[TR] Index- City Park (gumby goes aiding) 9/25/2005

[Alpine_Dreamer]

Climb: Index-City Park (gumby goes aiding)

 

Date of Climb: 9/25/2005

 

Trip Report:

I realize writing a TR about a one pitch climb is pretty lame. Moreover, my first aid and solo climbing experience is somewhat embarrassing to share, since it was the biggest fawking epic I've ever had on a single pitch. I share it mainly because other hacks like me who are thinking about trying aid may learn from my mistakes.

 

Over the past year I’ve slowly been accumulating the gear and motivation to try aid climbing. I have no plans or desire to climb a “big wall”, but there are lots of great free routes out there that, with a bit of aid, I could manage to crawl up.

 

I’ve also been thinking about giving a go at roped solo climbing for a while. Since I usually get permission to climb at the last minute and for odd hours (like “can you be back by noon?” on a weekend morning), it’s often hard to get partners excited to come along. I was thinking about this dilemma a week ago when I noticed MattG selling a used Silent Partner for cheap. I immediately jumped on it!

 

For my first experiment I thought I’d try City Park at Index, often recommended as a great beginner aid climb. I was supposed to be home by noon, so I left Seattle at 6am – ugh! I began climbing around quarter to 9 after setting up my anchor, triple checking the system and gear, etc. It starts off w/ a bolt ladder, which is awesome for getting the feel for moving w/ aiders (and also gave me a chance to back up my anchor w/ clove hitches on a couple solid bolts). Then it was into the crack. I started off hugely puckered, because it's seemed to be mostly pin scars so the pro is not "bomber" by my normal trad standards (I know, it’s C1 and I suck). I slowly got the hang of it, and to stretch out my gear I used cam hooks between placements. The cam hooks worked great, though my heart rate picked up a bit when one that I thought was solid shifted on me. They'd work AWESOME in a laser cut thin crack, but City Park is fairly flaring from all the pin scars.

 

Anyway, I was moving along okay, watching a party climbing the classic “Godzilla” just to my right, and digging the beautiful day. As I neared the end of the pitch I noticed that the weight of the rope below me was pulling slack through the Silent Partner. The instructions warn of this, and tell you to tie off periodically to a piece of pro to reduce the weight of the rope pulling down on the Partner. I was a little worried about doing it since it'd reduce the dynamic effect of having the full rope out, but I went ahead and clove hitched a green alien. I shoulda thrown in something right above it, but I was running out of small gear (I had 2 sets of BD nuts – triples of 4-7 would’ve been nice) so I cam hooked up a bit higher and placed a blue alien (smallest alien I've got). At this point I was less than 10 feet from the end of the challenging part of the pitch, and about 20 feet from the anchors. The blue alien placement sucked by normal standards, but I tested it and it seemed good. Sure enough, shortly after I moved up on it, it popped. I then factor-2'd on the green alien since it was clove hitched, and that popped too. When it was over, I'd fallen about 20-30 feet, and stopped upside down w/ a foot caught in one of my backup loops. It was a clean fall, so I was okay aside from huge blisters on my right hand from grabbing a rope as I fell. I plan to erect a shrine to the orange TCU that stopped my fall.

 

After cleaning out my pants, I took a long while to get my nerves together and reorganize. I got a backup belay for a few minutes from none other than Mike Massey who happened to be at the anchors at the top of the pitch (shared w/ Godzilla, which he'd just floated up) while I got my head back on. I finally sacked up and finished the pitch, more sketched than I've ever been. I'd planned to head over to Toxic Shock to try some moderate routes on lead w/ the Silent Partner, but that plan was out the window. I'll go back and try the Partner for solo leading sometime, but I need to let my mind settle a bit first.

 

Man, I'm a jackass! But I learned a few good things yesterday about marginal placements, aid and solo technique. And eventually I'll try City Park again and climb it w/ no falls. . . .

 

If you’re an ubergumby like me and want to try clean aid, you may want to start off on a vertical ~.11 crack somewhere (preferably on a weekday, cause you’ll probably be slow). If you’re using a Silent Partner, I wouldn’t recommend tying off to anything beyond your anchor (other than a bomber bolt). You could tie off occasionally w/ prussiks on <1mm cord that would snap if loaded, but that sounds like a pain in the ass to me. Good luck!

 

Anchor note:

As mentioned in other City Park threads, the boulder at the base has two bolts w/ nuts, no hangers. I have no hangers, so I wrapped webbing around the boulder.

 

 

Gear Notes:

Way too much gear >1”

Too little gear <1” (for my weak self)

2x60m ropes – trailed 1 to rap off.

 

 

Approach Notes:

Um, none

[olyclimber]

Thanks for posting your little adventure.

[bigwalling]

That 1mm idea is pretty good... I think a 6 inch loop may do the trick.

[Blake]

what was up with the green alien placement? you are making me worried...

[Alpine_Dreamer]

what was up with the green alien placement? you are making me worried...

 

I'm sure it woulda held fine if it hadn't been tied off, but since it was, it took an ~10ft (I fell 5 feet to it, then another 5 past it) factor 2 fall - no dynamic stretch from all the rope below, no easy catch from a belayer, penalty slack, etc. Plus it was set shallow in a pin scar, not deep in a crack. It still works, but was pretty mangled. . . .

[bigwalling]

I had a blue alien pop on that climb once... 50 footer head first... um.. 3 feet to that boulder and my head would have looked different. That climb is cursed... HAHAHAHA

[tomtom]

I use long prussiks to rebelay the rope.

[tyree]

You need to get some offset gear! Like HB offsets and Hybrid Aliens. Seriously, these things make CP a chill outing. They are indespensible items on my rack for free and aid climbing. If you dont use them, get some! Tell the wifey that you are going to die without them. Then when you do have them you will walk all over those pinscars. CP will take as many #6 HBs that you have. I have triple 6's. thats 666 -mark of the beast!!!

Edited September 28, 2005 by tyree

[mattp]

I know it's said A-1, but I took one of the longest falls of my climbing career on that pitch. That was many years ago and I haven't thought I needed to go back.

[Alpine_Dreamer]

You need to get some offset gear! . . . Tell the wifey that you are going to die without them.

 

I'm already on the ropes w/ wifey - my rack would be a smoldering heap in the back yard if I use that line. Offsets are on the list, for sure . . .

[bigwalling]

I use long prussiks to rebelay the rope.

That works on easy terrian, but I'm not doing that on anything hard. I just want to take the weight off. I've used rubberbands, but this 1mm may be what I try next. But most the time I just don't do anything except backup knot.

 

Offset gear may be fucking rad, but I did most of those lower wall clean aid routes(really free climbs...) without any of that stuff. A set of stoppers, set of tcus, some camalots... I felt solid and this was when I was learning... oh I never fell either until I owned all this fancy shit that I'd never climb without.