[TR] Beacon Rock - South East Corner 7/26/2008

[Plaidman]

Trip: Beacon Rock - South East Corner

 

Date: 7/26/2008

 

Trip Report:

Bringing Up The Boy

 

Bringing up the boy. It was a problem that would take some figuring out. My son had just started climbing with me and I wanted to give him the experience of climbing a multi-pitch climb. But the how to do it safely? I mulled over the logistics and what skills I was able to teach him up to this point. The plan started coming together after I found a competent climbing partner. I decided that we would climb as a party of three, with Noah my son climbing second and my partner John cleaning the route. The route would be the South East Corner of Beacon Rock. This is a classic 5.7

route with only one pitch of 5.7.

 

Noah was familiar with rope management and his basic climbing skills were practiced. To assist him in what he would be required to do on the route as the second climber I set up a route in the back yard. I slung runners on various objects in the yard. I clipped the rope through all these placements and put Noah on belay. With Noah trailing the second rope I had him unclip the lead rope and then clip the trailing rope that was attached to his harness with a locking carabiner to the carabiner on the runner. We practiced this until he was comfortable with the system. I got him all psyched up and ready for the climb. I told him you make it to the top of this one and you will be changed. We would be up at 3:45 and in the car by 4:00 am.

 

We got to the base of the rock and started climbing at 6:00 am. John led out and we all got to the crux pitch. I planned on leading this and would belay both John and Noah up to me at the same time with a Reverso. It was a good plan except I put in too many pieces and did not get a very good line for the rope to follow. When the rope line is not straight is causes rope drag. It was awful. It was like doing squats in the gym to get the rope to move. I could hear Noah below me yelling up “Daddyeeeee”. He was frightened. I felt terrible. I thought that maybe I had traumatically scarred him for life. It turned out that John literally pulled him up and over the crux with one hand pulling Noah and the other on a crimper hold. We couldn’t have pulled it off without John. We all got to the belay and Noah was fine. He was laughing and joking. I led the 6th pitch and when Noah started up I was surprised how fast he was coming up. I looked down and he saw me. He was on a slab of rock and yelled up “Hey Dad check out this new move. It’s called a body smear”. He was laying spread eagled on the rock using the friction of his whole body. I roared with laughter. We finally made it to the top and were told by a reliable source that Noah being 12 years old was probably the youngest climber to have finished that route. It was a very long day. It took us a total of 11 hours to finish the climb. I was able to share my love for climbing with my son and we have something we can remember for the rest of our lives. There were some enormous lessons I was able to teach him and climbing is a great sport to teach so many life and living lessons. So I am still bringing up the boy, and we are doing it together.

 

Gear Notes:

Too much gear always.

 

Approach Notes:

15 mins. down the trail.

[ivan]

sweet - i remember that day well - congrats