My folks rented a country farmhouse in Southern France, near Perpignan. Extended family gathered. A good time was had by all.

We visited small towns up and down the Costa Brava.

Did some wine-tasting at French chateaus.

Visited churches.

Hiked the Tour de Massif (Madeloc) and the Tour de Massanel.

Spent a lot of time hanging out by the pool trying to convince Bea to jump in.

Click here for the photo gallery.

My brother Ben and cousin Bryan are a little too large to go mountain climbing. So we went mountain climbing. There was a lot of complaining. Much whimpering. Some swearing.

Click here for the photo gallery

Trip Report: “Lighter and epic free!”
The Shrine, Eardley Escarpment
Gatineau Hills, Quebec – 14th April 2001

• The Shrine: Alibaba, 5.7 (S, 4B) – lead
• The Shrine: Living Dead, 5.8 (S, 4B) * – lead
• The Shrine: Headstone, 5.9 (S, 4B) * – toprope
• The Shrine: Shangri-La, 5.8 (S, 4B) * – bailed

If you’re following along: last week marked my first outdoor climbing ‘event’, and it was a doozy. We came, we climbed, we almost died, we didn’t start retreating until dark, we almost died, and we got lost. In short: we had an epic.

Well, the good-natured ribbing – and the blank “why would you do that?” stares – of friends, family and cow-orkers sunk in. I decided that our second outing would be epic-free, a time and place where epics were not around.

Reinout, Scott and myself were feeling antsy. It’s the Easter long weekend and we wanted to climb. The forecast was initially not good: rain, drizzle, rain, clouds and drizzle, and rain.

I thought back to third year Eng-Phys class. My Prof, honestly one of the smartest people in the world, would always do a little rain dance on Fridays. He told us that his dance was for the rain, and referred to it specifically as a ‘rain dance’. He said that he wanted us to have good weekends.

Well, the only type of raindance I know about is the one you do when you WANT rain. I never figured out if he was hoping we would get rain, so we could all think about n-p-n junctions and superconductivity, or if he really was hoping that his dance would scare the rain away.

Couldn’t hurt – we already had rain coming. I did the dance. One day later the forecast said the clouds were parting and we’d get a couple of days of +10C with few/no clouds. Oh yeah, baby, yeah.

We all talked and planned. Rather than going to some place we picked randomly in the car, Reinout and myself pored over the guidebook and thought things through. I couldn’t take all that democracy for long, so I gave him the book and demanded he decide. It is also his book, so what was I going to do, keep it?

Reinout chose “The Shrine”. It’s a sweet-looking place: 300m from the parking spot, has seven climbs under 5.9, 300m from the parking spot, and it was described as being a quick walk from the parking spot. How could I not agree?

During the week since The Epic, I had been shopping. I went to MEC and got John Long’s book “How to Rock Climb”. I also picked up a couple of slings, some more ‘draws, a couple of locking biners, a figure-8, and some 5mm perlon cord for prussiking. Reinout picked up “Advanced Anchors” by J.Long. Excellent books.

The MEC weenies gave me stupid looks when I told them my stupid Epic story. I cut it a little short as I wanted them to still sell me equipment. Actually, I stopped after “Yeah we went out! I almost died!”. Meh, my money is good money.

So I had been spending the week reading John Long’s book. I really recommend it; it’s got everything a beginner needs. I wish I had bought it earlier, however, because I wanted to go back to the Western Cwm and try out my new slab/crack moves.

I was pumped.

Scott bailed. He said he had to work, but I think his “work” has breasts. Reinout and myself were it. The dynamic duo, the unstoppable two! We were a little concerned that Scott was getting to be a liability anyway.

We didn’t get lost, although we did take a stupid long way there. By the way, it’s settled: Quebec has no road signs. Picture this: we’re driving north through the centre of Hull, a large Quebec city. We’re on a four-lane road (two in each direction) with MANY traffic lights and side streets. We had detailed maps of the city and we got lost.

It was hard to tell which road we were on, and which roads we were passing. We navigated by map, memory, and geographic features like railroad lines and large bodies of water.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad: cross the river, head west into Aylmer, get onto the 148 Ouest, turn off at Pink Rd. and get onto de la Montagne. The parking lot is located on the right as the road turns sharply to the left, below the scenic Champlain Lookout.

The old cart track was flooded, but passable. It took us 10 minutes of walking to arrive at the rock cairn on the trail, then 30 minutes of bushwhacking to find the right section of rock. We turned right at the cairn and headed towards the cliffs, but the ‘trail’ wasn’t marked and we strayed to the far right, heading back towards the parking spot. If you’re reading and planning your own trip: get to the cairn, turn right, and walk towards the cliffs. Stay close (30m) to the stream. Don’t try to be smart; it doesn’t work.

We found the climb we wanted to start on, Alibaba, a sweet 5.7 the guidebook calls “one of the easiest sport climbs in this book”. Reinout started up first and had one or two problems with the first bolt, but had no other issues. He finished off and abseiled down without any fuss.

As I mentioned, I had been shopping earlier in the week. My new figure-8 and prussik rope had seen lots of practice work before bedtime, but I had neglected to practice on real rope. Reinout talked me through it and everything seemed groovy. My figure-8 seems a little wider than his, and my prussik cord a little thinner, so I wrapped it thrice, rather than twice, around the rope.

I changed into my shoes and racked up, yeah, all five ‘draws and a couple of slings, but it feels like a rack. Having seen Reinout working the route, I didn’t have a couple of the problems he did (unlike our next climb), but it was still tough. I really have a problem with heights. I moved slowly and carefully, and finished off without incident.

The first bolt is a little high for me – a 2m fall onto a 60-degree rocky slope, with the belay anchor 5m away – but there’s a good crack to the right that you can layback before clipping. The cracks are good, but full of dirt and mud. We were probably the first people on this rock this year.

The next couple of bolts are do-able, but require quite a bit of traversing back and forth to get the best holds. I topped out without falling or weighting the rope, and clipped my harness-connected-slings into the anchors.

It was tough to convince myself it was okay to call “off belay”. Sure, the slings are bombproof. Sure, the locking biners are locked and weighted. Sure, the anchors look gleaming and solid. It’s just weird to willingly ask to have your safety line released.

I hauled up half the rope and wrapped it around the dead cedar tree (bomber, I was assured by Reinout), then untied my harness rope and passed it around as well. Again, it was tough to untie my harness connection to the rope – even though it wasn’t connected to anything! I guess I still have some mental things to work out.

I was really worried about dropping the rope (without looping it around my abseil anchor) and being stuck up there, sans rope. I worried about dropping my figure-8. I clenched each biner with a death grip as I unclipped them from my harness. I know that with practice it will get better, but my hands shook when I looped the rope around my figure-8. I took my time and got the prussik tightly connected, far away from the figure-8.

Unclipping my slings from the anchors was also mentally tough. I couldn’t figure out how to unclip the second (and last) sling while applying tension to the prussik. Just not enough hands. I ended up sliding up the rope – a _very_ tedious task, let me tell you – and weighting my abseil device higher than the sling. I should remember to try to do that next time.

On the downward abseil I reminded myself that I should try some things BEFORE relying on them to save my skin. The 5mm perlon was too small to work well, and the figure-8 was large enough to allow the rope to move through pretty damn quick. It was only halfway down that I got the hang of moving my prussik hand (and therefore the angle of the rope below the figure-8) to slow my descent.

We hauled the rope down and moved next-door to Headstone (5.9, *) and Living Dead (5.8, *), each with four bolts. The routes are side-by-side, Headstone heading up the corner and Living Dead moving towards the right. It’s interesting to note that the guidebook lists Headstone as 5.8 and Living Dead as 5.9 – which is a blatant lie.

I’ve assumed Mr. Yann Troutet made a simple clerical error when writing the book. Reinout and myself hold no grudges.

Reinout tried to lead Headstone (being what we thought was the easier of the two climbs), but got stuck at the crux. It looked really difficult, and he eventually moved over to Living Dead. The routes were close enough together that he was able to switch his first two clips without coming down.

Living Dead was much easier and he joyfully cranked upwards. He clipped the fourth bolt and climbed up over a ledge to find the anchors of Headstone to abseil from. It took him a while, and he kicked down some mean choss, but he eventually found the anchor and came down. He didn’t mention any problems and I didn’t ask (dumb, dumb).

I racked up and headed off. Like Reinout, the first two clips of Headstone weren’t that tough, just some balancing work. I found the sequence for the crux, but I was too scared/wussy to try it on lead. After half an hour of climbing up, getting faked out, and climbing back down, I agreed to toprope Headstone next climb and switched over to Living Dead.

The third and fourth clips (and 7m) went easily, more like 5.7 that I’ve seen. Heh, listen to me, re-grading routes on my fourth outdoor climb.

Anyway, I was really pumped out – especially after wasting so much time on Headstone and posing for some pictures – and I didn’t know where to go after the last clip. This was the first route that I hadn’t examined the guidebook for, and I wasn’t clear on where Headstone topped out.

I climbed a little above my last bolt and started panicking. My arms were throbbing, I was breathing really hard, and my mouth was really dry. I wanted some water and a place to rest more than anything. To make matters worse, when I get nervous or scared, my legs start shaking and become less reliable.

So I use my arms more. Which pumps them out more.

Unfortunately I climbed something I didn’t think I could downclimb, and I wasn’t sure how far above the last bolt I was. I figured around 4m, given the nonlinear route the rope was taking. I jammed my body into a crack and shouted down for assistance.

Reinout wasn’t that helpful. He kept telling me to go left, and I just didn’t know what he was talking about – I couldn’t see the anchor at all. I did the only thing I could do: I climbed higher, not left.

My fear of heights kicked in again and my legs started shaking. I wished that I had some trad gear I could stuff into the rock. Then it hit me: I’ll just wrap a sling around something and clip in!

Remember the choss? Well, I pulled out a good 10lb rock and sent it down. I yelled “rock” as soon as it was moving, and Reinout knows what he’s doing, but a falling rock is a falling rock.

After last week’s crash-course on gri-gri operation, Reinout wasn’t too happy with the fancy-shmancy American version of doing things. He was belaying from a ‘biner. I had images of being suddenly off-belay flash before my eyes, and I got even more nervous. I managed to find a shrub – the only thing around that wasn’t loose – get a sling around, and clip my harness into it.

Once my own safety was assured, I yelled down for Reinout. Apparently I had been kicking rocks and dirt down for a few minutes before, and he had already moved behind the tree. Smart lad. Besides, the belay was intentionally put off-center. Yessir, “How to Rock Climb” and www.petzl.com. Who rules at this stuff?

I tried to calm down, but couldn’t. I explained this, and that I was still lost, to Reinout, but he wasn’t being helpful. He kept yelling “on your left”. When he finally yelled that the anchors were part of the Headstone route, I headed left a bit and spotted them.

After traversing across a steep sandy section, I managed to clip in. Huge gleaming hangers attached to thick gleaming bolts. The feeling I had was of pure joy, a blissful state where I was safe. Heaven.

I set up a toprope anchor, managed to retrieve my sling and biner from the shrub, hauled the rope up and abseiled down. I wondered how Reinout had done the sandy traverse.

He says he doesn’t get scared of stupid things, and that he wishes sometimes that he would. I’m not sure what would be better: to be terrified every time I’m above my last bolt, or to be oblivious of every danger. I think we would both be better off in the middle.

We had lunch, a couple of bagels and some cheese, and Reinout smoked a cigarette. We talked about the Netherlands and I gulped down water. Apparently cheese is a big thing in the Netherlands. It tasted a little better than adrenaline and dry mouth, so I was happy.

Reinout headed up Headstone on toprope, but still couldn’t figure out the crux moves to get to the overhanging ledge. He took a couple of falls, but being on toprope rules. I understand why people like it. He eventually switched over to Living Dead, pulled a few moves, then switched back to Headstone. We snapped some pictures and lowered him down.

My turn. Sometimes I’m happy when it’s my turn, sometimes not. I was still happy – shit, we were toproping – but I was beginning to feel my limits. I cruised up the first part, having climbed it before and seen it done twice, and immediately ran up against the crux.

Lo and behold, I found a small ledge that Reinout had discarded as “too painful”. I got two fingers on the sharp stabby hold, and my other hand on a small nobule of rock, and cranked for a small flat section under the ledge. I was happily surprised when I stuck it.

I smeared and laybacked up the side of the ledge rock and clipped into the third bolt of Headstone. We took some pictures and I shook out my arms. I was getting tired, but the route was very very fun. I got back on and actually used a hand-crack move! Hand up to the wrist, fingers and palm on one side, knuckles on the other – yummy.

When I’ve read and talked about crack technique with other climbers, I’ve always thought it was a last-ditch sort of thing you would do when you couldn’t layback. Muscle over mind, every time baby. I was surprised with how bomber the move felt, and I was able to weight it enough to haul myself up with minimal foot/leg work.

Unfortunately the crack above was full of mud and dirt, so I was unable to continue jamming. I laybacked and scrabbled up. I was getting tired. I did one or two huge pumpy moves, then degenerated to scrabbling and flailing. I setup the abseil and came down.

Reinout wanted to try a 5.8 around the corner, and went off to look for it. While packing everything up, I assessed the situation. My arms were shot: poking my forearms hurt my fingers. My hands were so tender it felt like I could pop my fingertips by squeezing the nail. I was bleeding from the knuckles and wrist, scratched from elbow to finger, bruised everywhere, but my spirit was high.

The next route Reinout found, Shangri-La, was very intimidating. The book calls it a “very vertical climb”, and indeed it is. Reinout lead off and was simply amazing. He did some sketchy moves that had me ready to haul rope and brace for impact, but pulled them off. He climbed, he traversed, he clipped! He went above the anchors, located only 15-17m off the ground, and climbed a good 7m above them to a tree. I wondered about his not-being-scared-enough problem, but shut up and prepared to see my first real leader fall.

Of course he came through like a pro and fixed an anchor. I lowered him down and was surprised to see him shaking. He went on and on about how awesome a route it was and how happy he was that he led it. I stalled and tried to buy time, but it was my turn. I wasn’t happy/ready for this one.

I got to the second clip and decided that I was done. I couldn’t rely on my arms, my legs were shaking, and I didn’t have enough skill to finesse through the tough parts. I downclimbed and bailed. Oh well.

I climbed around behind the cliff, salvaged Reinout’s anchor gear, and scrambled back down the side. Reinout was having a second cigarette, still stoked from the climb. I muttered something about how the crux of Headstone was fun too, but I couldn’t bring him down.

We headed back to my Jeep, our heads in the clouds and our feet in the wet mud.

I might just buy some nuts at MEC this week.

Click here for the photo gallery

Trip Report: “My first climb! My first epic!”
Western Cwm, Eardley Escarpment
Gatineau Hills, Quebec – 7th April 2001

• Upper Slabs: Pascal’s Hole, 5.6 (S, 5B) * – top-rope, lead
• Corruption Buttress: Morning Crack, 5.6 – top-rope

Scott and myself have gym climbed for a little more than a year – sometimes as much as three times a week, but mostly the on-again off-again climbing that fits into our schedules so well. He’s a solid 10b on toprope, pushing 10d. I’m 10a, pushing 10b. We both lead 10s indoors.

It’s good to climb with Scott because he whines a lot when I take rests, usually belays from a chair, is inattentive when women are around, and generally pays as little attention to my scrabbling as possible. He’s a good 60lbs lighter than I am (do I qualify as a sumo-climer at 225?), and probably stronger. I can’t figure out how we can have problems with some of the same climbs.

Reinout is a European grad student who’s been in my residence at University for the last couple of months. We accidentally discovered each other climbs when I was returning from a flail-fest, thoroughly beaten down by the walls at Coyote’s, bleeding and whimpering. He’s tall and thin, and I figured he’d be pretty good – he is. He has a sport rack with him from Europe, but no rope.

I have a rope, but no belay device (except my ‘biners). Scott has a gri-gri. We were a team without a second thought.

Reinout bought a guidebook for the Eardley Escarpment (in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec, just across the border from Ottawa). We watched the weather (overcast, high of 8C, heavy showers in the evening). I blew $150 at MEC. Scott booked the day off work (it was Saturday). We planned our attack.

Reinout has lead outdoors before, Scott has toproped outdoors, and I’m just finishing a grad degree in Electrical Engineering, so the out of doors is completely foreign to me. Our team was invincible.

So I figured we’d drive up there, hike a few minutes to the bottom of the cliffs, whip up a quick .8 toprope, and then try leading a couple of .9s. Riiight.

We got lost driving through Hull while on a ‘shortcut’ I endorsed on a whim. Why the Quebec gov’mnt doesn’t like spending money on road signs, I’ll never know. I can’t believe they still consider dirt roads to be a viable transportation medium.

We arrive there at 2:30-ish, it’s overcast and cold – about 5C. We’re pumped. We walk down the shit-covered trails (there’s an equestrian farm that allows climbers to walk through their property) heading for the big bad climbs of the Western Cwm. We’re gym climbers, but we’re invincible. Well, the hike in started putting dents into our armour.

Six inches of semi-melting snow, covered with horse shit, over either a sheet of ice or a quagmire of mud. Well, at least it wasn’t dark and windy, and at least we weren’t injured. I think they call that foreshadowing in the literary business.

We followed the ‘trail’ through the brush, cheered by the reduced wind that made it feel almost warm, and eventually found the trail markings that lead up a rock pile to the base of the climbs. The trail markings are bits of bright red tape placed every four feet. We all joked and laughed about how blind men would be able to find the climbs. (f-o-r-e-s-h-…)

A good half hour later, thoroughly lost and confused, we happened across another couple of climbers who were able to tell us where we were. They also told us that the slabs we were heading for were probably covered with water. Feh! We’re invincible gym climbers! We don’t fear water!

We scrambled onwards. Did I mention the ice and snow? We scrabbled up this ice/snow chute that we probably should have been roped in for and snickered about safety. Eventually, a long time after we left the car, we found the climb. I have no idea of the time, because no one brought a watch. Or a flashlight.

Scott and Reinout climbed around the side of the climb while I scoped out the bottom belay area. It was perched on a slopey ledge with a good drop off the back (with some trees in-between the ledge and the drop). I worried about the height and wondered if now was a good time to bring up my fear of said heights. Nah!

Scott and Reinout find the toprope anchors (finally) and start fussing around. Neither of them have read the putzl webpages, so I’m getting a little nervous that they don’t know how to set anchors. Oh well, Reinout was going to abseil down the slab anyway, so it wasn’t my problem.

I idly wondered if I got cellphone reception (I did), and if the Quebec gov’mnt has rescue choppers that would pick up anglo climbers. They probably don’t.

Oh, rivers of water were flowing down the lichen-covered slab. I heard Scott going on and on about the “awesome little holds” and those “killer pockets”. I wondered if the elevation was blurring his vision or degrading his reasoning. I thought about HAPE and chortled a little at the thought of Scott coughing up LungBlood.

So they finish mucking with the anchors and Reinout abseils down. He uses a Huit (a square figure-8, I take it) and a Prussik backup. No problems. We pull the rope back up to Scott and we belay him down from a ‘biner (he has the gri-gri). No problems – we could scale mountains with our shoelaces.

I was a little concerned at first that Reinout, a European climber, was going to want to do some funky belay stuff with biners and prussiks. He had never used a gri-gri before, but he warmed up to it after Scott and I gave him a brief introduction. Remember the “brief” word for later.

The slab is exactly 25 meters, and the 50m rope I have is perfect. We all huddle around and notice that it’s even bolted! If at this point in the story you’re getting the feeling that we’re ill prepared and unobservant, you’re bang on. We enthuse about leading and guess at the rating. I’m thinking .9; Scott reminds me that we must take the water into account. I think .11-. Ya, we check the book, it’s rated 5.6.

I’m on toprope first (I was getting cold) and I head up, dropping ‘draws on the hangers to make leading a little easier. First clip: no problems. Man, slabs are fun. Second clip: a little harder. Man, slabs are fun. Third clip: sure, a little tough. Man, slabs are fun.

The fourth and fifth clip got together and fucked with my mind. Slabs suck! There were no friggin holds, my hands, arms, legs and shoes were drenched, and the clips were miles apart! I somehow managed – being on toprope sure helped.

I got to the top and fixed their anchor – it was dragging my precious rope over some rocks – and was belayed down. Fun! Scott and Reinout flew up, barely even getting wet. Both double-checked my new anchor placement and hummed and hawed about it. Feh, amateurs. I’ll send them the putzl website address. They later agreed that it was better after being fixed.

So we’re all done toproping and clowning around at the bottom. We realize that at least one of us needs to climb the slab again (to get the draws and rescue our anchor equipment), so I volunteer to lead it before we go find something a little more challenging.

Those first three draws I hung while on toprope? The ones I found easy to place? They terrified me. I second-guessed each ‘hold’; I worried about my wet shoes. I over-gripped and was pretty much scared shitless. Reinout took some pics of me clipping some draws; I can’t wait to see how scared I look.

The last two draws were difficult. I had a hard time trusting my hand and foot placements with a possible 8+ meter fall on rock that seemed to be glassy when trying to find purchase, yet cheese-gratery when considering a fall. I slipped a few inches at a pivotal point, but I didn’t fall and returned to the belay station thoroughly shaken.

Reinout went next and had a better time. He looked much more cautious than his first toprope climb, but he was fluid and sure of himself. Scott went last and got a little freaked out. He got the first three clips uneventfully, but started overthinking the fourth. He got it without falling, of course, but he was squeaking when he clipped. He was belayed down; Reinout scrambled up around the side and removed the anchor.

Reinout then abseiled down the double rope, wrapped around a tree, and then we hauled it down. We were heroes! Leaders! Of course the .6 wasn’t an accurate rating, y’know, given the ice and snow and water and stuff. Think, like, 5.11-.

So we packed up and decided to head to a crack climb Scott remembered from when he was toproping out here on a course. Before I continue, I must explain that Scott has the worst sense of direction/memory in the entire world. He requires me to co-pilot while navigating to the same gym we’ve been going to for more than a year. I have no idea how he finds his way into work each morning.

It’s much later now, probably about 5PM, and still light – but we don’t notice/care. We start heading back down that ice chute I was telling you about. You know, the one where we snickered about ‘safety’? Well, going down it was really tough. Scott went first, I followed, and Reinout pulled up the rear.

Reinout slipped and slid into me. I heard the brush breaking, saw the ice flying by me, and was able to grab a rock and a tree and catch him. He apologized, I mentally chided him for being careless, and then I slipped and fell off a ledge. Actually, I fell over a couple of ledges, had a good “oh fuck I’m gonna die” experience, and was getting ready to yell “Scott, tell my thesis supervisor I love him” when I caught myself.

Scott was a little freaked out; I guess some of the ice/snow I kicked loose was flying right at him. Reinout was a little freaked out; I guess he saw the 60+ft drop-off I was sliding towards. I wasn’t freaked out at all – I just couldn’t tell if I was hurt or not. I wasn’t much, but it took a while to tell. Well, we went slower after that.

So we get down this chute safely and start looking for Scott’s crack climb. He swears he would recognize it without a problem, and I must still have been shaken up from my fall because I believed him. We walk along a cliff face, trying to avoid the brush and muddy leaves, looking for the climb. We walk past a crack and I make a joke about climbing it. Everyone laughs, it looks really tough, and we continue on.

We can’t find it. We come to the end of the cliffs and it’s not there. Scott has the map (mistake! mistake!), but I still must have been too shaken to notice. I decide to scramble down a little lower to see if it’s there, while Scott and Reinout keep looking.

I have a small adventure when climbing down. I get separated from the others and I really don’t want to climb back up the slopes I slid down. My butt is wet, I have no rope, and I have no idea where I’m going. I think to myself “self, climb down this little section, go over to the right and follow the path back up to the other two goons”. No problems.

I make a mistake: I slide down a slippery rock without examining the area I was sliding down. My landing area was all good, no danger or anything, but the slope I slid down was really wet, and I wasn’t sure I could get back up. Well, no problem, I’ll just keep going down. Well, fuck, where did that ravine come from?

The ledge I’m on is flat where I’m sitting, then slopes into a 20-25 foot drop. There’s no way off the ledge except back up the slippery rock I slid down. I can’t go up, I can’t go down. I’m covered in wet muddy leaves, considering how shitty it would be to need a rescue.

I do the right thing, I holler for help. Scott will save me. *shout* Scott doesn’t hear me. I holler for a while, then give up. I’m fucked.

I spot a tree growing out of the ravine, near the edge of the slopey ledge I’m on. I attach the slings I have with me together and anchor them to a big rock on the ledge. I inch towards the edge of the ledge, fully protected, and ensure that yes, it really does drop a long way towards the ground. The tree, however, is right there – just out of reach.

I get back to safety and holler a bit more. Fine, I’ll just die by myself then. I slide to the tree, bearhug it, and slowly slither down. If that doesn’t sound dangerous and stupid, I’m not writing with enough lucidity. I find the super-marked trail after a good half hour of bushwhacking (‘tread lightly’ doesn’t seem as important when you’re lost, thirsty, weak and emotionally scarred).

I holler and Scott shouts right back. They’ve found the crack, Reinout has climbed up somewhere near the ice chute and is setting up the toprope. I glance at the sky wearily and scramble up to where he’s located. Of course, it’s the crack I joked about when we walked past it an hour ago.

I get a drink and watch Reinout abseil down the climb. Man it looks tough. Reinout offers the climb and I foolishly agree to shoot Scott for it. I win. Damn! I change into my shoes as they setup the belay anchor. There’s so much rope drag that both of them need to belay. Reinout pulls the slack through and Scott works the gri-gri.

I’m messed up. I can hardly climb, I’m stressed about the slack and I prompt them each time the rope isn’t taut against my harness – which is all the time. I’m shaking, but not physically tired. I take a lot of breaks. I get sewing machine leg, but my legs aren’t tired. I wonder if I could ever lead something this hard. The rock has hundreds of little features, but I can’t trust any of them. I do what should be simple moves in a succession of much harder stupid moves. I layback plain jane ‘reach and step’ moves.

They laugh and joke about my slack-prompting. They snicker about how they want to put me off-belay while they adjust the belay anchor. They chat and are inattentive to my many and complex needs. I love those guys.

I rest near the top and wonder what the fuck I’m doing. I mention that I’m almost done, and those chumps get ready to lower me. Grabbing at the rock so I don’t lose precious ground, I yell down that I mean mentally. They shrug and go back to joking and laughing. I grind my teeth, and climb on.

I wriggle up the crux with pumped arms, twitching legs, and technique that can best be described as epileptic flailing. I jammed my arms, actually used my forehead to push against cold wet rock, and finished the route with, uh, no style at all. I can’t remember if I fell or not, I think I might have.

I came down and announced that I was done. Good thing too, because it was getting late! Reinout went next, which was an error, and ran up the route without too many problems. He had a little bit of a tough time at the crux, but didn’t need to use his forehead, so how hard could he have found it?

Scott went last, and as he was roping in he commented on how dark it was getting. As the only one with any common sense (and that should tell you something), I emerged from my state of shock to realize that we were going to experience an epic. Too tired to protest, I hauled while Reinout belayed.

Scott flew up the climb and was resting at the ledge when we came up with the grand idea of a picture. What a good idea! I grabbed Reinout’s camera and scrambled up the third-class stuff beside the climb. I got to the top of the rock pile, about five meters above the belay, when Shit Happened.

Reinout, not used to the gri-gri, let go of the brake end of the rope and was having a quick drink or something. Scott was hamming for the camera and stepped off the ledge. I felt my insides lurch.

Scott started falling and screaming, “fuck fuck fuck”. I dropped the camera (it was connected to my belt, and besides, it wasn’t my camera) and did the only thing I could: watch helplessly. Reinout looked panicked and fumbled about the belay.

Scott kept falling, Reinout kept fumbling, and I mentally pictured where Scott would hit the ground, how to build a splint, and how the guys felt about cuddling up for the -7C night temperatures.

The rope wasn’t sliding enough to lock the gri-gri, the damned toprope friction wasn’t enough to slow him, and Scott was falling fast enough to break something. Thankfully, Reinout found the rope, Scott stopped falling, and we all sat still for a good minute or two. He had fallen almost 15 meters.

With Reinout’s crash course on gri-gri operation complete, Scott scrambled back up the climb and topped out without any problems at all. We then realized that it would be faster to have him tear down the anchor than have Reinout, our anchor specialist, head up. We yelled instructions up and hauled a bag up for him to put everything in.

By now it was getting dark, and we yelled up for Scott to head back to the slabs we were climbing first, climb down the chute, and meet us at the bottom. I remembered that Scott is navigation-impaired when he yelled back “which way do I go to get down?”

Reinout and myself tore down the belay anchor and packed everything up, hoping to give Scott enough of a head start so we wouldn’t be waiting long. We then headed back to the crossroads between the chute to the slabs and the base of the climb we had just finished.

Scott started yelling from the cliff top, shouting down that he was lost and couldn’t find the slabs. He had moved perhaps 20m from his previous location and I shouted back that he had a ways to go yet. It was now post-dusk and getting dark fast.

He tried descending a 5.3 in-between the crack climb and the chute, but he couldn’t make it down due to an ice/snow buildup at the base. It was frustrating because we could see each other, but he couldn’t finish safely. Rather than tempting fate even more, Reinout and I encouraged him to climb back up and continue navigating towards the chute.

I ended up climbing the easier part of the chute, navigating towards his voice. He then could make out my dark form on the white snow and was able to head towards me. We had some tense moments where he carefully moved through the slippery stuff, but he got down without any further problems.

We regrouped at the crossroads and discussed a plan of action. It was now dark. We hadn’t brought a flashlight, the bright neon tape marking the trail looked as dark as everything else, and we hadn’t filed an itinerary with anyone. I had enough cellphone juice to call the girlfriend and tell her our predicament, so we knew we weren’t totally fucked.

We started to head down towards the car and immediately got lost. I was pretty sure the path headed to the right, but because the car was to the left Scott and Reinout voted to go straight. Small rocks got bigger, and we found ourselves approaching the edge of each boulder and peering down to see how far the ground was.

Even once we had cleared the boulders we weren’t free. Ontario/Quebec brush is fierce stuff, and we needed to walk with our forearms in front of our faces, sliding on our butts whenever we needed to go downhill. We all joked about breaking our ankles, leaving each other behind, and who would get the injured party’s belongings.

An hour later we found the path and continued on out. Horseshit didn’t seem so bad anymore, and we got back to the car a little before 10PM. Just after wiping ourselves off in a snowbank it started to rain. We jumped into the car and praised our good luck. Yeah right.

All in all, a pretty good outing.

Funny amendement: I got back and promptly told my girlfriend that we were okay and she didn’t need to call the search and rescue people. She said “What?” I repeated myself. She explained she had no idea what I was talking about. I guess she was sleeping when I called and didn’t remember our conversation at all. Ha!

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