Gadget’s Airstream Chronicles

This morning I headed out to meet Andy & Brooke. We were finally going to try a climb or two out at the Promised Land. And we did just that.

I was in Chino a little before 10:00. They’d just returned from taking the dogs to the park. Currently they’re watching 3 pups for Andy’s mom. So the dog total at their house today was 5! Lots of wagging and greeting when I arrived.

After the dogs were squared away we headed out. The drive in takes forever because of the crazy roads, but it was worth it!!! First we hit a 5.7 for a lead. I went up first, and played around a bit as I went up. Looking for places to practice placing gear again. The route was bolted, but it was nice enough that you could really rest, hang out, and look at cracks to see about gear placement.

In addition to a fun climb, we could also photo from different angles on this one. There was a way up the side of the climb that was safe enough to climb without protection or a belay. So Brooke went up and shot, and I went up and shot. Very nice indeed!

Since we’re new to the Promised Land we also broke out the helmets today for leading. Hey, better to be safe. Plus if gear drops, or rocks drop (which did happen as I came down from shooting) you’ve got a little more protection. Once everything was set up and known to be good, no more helmets. As you can see with the photos of Brooke, no helmet hair for her.

While we were climbing another group moved in (3 other people). They set up on a 5.9 near us (the photo above is of the group near us). Right behind them came another group of 3, and they chose to work on what looked to be 5.12 upside down deal.

One of the problems in the Promised Land is the lack of documentation. The wall we were on, and the one to our left is documented. That comprises about 15 climbs out of 46 we recently documented. Hard to know exactly what you’re working on.

After we finished out 7 we checked across the canyon to a crack problem. Andy and I weren’t thrilled about leading this one yet, so we moved further into the canyon. And we found what we were looking for. One of the last walls we found the other week has some interesting stuff. We picked a climb, and Andy led it. We’re figuring it’s a 5.8 or 5.9. There are a few areas where it’s clearly a 9.

Andy did a great job on lead, and made it about 80% of the way up the climb. I then followed the same climb, and had two points where I popped off. The rock is super smooth!!!

Oh, I’m the one in the orange harness.

Brooke followed up as well, and set her own route for part of the climb. She cut right where we cut left, and went left where we went right. Overall we all had a really good day.

In the end we all finally realized what time it was. Set out at 10 a.m, and after 3 we were all very hungry. You know, everyone needs their soy & rice! Ah, joking of course.

I think Promised Land will now become a weekend regular for us. There’s a ton to experiment with, a different style of rock, interesting canyon (complete with dive bombing owls)….the works.

That’s all for tonight. I’m exhausted.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Arizona, Climbing AZ.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.