postcards from my trip

Post by **merrick** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 6:49 am

i am going to post some pics from my trip here.

here is the first one. it explains one of my days at the gunks. who can guess what is missing.

if you don't see it, don't worry. I didn't either, until it was too late.

Post by **Gretchen** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 12:38 pm

Yo ROPE Brother, what happened??

Post by **merrick** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 8:17 pm

i was in NJ with my girlfriend and we were going to head for the gunks that day. we had decided that she would just take a camelback and the rope and that i would take everything else. well we threw our packs in the car and took off. when i got to the gunks i took my pack out of the car and said "man it sure is lighter without the rope in it". that is when we realized that the rope was sitting on the floor of her parents garage.

doh!

anyway my finger was still tweaky so i didn't want to do much bouldering but i did do a bit. I also spent a bunch of time practicing building anchors at ground level. it was a really nice day and we had fun.

the next trip to the gunks we didn't forget the rope!

gunks was as good as ever, I got to get back there. Angela's parents live about an hour and twenty minutes, door to crag, from there. It is super nice.

Post by **merrick** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 8:37 pm

got some good pix at smith too. I think this one is the best climbing picture I have ever taken. It is my friend jeff on Chain Reaction, 12.c.

Jeff and i didn't get it but we had fun. My friend Mike, known on climbkentucky.com as colt45, got to the anchors twice and was working all the moves. He is going to redpoint it soon.

Post by **Horatio Felacio** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 9:00 pm

merrick, did you check out the badass trad climbing at smith? i'm talkin about the splitter cracks up basalt columns not really at smith rocks proper. you still park at the same place though. anyway, it's just as good as paradise forks.

Post by **merrick** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 9:48 pm

yea i know the basalt cliffs you are talking about. they are up along the other side of the river. we didn't get a chance to head over that way. i did a few easy crack leads but not over that way. we were mostly sport climbing there.

Post by **merrick** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 7:32 pm

here is another one from smith. the rock there is gorges.

it was the last climb we did. some 11 on the backside with a nice view of monkey face behind us.

Post by **merrick** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 12:10 am

here is a pic of mike(colt45) showing us how it is done at Little Si near Seattle.

Post by **Steve** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 3:02 am

Nice shots. Sorry you forgot the rope as the Gunks is supper sweet. Smith is neat too. I don't think you can go wrong taking a pic of someone on Chain Reation. There were draws on it when we were there so we hopped right on it. None of us stood a chance, but a line that striking just beconed us.

Post by **merrick** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 7:01 am

yea us too. i told mike that i would give him the leaver-biner if we had to bail on it. that was all the motivation it took. luckily i didn't forget my rope when we went back to the gunks a few days later. here is a pic of angela topping out the second pitch of beginner's delight, 5.3. it was so hot there but still good.