A Jam-Packed Seneca Weekend
Sept 29 and 30, 2001
Some time in the wee hours, the Kentucky Contingent--Steve, Jill and Eric--were heard bumbling about and setting up a tent. I had arrived at Seneca Shadows in the slightly-less-wee hours and was fast asleep and now Eric was laying out his kit next to me in my elderly Eureka. It was the start of a most excellent weekend of Seneca madness!
After a groggy, cold, cloudy morning and a surprisingly swift trip to the 4-U for a heavy batch of bisquits and gravy, the clouds burned off and it got down-right summery. We saddled up and headed up the East Face Trail with plans to do a day of hard climbing on the south peak, east face. But we were not alone; a steady stream of climbers huffed and puffed along with us up the steep, loose trail and when we emerged onto the Upper Broadway Ledge, there was quite a crowd already assulting the steep rock above.
But strangely they all had bigger fish to fry and no one was on the relatively easy Conn's East (5.5*). After a warmup there, we intended to head toward some harder stuff like Alcoa Presents (5.8*) or Soler (5.7*). The K-Mann and I I swung the leads on the first four pitches, stringing the first two and last two together. I've climbed the bottom part twice already so I was pleased to see Steve take off up the 5.7 off-width variation that it's easy to get side-tracked onto. A nice diversion and not something I'd be comfortable leading first thing in the day. From the big ledge, we waited for the traffic to clear a bit while Eric started up from below. Finally I took the gear and headed out for the third pitch.
The ledge ends in a bulge with a deep fissure splitting it straight up. The fissure takes gear well and has some good holds after one or two committing moves. But the route technically traverses across the airy face of the bulge right and up to the wide ledge at the below Alcoa/Orangeaide. With a few false starts, I eventually got myself onto the bulge. Waaaay-exposed! Eric commented that he wished he'd brought the camera for that one! Wishing for some foot holds, I worked my way up past an aluminum pin (clip!) to more solid ground... which was already occupied by the extraordinary Mark 'Aqua' Neubauer and the rope connected to his ultra-hardman buddy from CO, Mike Sofranko. But he was gracious enough to let me route a rope across his hamstrings and continue on. In short order I had climbed the widely separated flake at the north end of the ledge, slung the big chockstone (second for this climb) and was setting up a belay at the top of the Gunsight routes. One other guy was already there and things were starting to get crowded.
Steve came up and things started to deteriorate. Eric was hung up below while several dozen folks clambored about on the Alcoa ledge. Two other groups came up the various Gunsight-to-South-Peak routes, one carrying a large pack and trailing a rope and causing consternation for those following. Another leader found our ledge too crowded and proceeded to set up a belay on the summit ridge above thus preventing anyone from getting past. The situation was rapidly becoming ugly. Eventually Eric shimmied past the folks on the ledge and got up to my anchor. Jill had some trouble with the bulge (Eric had gone up the crack instead, but the rope somehow hadn't) but eventually we were all gathered. Our chances of getting across to the summit or even to the top of Alcoa looked pretty grim at this point and the entire East Face was clogged with various hard-men types leading 5.11s and setting top-ropes. Time to abandon ship. A double-rope rap was set up off the bolts above High Test and we retreated back to the relative sanity of Upper Broadway.
So we retreaved gear and retreated to the North Peak, East Face. I lead the first pitch of Roux (5.2*) and found it pretty low on good gear. The fact that Amy had lead this as her first Seneca lead three weeks back impressed me even more. I set up a belay on the very comfy, wide ledge on the Lichen Wall and brought Eric up. We set up a top rope from the new bolts at Lichen Or Leave It (5.8*) and I lead up the intriguing-looking-but-too-short Bear's Delight (5.5*). It's an overhanging, right-facing corner with good pro and fairly good face holds. But 40' off the ledge, after an amusing moss-fringed hand jam, you emerge into the setting sunlight acrest the North Peak "summit" ridge full of loose rock and chunky holds (and no pro). The view was good, however, and we were treated to a nice view of the entire east face, still clogged with folks going up and down and round-about. A pair of rap bolts got us back down to the ledge and thence back to the ground.
I was done for the day and after the boys had finished playing on Lichen, we haded home for pizza and beer and a lively campfire composed of various spare wooden items from Eric's house.
 Fixed Gear! It's always bomber! |
On the north end of the Slabs (nearest the trail) are the more popular climbs in the area; Scuttle (5.5), Discrepancy (5.8-*), Warlock (5.9) and some others. Steve found a 40' tall, right-facing corner which looked startlingly like a miniature version of the Face of a Thousand Pitons; perhaps 1/8th scale. He lead up "Mini-Marshall", an unnamed hand crack a few feet to the right of It's Not the Meat, It's the Motion (5.4) and found it pretty easy (5.3ish?). We top-roped it in our approach shoes and found it grungy and forgetable.
Meanwhile Eric belayed me up Scuttle. The first move (after clipping the very, very pasted, fixed nut) was dicey and didn't feel real great. But the remaining 40' of clean crack soaked up gear like there was no tomorrow; in my case, there wasn't a tomorrow as I had to leave in the afternoon. A toprope was set up from the huge tree some ways back from the climb. Bring webbing.
A top rope was set on what I thought was Warlock but turned out to be an un-named climb up a short, right-facing flake/corner with some tricky face moves at the top (5.7ish). Then we moved the rope over to Discrepancy (5.8-*) and discovered it would also cover the micro-thin crack of Warlock to the left. Steve powwed his way up Warlock sweating profusely and having quite a time through the two back-to-back cruxen. I went next reaching through the first crux (avoiding the off-route tree) to the razor-sharp finger pocket and then was stymied by the second crux. One foot was in a nice stirrup of a pocket and my hands were grabbing a nice hold at about chest level. A smooth-edged crack was about two feet above my fingertips and there was a good edging hold for the feet at waist level three feet to the right. An undercling was heavily chalked also at waist level to the left but provided little comfort. After a number of false starts I rocked over onto the edging hold and clawed a marginal side-pull with my right hand. With a great shout I attained the sloping, rounded crack and quickly ran through about six possible holds before finding one up and to the right that was worth spending time on. Whew, THAT was a hard move! The rest of the climb was thin, but much easier and soon I was being lowered down with bulging veins and twitching fingers.
Eric came up Warlock and had a much easier time having watched the two of us. Or maybe he's just a better climber... I tried my hand-locks on Discrepancy and found it satisfyingly challenging without any really threatening moments. The moral of the story is that I need to work on my hand-jams and finger locks. Perhaps something for this winter?
Steve climbs Scuttle (5.5)
Eric working on Discrepency (5.8-*)
Your's Truly on Discrepency (5.8-*)
The afternoon was getting on, so we packed up and headed out. Eric and Steve were off to try their luck on Block Party. Jill walked with me back out to the car and I headed home, tired but extremely pleased with the state of the world. Ahhh!
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