No Passion For Fashion

Its so hard to go back to work after such a fantastic weekend. Its weekends like this past one that make me want to quit my job and wander around to all sorts of climbing destinations. The campgrounds were full this weekend at Shelf Road. We camped at Sand Gulch, rolling in later on Friday evening, we snagged one of the last spots. After the big meal and beers at Old C's in the Springs, we were ready to hit the sack - but not until we heard the neighboring campsite's fire tales..."I was in the middle of nowhere and the guy I was with hated people - and I was people!"

Saturday was nice, we were sleepy-heads and slept in a little while Patrick took two morning walks :) After a tasty breakfast, we headed to Menses Prow for me to check out my new (first ever) projie. We warmed up on a new 5.8, then went over to climb The Big Chill - a really fun crack/flake system. Then it was on to the business - No Passion For Fashion. Garrett put up the draws for me. The beginning looked hard, the middle sustained, and the end a little tricky and reachy. Garrett did great, and I was thankful all I had to do was clip my rope into the draws. I headed up, having trouble to the first bolt - 'just great' I was thinking to myself, but it lightened up a bit to the fourth bolt. Getting to the fifth bolt was really pumpy and it was the first of the hang-dogging I proceeded to do for the rest of the climb. After my first rest, I clipped three more bolts and tried to clip the ninth before I was so out of position, I had to take again. My arms were so tired and throbbing at this point! I took a short rest and was feeling pretty cold from being in the shade with a chill in the air. I attempted the move again...I clipped the ninth bolt, but then couldn't make it to the tenth - SO TIRED! I was still cold and I wanted to get to the top, so I got back on, clipped the tenth bolt and headed toward the anchors - thank God Garrett put those up for me - how would I had reached those anchors without those quickdraws on there already? But they were there and I clipped in - whew! Done! I haven't tried that hard on a climb in a long time - that thing kicked my @ss! But that is what it was about on Saturday - its time to take it to the next level! Next time is SEND time.

Saturday night was fun by the campfire with the bottle of Crown. We visited Terry at the group campsite for a little bit also. We woke up earlier on Sunday - I wanted to get an earlier start than we did on Saturday - we needed to get in more than four climbs. We cleaned up camp and packed up. It was perfect timing, as we headed down the road - Kelly and James were headed up to meet us. We went over to Cactus Cliff in hopes it would warm up. We were one of the first groups on the crag (does NOT happen EVER)! We had a few warmups, and I wasn't sure I had enough energy to climb very hard, but was peer pressured to lead Funkdamental, a classic. I succeeded without taking or falling and it felt so much easier than it did last year! Garrett had a great day of climbing, sending his project Almost Gothic and ticking another classic Lats Don't Have Feelings!

Overall, an absolutely awesome weekend at Shelf Road - tasty food, fun company, fantastic climbing!