dryad Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 I can't resist a chance to chestbeat about my first trad lead on something not totally trivial. On Sunday I went to climb Blueberry Hill with brianb. We had great directions and found the granite sidewalk just fine. That thing should be renamed the "granite boulevard". It's huge! Must be quite a sight when it's all flowing with water. One correction to the beta I got: the first wash is more challenging than the second, just barely passable in a Honda Civic. Anyway, I led the first pitch and the last 2, and Brian handled the 3 harder ones in the middle. Pitches 3 (the one with the couple of bolts) and 4 (the one with the series of diagonal cracks) were the most fun. We then rapped off the right side of the Blueberry Terrace off a tree with about a million slings on it into the gully, then did another rap off a tree, and then down the the Westward Ho route the rest of the way with clean slabs and nice chain anchors. Piece of cake. Is this the way most people go down? Catbirdseat did something different. I have a question about the top 2 pitches. Where the hell was I??? On route, a little off route, nowhere near the route? I started from a belay at a big bush, climbed up a couple of blocks, then was faced with a blank slab to the left, a dirty corner with a little shrub in the middle of it in front of me, and more blank slab to the right. After a lot of indecisiveness, I went up the middle since I could get gear in, stepped over the little shrub, and up the corner towards a crack/flake system, and up towards a belay at the next large bush slightly to the left next to a big huge block with a wide gap under it. Then for the last pitch, I went straight up the slabs from where I was and it got progressively more dirty and with gear placements getting more and more sparse. After a 30-foot runout and my route finding method having degenerated into "spot the next crevice in the distance and run for it", I was getting a little worried. At least the climbing was easy. I was almost out of rope when I reached the woods of the blueberry terrace. I saw a larger, more vertical tree farther right. Does the route go over there? BTW, in case anyone's wondering what we did with the second rope, we decided to have the leader drag it. Worked out ok, but I definitely did feel the 2 ropes weighing me down while on lead. But we did discover an added benefit to this method... Brian forgot his chockpick, so we were passing mine back and forth, but more often than not, we'd forget to do the swap, and the leader would climb off with it. With the trailing rope, the leader could slide the chock pick down to the follower. Handy dandy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toast Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 Nice job Dryad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg_W Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 dryad said: We then rapped off the right side of the Blueberry Terrace off a tree with about a million slings on it into the gully, then did another rap off a tree, and then down the the Westward Ho route the rest of the way with clean slabs and nice chain anchors. Piece of cake. Is this the way most people go down? Catbirdseat did something different. I have a question about the top 2 pitches. Where the hell was I??? On route, a little off route, nowhere near the route? I started from a belay at a big bush, climbed up a couple of blocks, then was faced with a blank slab to the left, a dirty corner with a little shrub in the middle of it in front of me, and more blank slab to the right. After a lot of indecisiveness, I went up the middle since I could get gear in, stepped over the little shrub, and up the corner towards a crack/flake system, and up towards a belay at the next large bush slightly to the left next to a big huge block with a wide gap under it. Then for the last pitch, I went straight up the slabs from where I was and it got progressively more dirty and with gear placements getting more and more sparse. After a 30-foot runout and my route finding method having degenerated into "spot the next crevice in the distance and run for it", I was getting a little worried. At least the climbing was easy. I was almost out of rope when I reached the woods of the blueberry terrace. I saw a larger, more vertical tree farther right. Does the route go over there? Nice job. Thanks for the beta on the rap off of Blueberry Terrace. RE: the upper pitches, you did them correctly. Pro slowly disappears as you near the top and it is dirty. From that last belay bush, the route goes where you want it to. If you head further left, you can hit the top anchors of "Dark Rhythm". Greg_W Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jopa Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 This was a big step up for dryad and something of which she should rightfully be proud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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