's existence, more or less unchanged.

Still, my climbing was negatively affected, just as I imagine yours was. The gyms were closed. Like a lot of people, perhaps, I personally went through a cycle in which I exercised like mad to stay sane for the first few months, and then got kind of depressed and stopped exercising entirely for a few months after that. The Gunks opened back up in June (I ran up there on the first day), and an outdoor gym in NYC opened up a few months after that. When I got back to climbing outside, I felt kind of normal, surprisingly. But I could tell that I'd lost something. I didn't have the endurance I took for granted before the pandemic. I definitely wasn't at my best. It would have been truly shocking if I felt any differently.

Nevertheless, somehow I fell back into working on Uphill All the Way in the fall of 2020. One day in September, Will and I were playing around on the 5.10d Ventre de Boeuf direct start, which is right next to Uphill All the Way, and I decided it might be fun to throw a top rope over Uphill again, for old times' sake.

(Photo: Will on Uphill All the Way.)

And what happened was kind of a breakthrough for me. I experimented a bit and worked out beta for the final crux that was much better for me than what I'd been doing. I used a different, higher foothold. It was hard for me to get the foot up so high-- I felt like I was putting my toe in my ear-- but once I did, the move around the corner was really solid. If I successfully got the foot up there, the climb was over.

This was exciting. It meant that I could do every move on the climb. I just had to put it all together. From that point on, I was inspired again. I started tackling the climb head-on, going at it on lead. We returned five more times in 2020. Will patiently belayed me over and over again. It was very nice of him. If he got tired of going to the Trapps every weekend, he kept it to himself. Over these several attempts, I got tantalizingly close to the send, falling off at the last move a couple of times. But I couldn't quite get it done. 

I think, more than anything else, the problem was that I felt weak. I would reach the final crux very tired; I couldn't seem to contrive much of a rest before the hardest moves. And I wasn't able to try the climb more than once in a session. I would be spent after one burn. It was clear to me that the COVID layoff was hurting my chances.

As the fall season ended, I resolved to get fitter. I wasn't sure that I was capable of feeling the way I used to feel. Maybe, at 51, I would have to work really hard just to stay the same. Maybe I'd never get stronger again?

In late December, I did something that was truly radical: I hired a climbing coach. 

I had always been uninterested in "training." Mostly this was because I really enjoyed climbing in the gym, and didn't want to turn it into work. I was afraid I would get burnt out and see climbing as a chore instead of a joyful, fun time. I also feared that I would hurt myself. It seemed like people who trained were always dealing with injured pulleys and the like. 

But as 2020 ended, I knew I wanted to do something to change my personal climbing trajectory. And then, completely at random, I saw an Instagram post from someone I didn't know, saying they had achieved good results working with a coach named Alice Hafer. I'd never heard of her. There was a link to Alice's own Instagram page, and when I clicked on it, I saw that she offered free consultations. Despite my longstanding lack of interest in training, I thought I had nothing to lose and, totally on a whim, I signed up for a meeting.  

I did no research. I considered no other coaches.

When I talked to Alice, I really liked her, and her fees seemed very reasonable, so I decided to give training with her a shot. And I don't really want to dwell on this too much or turn this post into an extended plug for Alice (she doesn't need my help anyway), but I can say without reservation that my time climbing with Alice has been amazing! She's worked wonders for me. She is really great and if she has space for any more clients you should hire her. 

Alice gave me a fitness test, analyzed my goals and tailored a plan specifically for me. I was worried that working with a coach would be boring, but she gave me all sorts of fun climbing exercises (which I never would have come up with myself), and listened to me when I said that sometimes I'd like to "just climb." Some of the things she's had me doing (like hangboarding) are things I could have developed a strategy for on my own, if I had the patience. But my eyes glaze over when I read these endless blogs and books on training and it has been so helpful for me to have someone to tell me what to do! 

It also helped that I buckled down and put in the effort. I did pretty much everything in the plan Alice gave me. It wasn't that hard to keep up with it, since I was mostly working from home and had no social obligations. There was nothing else to do much of the time but to work out. And it was very lucky, from a climbing perspective, that the governor never closed the gyms again, even though over the winter the state blew past every COVID benchmark that had been set for gym closures. 

Probably the most important aspect of working with Alice, for me, was the realization that my reluctance to "train" was based on irrational fears. I was afraid that if I trained I'd come to see climbing as a tiresome chore. I was afraid that if I trained I'd get hurt. But these fears were unfounded. 

While I was doing all of this training, I kept wondering how I'd fare once the outdoor season rolled around. I knew I was feeling pretty good, much better than before, indoors, but would it translate to routes in the real world? 

I found out pretty quickly once we got into March, and the temperature got high enough for some Gunks climbing. On my first day out I felt a little bit tentative, but as the day went on I cruised a few of my favorite 5.10s. They felt very easy. 

Then on my second day out, on March 13, I went to the Gunks with Richard. We'd been climbing together in the gym before the pandemic, and I knew him to be a strong boulderer who wanted to dabble a bit in the trad game. He was curious about the twelves I'd been talking about so I knew it was time to put up or shut up. We needed to head to Uphill All the Way and see how it went. 

(Photo: Richard on Uphill All the Way. He sent it on his second try on TR, which is very impressive!)

I didn't think I would send it right away, and I didn't. After four or five months away from the climb, I had to reacquaint myself with the moves. I assumed this would be a work session. As I expected, I fell a couple of times on my first trip up. But at the same time I could tell I felt better than before. My crimp strength was better. My flexibility was better. My endurance was better. I didn't feel at all tired. I thought that maybe I could send the climb if I went at it again.

So we rested a bit and I tried again. And then on my second attempt I took a random fall early, in the first cruxy bit! Oops. This was unexpected. I lowered off of the fixed nut and rested. 

And then on try number three it went very well indeed. See for yourself:

You can hear my shock at how it turned out in the video. Even though intellectually I knew I was close to sending this climb, I realize now that somewhere, deep down, I believed that maybe it would never happen. There was a barrier erected in my mind that I had to knock down. 

And now that barrier is gone! I've since sent a second Gunks 5.12, which maybe I'll talk about in another post, and I'm getting close on a third one. 

Looking back over the experience, I feel like I've learned so much from Uphill All the Way. I've learned about trusting my feet on things that aren't even footholds, more like small textures or changes in the angle of the rock. I've learned that sometimes the best way to do a difficult move is as slowly as possible, shifting my balance and keeping my whole body in tension to stay on the rock. And I've learned to experiment and to try new ideas, even if they seem like impossibilities at first. 

And in the time since March, I've just been floating on air. This spring has been a magical Gunks season for me, one like I've never had. I didn't expect to send 5.12 trad on my second day of the season. And now I'm just hoping to keep riding the wave, stay uninjured, and keep sending more twelves. I feel so grateful to be healthy and climbing well. It feels so good not just to work at new levels of difficulty, but to cruise up climbs that used to feel hard. The big thing missing for me now is travel, which I hope we will all be able to enjoy again soon enough. There are so many climbing destinations I want to visit and revisit. Time will tell.

I hope that you, too, are having the kind of fun that I'm having out there. Be safe and climb on, folks. Stay tuned for more reports, coming soon?

Rolling Like Movie Stars at Millbrook

(Photo: Will coming up pitch one (5.9) of The Movie Star (5.10+).)

I never made it out to Millbrook in 2016, not once. I hoped to correct this regrettable oversight in 2017, but for some reason it didn't happen. I let the entire year slip away, again, without paying a visit to the wonderful white cliff.

As 2018 got underway, I thought of every weekend as a chance to go to Millbrook. I was itching to get out there again. I resolved to go back to “the Bank” as soon as I got the chance.

A recent Saturday seemed like the perfect opportunity, with no rain in the forecast and temperatures expected to reach 70 degrees. My partner, Will, had never been there, and he was eager to see what it was all about.

Half of the cliff was closed for falcons but I had several targets in mind (a couple of hard 5.10’s among them) that were open.

I hoped I would feel up to climbing the harder stuff.

I'd been cruising along pretty well lately. In the Trapps and the Nears I wouldn’t think twice about trying any 5.10. But Millbrook, I knew, was different. The isolation, the loose rock, the spooky atmosphere— what Todd Swain describes as the “terrors of Millbrook”— could make me revise my plans. Once we were actually there, I expected that my bold ambitions might float off with the falcons, leaving us with few options. (There aren’t many easy routes at Millbrook.)

But I tried to put these doubts out of my mind. The last time I visited Millbrook, I’d gotten up the nerve to do my first 5.10 at the cliff, The Time Eraser. And once I finally sacked up and did it, the route went perfectly. I hoped I could build on that success with Will.

Our day began with the pleasant but long-ish hike out to the crag. We chugged along pretty quickly, but still spent over an hour on the trail. Was it the long walk that kept so many climbers away from Millbrook? Or was it the nature of the place?

We seemed to be the only ones at the cliff as we set up for the rap in to the base. Although civilization was visible beneath us, it seemed very far away. There was no road noise. The peace was disturbed only by a lone rooster, crowing away at some farm down below. I tried to imagine the crowds that were surely swarming the Trapps, even at this early morning hour, and felt so grateful that we had this huge expanse of stone to ourselves.

(Photo: Crossing the Death Ledge.)

Since it was Will’s first visit, we started with Westward Ha!, the ultra-classic 5.7 up a prominent corner system in the center of the cliff. It is everyone’s first route at Millbrook.

I led a short first pitch up from the Death Ledge to the tree at the base of the corner, so Will could then take it to the top in one pitch containing all of the great climbing.

Even though I’d done this climb twice before, I felt a bit uncertain as I led our first pitch. Was I really going the right way? The rock was so hollow and dirty. I picked my way slowly towards the tree, worried that this might not be my day to shine at Millbrook. I felt like I took much too long on what ought to have been a quick no-big-deal kind of pitch.

Will was clearly feeling the Millbrook spook too as he led off into the real meat of the climb. He was tentative and slow, but as he continued up the beautiful corner he seemed to gain confidence. By the time he disappeared around a roof up high I felt like things were looking up; we were going to have a very good day.

(Photo: Will setting off on the lead on Westward Ha! (5.7).)

As I climbed up to join him I remembered how great Westward Ha! is. There are some fun sequences in the corner. I have been working in the gym on my crack climbing skills, in preparation for a climbing trip to Squamish, BC (post coming soon). So on Westward Ha! I tried to throw a jam in whenever I could. It was fun but seldom necessary. I found the face climbing near the top of the cliff to be outstanding, on clean white rock with wonderful, grippy texture— quintessential Millbrook.

I decided it was go time. I was ready for something a bit more ambitious for our next route. We rapped back down and tip-toed our way across the Death Ledge until we found ourselves beneath The Movie Star (5.10+).

This climb doesn’t appear in any guidebook, but it is featured on Christian Fracchia’s website, The White Cliff. From Christian’s description, I gathered that we could expect technical 5.9 climbing up a leaning corner on pitch one, and then a couple of 5.10 cruxes after that. I wasn’t sure where to belay; it seemed from the photos on the website that the route could be broken into four pitches if you stopped at every ledge. I figured we would try to do it in two or three.

The usual rotten band off of the Death Ledge didn’t look too bad, and as I got started most of the rock seemed solid. It wasn’t long before the features forced me to the right and I found myself in the leaning corner depicted in Christian’s photos. Moving up the corner, I encountered thoughtful, continuous climbing, with no "stopper" moves. Before I knew it I was mantling onto a comfortable ledge where it seemed natural to build a belay. This was a very nice pitch; I might give it a rating of sustained 5.8 rather than 5.9, but regardless of how difficult it is, I found it quite enjoyable, with good gear.

(Photo: Will on pitch one of The Movie Star (5.10+).)

I knew I was about to hit the hard climbing. The right-facing corner system continued above me, with a pretty blank-looking section right off the belay. When Will joined me on the ledge I took the lead again.

I got through the first problem pretty fast. It took only a few delicate moves to reach some good holds at a shallow overhang, and once I was over that I was cruising up again towards another ledge. It seemed too early to stop, however, so I continued past the ledge into what was clearly the crux of the route, another even blanker corner capped by another overhang.

I knew I had to get to the top of this corner and then move left— a standard Gunks roof escape. But how? The corner was very smooth. I looked around for a while and eventually settled on something resembling a foothold. Stepping up, I managed to make some kind of Houdini move to the top of the corner, where I found good hands and could place gear.

Now I was stuck at the overhang. I had to figure out how to move left around the outside corner, and I struggled. I couldn’t find any feet, and I started to get pumped, just hanging on. I wanted to commit to something and move around the corner but I couldn’t see anything; no hands, no feet. I was in a stalemate with the rock. I remember uttering a number of sounds, along with a “f*ck me!” or two for good measure.

I was considering taking a hang when I finally spotted a foothold I’d missed. With no time to waste, I planted my toe on it, matched hands and moved blindly around to the left, where all became clear. I found more holds and gear, and then made it up to another little ledge, where I exhaled and decided to build an anchor.

Calling down to Will, I asked if he had seen my struggle with the crux.

He said he couldn’t see me but heard a lot of grunting going on!

I felt proud. This was a tough on-sight. I’d give it a 5.10+ for sure. And such good moves! The Movie Star is an awesome climb, very worthwhile. It is destined to be a Gunks classic. We all owe Christian a debt of gratitude for making this climb known to the general climbing public.

(Photo: Will between the two crux sections on The Movie Star (5.10+). I'm standing just above the hard moves around the corner.)

I think Will would agree about the quality of the climb and its difficulty. When he got up to the crux corner, he struggled too. He was having no trouble during the early going, but then all of a sudden I heard “oof, how did you DO this??” Along with “nice lead!” and a bunch of assorted curses. Eventually he figured it all out and made it up to join me.

I kept on leading for pitch three. It wasn’t entirely clear where to go but I followed the path of least resistance, taking a (5.8?) jog to the right around a little overhang and then heading straight up a dirty, vegetated gully to the top. Looking at Christian’s pictures that evening, I saw that I could have avoided some of that dirt by stepping left after the first part of the pitch. But even though it appears I went the wrong way for the final fifteen or twenty feet, I don’t think I missed much.

(Photo: View of the Trapps and Skytop from a perch near the top of Millbrook.)

As far as we knew, we were still the only climbers at the cliff that day, but as we emerged from The Movie Star at the top of the cliff we encountered a group of about ten hikers sitting around just above the top-out. This is another unique feature of climbing at Millbrook. There is a popular hiking trail from Minnewaska (called the Millbrook Mountain Trail) that dead-ends at the cliff's edge, so throughout the day groups of hikers reach the end of the hike, take a break, have a snack, and then turn around and hike back. (I've done the hike with my kids.) Where the hiking trail hits the cliff, close to Westward Ha!, the "summit" area is set back a ways from the edge, but further south by The Movie Star the slabs run pretty much right up to the precipice.

When Will and I stepped over the lip, surprising the group of hikers, I felt like we might as well have just come over the Visor on Half Dome. We were greeted with awe and wonder. One shocked hiker asked the most intelligent questions he could, under the circumstances, such as "How was your climb today?" and "How long did it take you?" I tried to explain that there are many routes to get from the bottom to the top, that we'd already done two of them that day, and that were going to go back down for more.

Then we marched off as heroically as we could.

We had time for another full-length route. Will was still getting used to the semi-alpine quality of the rock at Millbrook, which dictates that every hold must be treated with some skepticism. Given this reality, Will wasn’t too keen on leading anything hard, at least not yet. I understood his reticence; I had been there! But I wanted him to be able to lead something so I suggested we try a moderate climb called Again and Again (5.7). I was eager to do the second pitch, a fifty-foot traverse under a huge ceiling. And I knew that after the second pitch we’d have the option of finishing with an easy scramble to the top, or if we felt up to it we could do something harder: the 5.10 third pitch of Cuckoo Man, over a roof.

Again and Again is easy to find if you know what to look for: a massive, radically overhanging right-facing corner. This corner is so big, you can quickly pick it out from as far away as Bruynswick Road down in Gardiner. The corner houses a legendary 5.12 route called Happiness is a 110-Degree Wall. Again and Again starts about twenty-five feet to the right, at a smaller but equally obvious right-facing corner that forms the right side of a pedestal leaning against the main wall of the cliff.

(Photo: Will on pitch one of Again and Again (5.7).)

Will led pitch one, a perfectly pleasant climb up the side of the big pedestal. The route-finding on this pitch couldn’t be easier, and the rock seemed pretty solid, with good gear.

After I joined Will atop the pedestal I took the lead for pitch two. This is truly a great pitch. It is marred slightly by dirt and bird shit in the early going, but the position and exposure soon make up for these trivial shortcomings. The long, rising traverse takes you across a smooth face under a gigantic overhang. The traverse stays below the roof level, on the seemingly blank face, for almost its entire length. You keep thinking the holds will run out, but as you move laterally, a magic row of footholds just keeps on going, with fun move after fun move. And while Dick Williams’ book gives this pitch an R rating, I thought with modern gear the protection was plentiful.

(Photo: Looking back at Will from the end of the long traverse on pitch two of Again and Again (5.7). Behind Will is the enormous, leaning corner of Happiness is a 110-Degree Wall (5.12).)

Once you finish the traverse there are some more fun moves up a corner on beautiful white rock.

This climb deserves to be popular. It is the Gunks’ answer to Seneca’s ultra-classic Pleasant Overhangs (5.7).

(Photo: Finishing Again and Again (5.7).)

Now that we were done with pitch two, we had a decision to make. Should we scramble up an easy gully to our right, reaching the top of the cliff and the end of our day? Or should we do the third pitch of Cuckoo Man, just above us?

I decided I was up for the Cuckoo Man challenge. Will said he was game to follow it.

All three pitches of Cuckoo Man have 5.10 cruxes. The whole climb is on my to-do list, but the first pitch off of the Death Ledge seems like a committing proposition, since it has a long 5.8 runout before the (well-protected) 5.10 roof section. I took a good look at this pitch as we walked over to Again and Again. I think I'm ready for it but there's only so much time in one day. It can wait.

Pitch three, our goal for today, appeared to have good gear throughout. It looked to me like an easy traverse under the overhang to a difficult roof problem.

When I got up there I found out that the traverse is the real business. There is good gear but it can be strenuous to place and/or remove. As you move to the right the handholds get smaller and smaller and the feet fall away to nothing, over an empty abyss. It is exciting.

I was happy to work my way through it on the first try-- I would say this pitch, like The Movie Star, is on the "plus" side of 5.10. Once I finished the traverse, getting to the notch in the roof, I found the moves upward to be easier, maybe 5.9+.

This is a quality pitch on great rock, and a nice way to reach the top of Millbrook without having to dig through a dirty gully to get there.

(Photo: Will making it over the roof on pitch three of Cuckoo Man (5.10).)

Our day had come to and end, sadly. I had expected us to make it to the Gunks Climbers' Coalition barbecue that night, which ended at 8:00 p.m. But when I looked at my watch atop Cuckoo Man I was surprised to see that we were running late-- it was already almost 7:00, and we still had to hike for over an hour just to get to the car. So we missed the barbecue, which I regret. At Millbrook, a land that time forgot, the hours have a way of slipping away from you.

As we hiked out I resolved not to wait so long to go back again! I am excited to do so many routes there. I feel like I've graduated to a new level of comfort at the cliff and I'm ready to tackle the climbs I've always wanted to do. In addition to the rest of Cuckoo Man (5.10), my targets include Swinging C (5.8 or 5.10 depending on the source of information), The White Corner (5.9/5.10), Lessons in History (5.10), High Plains Drifter (5.10), and Square Meal (5.11-), just to name just a few.

Adventure awaits!

Last Days of The Winter (5.10d)

(Photo: Getting into the overhangs on Carbs and Caffeine (5.11a). Photo by Adrian.)

We live in an age of great environmental peril. Temperatures are climbing at an alarming rate. Ice sheets are melting. Scientists project that someday soon the oceans will rise up like giant gulper eels and swallow our coastal cities whole.

It is enough to make you feel guilty whenever the weather is nice. On days when it is warm and the sun is shining, it is hard to enjoy yourself without feeling at least a small, nagging tug of disquietude.

"What a wonderful day," you think to yourself.

"(We are all going to die.)"

So one might expect that yucky, cold days would provoke feelings of relief. Maybe if the weather is lousy, as befits the season, we are NOT going to die. Or not so soon, anyway. We ought to take comfort in any anecdotal evidence we can get that the end is not so near after all.

But it doesn't work that way. Not for me. When it is appropriately damp and cold in March, I am not grateful. I am resentful. I feel the weight of our impending doom, regardless of the present conditions. And I expect something in return. If my property is soon to be beneath the sea, the very least nature can do for me is to grant me some excellent climbing days before everything goes forever into the crapper.

Is that so much to ask?

I was supposed to take a trip to the New River Gorge at the end of this week. "This week" being practically mid-April, for crying out loud. But with snow (!!) in the West Virginia forecast for Friday, and an expected high of 37 degrees in Fayetteville on Saturday, it looks like we are calling it off. We had a contingency plan-- we were going to push it off for one week if the weather was lousy. But the forecast for next week is a solid wall of rain showers. So it looks like that ain't happening either.

I am feeling grumpy about it all. But I will make the best of it.

Maybe I'll console myself with a day in the Gunks, if it gets warm enough to melt the snow they got this week.

Since my last report, I did get out in the Gunks one time, with Adrian. The temperatures were in the low forties (just warm enough for climbing, in my opinion). Unlike my prior (sunny) day with Andy, this one was overcast and the air felt a bit damp.

My goal was to put Carbs and Caffeine (5.11a) away, once and for all. Adrian was willing to do it with me, so we trooped on down there first thing, hoping in vain that we would warm up on the walk.

(Photo: Adrian getting started on the 5.8-ish pitch one of Carbs and Caffeine.)

It was still cold and damp as we got started. Adrian led the first pitch without delay, but as I stood there belaying him I found myself shivering. I told myself I would feel warmer once I got up on the wall. Soon enough I was climbing and I joined Adrian at the anchor, ready to see if the third time would be the charm for me on the crux pitch.

(Photo: Coming up pitch one of Carbs and Caffeine. Photo by Adrian.)

This time I knew I had the beta. It had been only a week since I'd almost sent the damned thing. I expected that the crux move would be hard but as long as I executed my sequences properly I figured I would get through it.

(Photo: Ready to go for it on Carbs and Caffeine (5.11a). Photo by Adrian.)

Heading upward through the tiers of overhanging rock, I got to the first bolt without a problem. After I clipped it, I tried to move up into the crux right away, but when I made the big reach up to the sloper hold, I didn't like it. The rock felt slippery. I needed to match on the hold but I wasn't sure I could hold on in the current conditions. I stepped back down and tried to shake out beneath the crux.

Then I went up again. Still no good. It seemed like I was about to slip off the sloper. I had to step back down again.

(Photo: Adrian at the 5.11a crux of Carbs and Caffeine.)

If I didn't get on with this move I was going to end up taking a hang. I was shaking out in an overhanging position. I couldn't really rest. I wished I'd found the knee-bar rest at the crux that people talk about. I decided I couldn't afford to wait around any more.

On the third try I forced myself to commit to the match. I thought for a fraction of a second that I was about to go flying but, luckily, I didn't. I stuck it. And then I stepped up to the crimps knowing that I had this climb in the bag if I could keep it together. I tried to stay focused as I moved up the slab to the final challenge.

(Photo: Adrian in the final crab-crawl traverse on Carbs and Caffeine.)

This time I remembered to move up to the good hold in the corner before plugging in gear for the traverse. Placing a bomber blue Alien over my shoulder, I dove out there into space, hoping I would feel as solid on the no-feet crab-crawl as I had the previous week. But in the damp air the traverse felt a little bit harder. I nearly lost it when one of my toes slid off, but again I managed to hold on and with a few more moves I got around the corner to the stance. The pitch was over.

As I stood there backing up the fixed anchor I felt very relieved. And a little bit proud. Carbs and Caffeine, baby! And it was only March!

I was quickly brought back to earth when we moved on to The Winter. This pitch, at 5.10(d), is supposed to be marginally easier than Carbs and Caffeine-- but it is a very different style of climb, so it is hard to make a meaningful comparison. The Winter is a technical corner climb, with some awkward climbing up a slot before the real business begins in the smooth, thin corner.

The route has been a nemesis of mine. I find it intimidating and scary. I've backed off of it twice before even reaching the crux corner. The early going up the slot is kind of in your face (though it is definitely easier than 5.10+), and the cracks for gear are kind of flaring. On two occasions I've made the first couple of moves, and, confronting a committing sequence with so-so cams, I've decided to step back down and walk away.

(Photo: Starting up the awkward slot on The Winter (5.10d) in October 2014. Photo by Gail. The tights were in honor of Eighties Day in the Gunks.)

I'm sure my fear of the upper portion of the pitch has played a role in the urge I've felt to abort. From the ground it appears there are placements in the crux corner, but they are tiny nuts. There is a piton at the end of the hard climbing, but the move to get to that piton isn't easy and on the lead you are going to be above whatever small gear you can arrange in the corner.

This time around I hoped to commit to the move down low and then, once I reached the main corner, I would make sure I got the best pro I could get.

As I started the pitch I managed to place three pieces before committing to the move out of the initial slot. The move went fine and soon I was standing at the base of the desperate crux corner.

So far, so good.

But then it all fell apart.

(Photo: Finessing gear at the start of the crux corner on The Winter (5.10d). Photo by Adrian.)

I placed as much gear as I could manage. I got a good Alien at my knees and then I placed four (yes, four!) nuts in the corner. I liked a few of these nut placements but they were all small.

I had a hard time getting myself psyched up to launch on up above the nuts. I worked out the move but couldn't make myself go. Eventually I took a hang. Then I made the hard move up the corner but got really nervous making the stand-up move to the piton. I fumbled desperately and then took a real whip. The fall was clean, and now that I'd really welded my top nut in place I felt a bit better about climbing above it again. I went back up, made the final hard move and finished the pitch.

(Photo: Adrian on The Winter (5.10d).)

I'm not happy about how it went. I was so tentative. But now I have The Winter all sorted out. And now I know that The Winter is quite safe. The fall is clean and the nuts are good. Adrian had to fight to get some of them out. I think I should be able to go back and fire it off. And then I'll have to try the second pitch of The Spring (5.10d), directly above, which everyone says is a great roof problem pitch. I've never been on it.

I think Carbs and Caffeine and The Winter showed both my strengths and weaknesses as a climber.

On the plus side, I think I have reached a basic level of climbing proficiency (after many years of mediocrity). And I'm persistent, which is also a plus.

On the negative side, I know I have real mental challenges. I have a fear of falling. When the moves are hard I often find it difficult to commit, even when I'm certain that the gear is good. And when I do eventually commit, my fear makes me climb poorly. I get tunnel vision and fumble around because I am scared. It happened the first time I tried Carbs. And it has happened several times now on The Winter. The fear of falling has caused me to give up, to hang, and to fall.

It is a paradox. To some degree fear is healthy and necessary. Especially when trad climbing, you should always be aware of the risks of falling. It would be foolish and dangerous to behave as if falling were not a potential problem. But when reasonable caution morphs into irrational fear, the danger increases because failure becomes much more likely. The fear makes you fall when you might not have fallen otherwise.

(Photo: Feeling fine while running it out on the first pitch of Annie Oh! (5.8). Photo by Adrian.)

I'm not sure what I can do to address the issue except to keep trying hard. I've never been a big believer in taking practice falls, and I don't think my specific fear of falling would be addressed by the type of deliberate falling one does for practice. It isn't falling in and of itself that is the problem. I'm not paralyzed on easier climbs-- it's when I'm at my limit, or when I'm climbing on a style of route with which I'm uncomfortable.

The good news is that, as I push to work on harder climbs, the grade at which I feel free and easy is also getting higher. I think I really need to push myself to trust my gear and go for it more often. If I can do that, I'll have a shot at on-sighting more of these harder climbs, and I may reach a whole new level.

We'll see how it goes when I pick the next project. What should it be? Harvest Moon (5.11a)? No Man's Land (5.11b)? Square Meal (5.11a)? So many to choose from...