My First Lead!! (and an incredible weekend)

Where do I even begin!?! Last Thursday started a little tough - nearly 15 hours in the office - but the ending couldn't have been better. At home, I walked in to the apartment where a glass of wine, cheese and grapes were waiting and were accompanied by a foot soak/massage and shoulder rub from Theresa. Then, they surprised me with grilling fresh vegetables on the grill and ostrich steaks. It was the perfect ending to a productive day. Friday was a big day at work but I managed to get out a little early and we kicked off the weekend with some rock climbing.

We drove to Silvermine (near Muizenberg) for some rock climbing - and my first lead!!!!! I've only climbed on a top-rope set up before where you only fall as far as small amount of slack in the rope and as much as the rope stretches (with a good belayer, of course). Lead climbing is where you are tied to one end of the rope and your belayer (below you) has the other end. When sport climbing, there are bolts in the wall that you clip your rope into as you climb. So, the distance of your fall can be much greater - however far above your last bolt (known as your run-out) is how far you can fall below that bolt. If you are 10 feet above your last bolt, you have a 20 foot fall coming if you come off the rock.

After a short hike in (and taking the first picture on this post), we repelled down a 5.8 climb and warmed up on that route. Then, we moved to a 5.7 and it was my first lead (with no falls, thank you). Then, in preparation for Saturday, we did a harder climb to test out my ability for more challenging climbs at Paarl. We went up a 5.10b and there was only one sticky place for me. I came off and was happy to not be leading :) We had to be out of the park by 7pm so we finished with a climb up the 5.8 (I led) and hiked back out. It was an amazing day.

On the way back to town, we stopped for dinner and halfway through, load shedding affected me for the first time. South Africa has been witness load shedding for the past few weeks but Cape Town had not been heavily impacted since I arrived. It appeared the entire city had its lights shut off (including suburbs - we were 30 minutes away and had no power). The wait staff had to go back through and ask what we ordered to handwrite the bill; the could not accept credit card; candles were lit down hallways and stairways to make it out of the building. Driving back the city was mostly black (allowing for incredible star gazing) with few stoplights working. At my building, the 'caretaker' was up with the garage door open (big relief) and we found some candles in my apartment so that we could repack and get situated. Check out this link for more info on the load shedding: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7208628.stm.

We woke up Saturday morning at 5:30am so we could get climbing at Paarl when the park opened and beat the heat of the day. Luckily we had electricity and brought our morning coffee in the car for the drive to Paarl. We were waiting when they opened the gates and went straight to Sands of Time, a 4-pitch climb that took the 3 of us 2 hours total. (The second and third pictures were taken from the top after writing in the summit book.) The hike down turned into a repel and as the sun was heating up, we found some shade for a break. While resting, I was eyeing up the Little Dutch Boy (the climb I'm on in these two pictures!). It's a 3-pitch endeavor that starts with a 5.10a climb. It's probably nearing the toughest climb I'd want to lead but I had the last two day's adrenaline going and I didn't think I could leave without giving it a shot. And, I made it! I only had a foot slip from a smear once and my hands had solid enough holds to keep me until could find a better hold for my foot. I cannot tell you how good I felt when I reached those anchors at the top of the first pitch. I also set the anchor independently for the first time and top belayed Peter up so he could take out my quick draws from the bolts and then we repelled down. It was another unbeatable day. I can't get over these pictures - another thanks to Peter and Theresa for taking me to this next level!

On Sunday, we had a 4:30am wake up call to go fishing but due to weather, we slept until 7. It was the first morning that I actually felt well-rested in a while. We met JP in Cape Town and drove out to Gordon's Bay (on False Bay) with a stop to fix the timing of his pick up along the way. He seriously took a wrench and adjusted so it would run cooler - I wish I could do that! The fishing was fun - caught 5 elf but only 2 were over the 30cm minimum for keeping. Theresa had a big one, but we never got it in the boat - next time!!