Walking on Cake.

It was August 10, in the year two thousand and ten. I was in North Conway New Hampshire visiting two wonderful friends. Jane Anderson, who has the beauty of spring wild flowers and the power of afternoon thunderstorms. And Mike Deluca, who has the wisdom beyond his years but the love for life of a nine year.

We stood at the bottom of a climb, I looked up and decided I could lead this one. With Mike giving me a belay and Jane taking pictures and opportunities to give me confidence, I headed up the right sloping broken crack.Easy going and sort of fun moves with good protection filled the bottom twenty feet. After sinking a crappy cam placement and moving out away from it to the right my nerves fired up. Suddenly that cam placement had to be better. I climbed away from this next tricky move to back-up the crappy cam with a much better cam. Now, with two cams (one very good one that I could have trusted alone) I moved right again. Right foot on a sloped hold, left foot on a medium chip I tried to move further. I had two very good underclings to hold on to, but they were at just the wrong angle to give me the confidence I wanted. As I moved further out I started looking for my next foot and hand hold. I saw nothing I wanted to move to. I tried this several times while my eyes searched in vain for my next cam or stopper placement. These moves repeated themselves over and over again far too many times to talk about. After several walks to the right and several retreats back, some curse words, and many words of encouragement from the friends below me I decided to get lowered off and get Jane (the rope gun) to do it.

Jane, the 5.10 climber, jumped on the “sharp end” of the ropes and sauntered up the first 20 feet to the last cam placement. She moved right, out past the cams. With a bit of work she made the move I could not - would not - do. Then she climbed up about a foot and started looking for a place to put a piece of protection. Plucking a yellow Alien off her harness and caming it’s head into one flared crack, then another (that sentence is ridiculous outside the climbing world) she started moving up past this lousy piece of yellow protection. Jane’s minor struggle with the moves and placements made me feel MUCH better. She paused to give Mike, the belayer, a heads up that she needs to run this out a bit and then disappeared over the bulge.

We had double ropes so Mike and I tied in and we started up the climb towards Jane’s hidden belay anchor. With Mike a few moves behind me I got to the spot where my climb was previously destroyed. Now on top-rope, my fear was gone (well, at least diminished a bit), and as Mike said I could probably do, I muscled though the moves with some difficulty but without even a slip. I climbed passed the lousy yellow alien and stopped above it on a large slab to watch Mike come though the section.

Mike’s experience was a bit different. He started moving right but not far enough. He instead did a real hard move straight up towards me, but this put him directly across from the Alien with it just out of reach. In an attempt to get to the cam Mike peeled off the cliff. Not a big deal since he was once again below the cam, which meant he could climb and retrieve it. The problem was that he stopped falling hanging over the adjacent climb that was rated much harder than this climb. With this knowledge he started the upward journey again. The moves were done with ease and speed, I was impressed.

He grabbed the cam and struggled up to where I was standing comfortably. The move above the yellow Alien was in no way easy and a strong move to deal with on lead even if the piece was good. And remember, it wasn’t. Jane’s lead involved not only a tricky move past this shady cam placement but then she had to climb an easy going, yet moderately exposed slab for about thirty feet with no protection (thunderstorm). Mike and I arrived at the tree anchor impressed. Jane politely asked if we wanted to do the second pitch of this climb. After looking at the weird moves and not being able to pick out the exact route, Mike and I decided we did not want to bother with it. Then we noticed that Jane had already set up the rappel before we even got there. I guess the polite question was rhetorical.

Of course the rappel down was riddled with loose rocks and an unsure route, but we made it down, sweaty, tired, sort of disappointed and ready for a real climb.

Did I forget to mention this climb is rated 5.6 and is called Cakewalk and the guidebook gives it one (out of, I presume, one-thousand) stars? We packed up and headed to the North End of Cathedral Ledge.