Thursday afternoon I started my journey to New Hampshire with some very important business. I drove to Trader Joe’s in Bethesda where I live at the absolute last possible minute on a mission to get the unobtainable items for my good friend from Toronto. After a very successful run to the store I finally started my supposed 9-1/2 hour journey to D’Acres at about 2:30PM. Most of the trek was smooth sailing until about the last portion of Connecticut on I-91. The entire road was closed and the signs just said to find your own alternate route. I took the last exit before the closure and headed north, or at least I thought I was heading north. About an hour later I was back on I-91N near Six Flags at the beginning of Massachusetts. Another uneventful portion of the trip until route 4 in NH threw me for a loop because of lack of sleep and poor directions from google. Finally I arrived at D’Acres at about 2:30AM.

Friday AM: I woke up abruptly with the full sunlight at 7AM, downstairs I found an offer for breakfast and the 4 of the Toronto Mo’s who drove through the night to get here thanks to Anthony. I hitched a ride to the rocks and we ended up at Upper New Wave where we found Lambert and Twinky Spice who had also driven up from NY the night before. The option to climb 5.8 moderates was not appealing to me so Anthony and I set up on the 5.10c warm-up whose name I can’t remember. The 10 was more heady and difficult than the 11a that we did later, so perhaps not the wisest decision. The mindset for me was that there aren’t any climbs easier than 10’s at the New so it can’t be a problem, unfortunately the combination of lack of sleep and lack of outdoor climbing on my part leading up to this trip made for a pretty crappy first day of climbing

.

I had received text messages from Rio letting me know when he was arriving, and that he found some CRUX climbers at the crag when he arrived. Lambert, the T.O. ‘Mo’s, and I decided to take an early day since we were all worn out and didn’t want to ruin the rest of the trip from fatigue. We went back to D’Acres had pizza dinner and after asking where Rio was all night he finally arrived.

Saturday morning came only slightly later than Friday, but breakfast at D’Acres was awesome. I rode with Ken, Rio, and Andrew to the crag and soon after collecting my bag I basically stripped down to almost nothing. Donning only my gaysuit and hiking backpack, we followed Lambert up to Jimmy cliff. Justin AKA “Twinkie Spice” said he saw a bear cub which put most of us on edge. Strangely, Justin didn’t think anything was wrong with seeing a baby bear even though most of the rest of us could only think of an angry momma bear. We bushwhacked through to find the actual trail to Jimmy cliff and continued on with the other CRUX climbers. During the long hike, everyone had a chance to see the cute blue bathing suit walking in front of them, and I got lots of compliments. I decided today was going to be a good day.

We finally got to Jimmy cliff. Most people hung out to the right on the longer routes at Jimmy, while another contingent of the CRUX group headed back to Jimmy Left for some of the harder climbs. I lead Things I Never Learned 5.9, then saw some cool features to the right of the climb. After two different attempts I found the beta for the newly created Who Wears Short Shorts 5.10b for a First Alternate Gay Start, F.A.G.S. The rock looked bare at first but after two different times I sent the climb and aptly named it after my current apparel. Sadly there was something posted on Mountain Project early this year describing the same thing so it was not a true F.A.. The afternoon was almost awash from the rain storm that threatened the area, people on the crag saw pouring down rain just on the other side of the valley. We packed up all the gear in sight and headed down to Waimea.

After running a pointless rescue mission in nothing but my gaysuit I went back down to see what everyone was getting on.  The two main objectives were to climb either Flying Hawaiian(5.11b) with the nerve racking dihedral which I already heard that people too falls on youch! Or, the more moderate yet still classic Waimea 5.10d.   Naturally since I was already feeling a little tired I chose to hang out and watch people on Waimea before I got my turn on it.  I started to find my relaxed groove but still I got frustrated because I think I took just before the Jesus hold, AKA a super jug that you can rest on hanging by one arm if you wanted to.  There is a cruxy sequence just before Jesus that you have to just keep moving through and not think about the fact that you are pulling on crimpy small holds.  The climb is not over yet at this point but it gets significantly more manageable.  Once you pull yourself onto the slab it becomes a footwork game and thankfully the lower off is right nearby.

Sorry to cut this off randomly but this is a first for me and hopefully it has been a decent read.  Please post comments if you have any better perspectives like the view of my ass which is conveniently shown here for your viewing pleasure.

Chris

Part II to be posted at a later time