Tom and I hired a certified guide to take us out in Kentucky. While we've lead indoors, we weren't comfortable doing it on our own for the first time, and we weren't too clear on how to clean an anchor.
It was an unusual week in Lexington, as the weather stayed solidly in the 80s. It was a warm hike with our awesome guide to our first 5.9 in Red River Gorge. I let Tom climb first, and he sailed up the route with ease. He took his time, but never looked like he was struggling, and descended from the top with a huge smile. Then it was my turn. At first, I was excited. But as soon as I got on the rock, my confidence fell out from under me. Where are the holds? I NEED MY COLORED DUCT TAPE TO TELL ME! I spent a long time getting up, my hands were sweating, and I was shaking. It was an awful site. I pushed myself almost to the top using terrible technique, and was grateful to be high enough to justify being lowered. As soon as I hit the ground, I broke out in a cold sweat and felt extremely nauseous. It took me 5-10 minutes to shake the feeling, sitting on a rock, trying not to look like I felt.
The guide taught us how to clean anchor from the ground, and then we decided to walk over to a 5.8 to actually try it out. I offered to go first and absolutely crushed the route. The holds all seemed obvious to me, and the moves felt great. It was a little bit slabby, and it was exactly what I needed. That climb boosted my confidence 10 fold, and I happily stood at the top, admiring the view from a tiny ledge. Tom climbed up right after me, cleaned anchor, and repelled down; I soon followed. At that moment, I feel like I fell in love with outdoor climbing. The air smelled wonderful, the sun was shining over the forest of trees before me, and I had climbed a real rock. It felt amazing.
We finished off our climbing with a 5.10b called Little Viper. Tom climbed first, but got stuck for a good 20 minutes on the crux, which involved "pulling a bouldering move" (as our guidebook described it). It involved leveraging yourself over a protruding ledge by grabbing up high into a crack. He eventually pulled off the move and sent the route. With my new confidence, I climbed the route, only leaning back on the rope once to take a better look at my pathway up. On my first try, I vaulted past the bouldering move, feeling like a total champ. I got to go home a victor, with slightly torn up hands and the honor of having climbed the big girl rock.
Bouldering outdoors was a totally different story. Tom and I were visiting family in Rhode Island and decided to try bouldering in Lincoln Woods. The boulders are short and there is a large variety in the difficulty of the routes. It seemed absolutely perfect for a first time bouldering. We rented a crash pad from the local climbing gym and headed over.
We found the first boulder we wanted easily enough called Tomato Boulder. It took about 3 minutes before I started being eaten alive by mosquitos. I climbed a couple V0's, as did Tom, and they were incredibly easy. We decided to move to another boulder, but not before I picked *two* ticks off my body. I had forgotten all about ticks, having grown so accustomed to the Northwest, and was instantly horrified. For the rest of our time climbing, I could never really refocus and just dreamed of leaving.
But since I couldn't leave without my street cred, we moved to another boulder. This one was in a much nicer spot, with not as many bushes and trees around. After Tom, I attempted to climb a V0+. I'm not sure who is doing the ratings for that area, but considering the first V0 was on par with a VB from my local gym back home, I didn't expect the next V0 to feel like a V3. I was a large crack to climb up from the base. I gave up and climbed around the backside of the boulder and sat on top for a bit.
I don't take a lot of joy from admiring the view on top of a 10' tall boulder. The world doesn't look that much different, and these climbs weren't very satisfying. Finally, we moved to our last boulder near a dam. (Not a smart move considering the mosquito issue.) As we were being devoured, slapping each other intermittently, we came upon a boulder complete covered in graffiti. Someone had come and spray painted arrows to all the holds to make it look just like a gym, marked with tape. What a jackass.
I did like the Dam Boulder better than the others, as it had more technical climbs, but all the jugs were stuffed with leaves, sticks, spiders, and earthworms. Not exactly something I was accustomed to dealing with indoors.
Overall, I was really turned off by outdoor bouldering. I think I need to try climbing in Utah or the Southwest. There can't be any bugs in the desert, right?
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