Sunday, October 21, 2007

Close to home

Great day trip out to The Rock Club today with Kenway and Eric. The drive out was about a half hour (minus the 20 minutes spent driving in circles). The place is absolutely insane; we climbed for about 4-5 hours until our arms stopped working and never repeated routes. In fact, we didn't even get a good look at the bouldering problems.

The massive walls (~40ft), together with lots of overhangs, really tested our endurance. Kind of like high-rep Oly lifting in that efficiency emerges under enough pressure. Eric and I managed to complete some really fun 5.9s (ratings a bit soft on these?), and I got stuck on some 5.9+s. Kenway came oh-so-close to completing a 5.11 with a crazy layback section (we got to see him do the splits!).

TRC doesn't allow Gri-Gris unless you're certified to lead belay, so I got to use my shiny new ATC Guide. Really nice piece of kit; the friction made lowering smooth and effortless.

Looking forward to the next visit. Maybe without the Mexinese food after.

Some JTree climbing info here and here. Pointers to some easier routes here, and a route searcher can be found here. Looks awesome.

5 comments:

Scott said...

That sounds awesome! I'd love to got here with you guys sometime. I'm definitely sorry I missed it.

kenny g said...

No worries, Scott, we'll head back soon - you'll love the place!

kenny g said...

The architecture of the climbs are fantastic, all sorts of interesting variations - overhangs, stepped overhangs, arches, chimneys, even a ledge...

Kinda Gunks-like...

dep said...

It was great! I'm only a little bit sore, but I think my neck got cricked from looking up all the time! (That and over engaging my shoulders during the climbs.) I'll post some pictures and video tonight.

brian said...

Fingertips are sore!

Don't worry Scott, we found lots of routes with holds you can skip.