Signs of spring

With the last of the ice melted and a sunny warm day finally in sight, I boarded the early bus out of New York and headed up to New Paltz to meet Guillaume and shake off the winter rust. Lots of people had the same idea, and the bus up was filled with climbers headed to the Gunks. It was a spring awakening for all sorts of creatures, actually, as is evident from the salamander we came across high up enroute.

We headed to the Near Trapps, with the goal of getting in some single pitch routes in the 7-9 range. It was pretty crowded, but we managed to set up at the base of Te Dum (5.7). The route's a bit of a mixed bag: starts off with a vertical hands-to-offwidth sized crack, traverses horizontally to the right after the crack flares 25 ft up, then travels up and around a face with delicate but positive holds. Finishes up at an awkward belay at a questionable tree; I headed to the ground from there. First lead of the season, took me a little while to get confident in the pro and the moves again. The initial crack is easily climbed outside the crack and the traverse is much better than it looks from the ground, but I found the second half face climbing tricky and a little hard to protect. Guillaume followed with a second lead, and I reclimbed it on TR to clean it - even felt hard and awkward to follow.

Doing my best to stay out of the crack
Great feet, nonexistent hands on the traverse
G in his lumberjack trad outfit
Testing the jeans on the step across
Almost squashed the little fella before I looked down

We wandered a bit to find a route in the 8 range, as a couple of our target routes like Birdland (5.8) had parties on them, but eventually discovered the little-climbed Back to the Future (5.8). Guillaume led first and made it look really effortless, nice lead for the start of the spring. Really fun route, starts out with vertical climbing on a pebbly face towards a thin seam at a right-facing flake, with a couple of pitons placed just where you really start wishing for pro. There's a tricky step up right to a small ledge - which I found to be the crux but was easy for Guillaume - followed by an overhang with bomber jugs, a long traverse to the left around an exposed arete, and a scamper on great holds through the final pointy roof. Really worthwhile route, though the rope drag was horrendous - really shouldn't have left the doubles in the car.

Contemplating the stepup crux

Awesome weather, and a nice way to slowly break back into the target grades. I'm just glad we survived given my under-caffeinated mental slip-ups in the morning (forgot my Mohonk pass, forgot to eat, forgot to bring food, and forgot to bring water). Next up, it'll be nice to consistently climb 9s (Roseland, Inverted Layback, etc.), but more 7s and 8s would be good to get in as well.

Climber on Birdland (5.8)
Party high up on Fat City Direct (5.10d)

Ticklist:
Te Dum (5.7 G)
Back to the Future (5.8 G)