Off Belay

[Part 3 of 3 of my Gunks trip.  Part 1 here and Part 2 here.]

After another cold night, we again awoke at six in the morning. Everything covered by my sleeping bag had been warm enough, but keeping your face comfortable consists of alternating between warmth and oxygen. I changed into a relatively clean outfit and packed my things. My tent partner and I managed to be the first to take down our tent and have it packed away.

We had another breakfast of oatmeal, made more sandwiches for lunch (peanut butter and jam for me this time), rechecked our packs, loaded the van, and drove off from our campsite for the second and last time. Our second day at the Gunks, we climbed at a different part of the cliffs, accessed this time from a very steep, very long series of stone steps. I actually like stairs, but stairs with an unwieldy blue beast strapped to me? Not as fun. With the departure of another of the class members for a wedding, we were down to four students and four instructors. I was climbing with a different instructor, and we set up at the bottom of High Corner, our route for the morning.

The Gunks are popular enough that there are often climbers waiting for routes, but of the five multi-pitch routes I climbed that weekend, I didn’t have to wait for any of them, partly because of how early we got to the cliffs both mornings. Even though it was barely May, the weather was absolutely beautiful. Sunshine, clear blue skies – it almost got too hot, though that had approximately no effect on my chalk use. My hands can sweat in forty degree Lindseth just by thinking about climbing.

I ascended High Corner, sorting out a tangled rope on the way up, and was on top of the cliffs for the fourth time. There’s something about looking down a vertical face and thinking, I climbed that. We met up with another climbing pair and took part in a four person, two rope rappel involving the European death knot. A break for lunch, and then I climbed my last pitch on Jackie. It was a fun climb; at one point I was under an overhang, and the shorter you are, the more you find yourself hanging upside down as you try to swing yourself up and over. I’m pretty short. I eventually hauled myself up to the anchor, did my last rappel, belayed my instructor down, coiled the rope, and took off my shoes to sit in the sun and watch the other groups climb their last climbs.

The van ride back to Cornell was long. We stopped to eat a pizza dinner in a bug infested field next to the highway. When we returned to COE, we had to sort through every single piece of equipment we’d taken on our trip. But even before we pulled up to the curb at Bartels, I wanted to go back to the Gunks. It was exhausting, hanging off the rock, clipping and unclipping, letting rope out and gathering it back in, but it was also a challenge to be accepted, exciting in a way that only being a hundred feet off the ground with nothing below your feet could be, and just plain fun. I don’t know if I’ll get to go back, but I sure want to. Because when you reach up for the next hold to pull yourself upward, always upward, and nail the move, it doesn’t matter how bruised your knees are or how scraped and cut your knuckles and palms are. It feels good.