Gunks and Traprock trip report  (August 1996) -- continued

After 2 days in the Gunks with Paul Friberg, ...

I arranged a visit with Ken (we are friends from collaborating on 
Connecticut guidbooks), and drove to Ken's house that night (also 
avoiding an epic 2:30am ETA at Cape Cod).  Wednesday was cloudy; nice 
and cool.  We headed to Ragged Main Cliff, where Bill Little joined us.
  1. Unconquerable Crack 5.9.  I led this (a vertical hand crack with 
varying width), placing lots of gear, and Ken followed in his sneakers.  
It brought back memories, as it was my first route at Ragged back in 
1975, and followed it desperately in sneakers in the early 1980s when I 
was recovering from my back injury.
  2. The Cage 5.10.  Ken led this.  It's a classic route on the north 
end of the crag that I had wanted to try for some time.  It features a 
long overhanging start on incut buckets to a rest on the arete.  Then a 
desperate hand traverse diagonals up left across the overhanging prow.  
The final part is a nearly blind reach past a roof to steep face 
climbing on spaced good handholds.  On our first tries, Bill and I 
failed at the start of the hand traverse -- we couldn't seem to use the 
toejam beta that Ken advised, and we lowered off.  On my second try, I 
got a better sequence by crossing my hands a bit, so that my right hand 
was on the good starting jug, and I could use the toejam.  I was also 
more quickly in position to launch up with my left hand, where I found 
an unchalked incut bucket above the more sloping hold that Ken used.  
Then it was easy to swing my feet across for a heel hook in "Stanford 
doorway" style.  I wasn't able to use Ken's new sequence on the final 
roof, but the older moves with an undercling hold got me to the final 
steep face -- quite an airy and climactic finish.
  3. Visions 5.10+.  We had set a toprope on this steep face, just left 
of Unconquerable Crack.  With some beta from Ken, I made it past an 
interesting highstep move, and to the start of the crux, but not much 
further.  Ken did a "loop" (up and then downclimbed it), then another 
trip up to clean the anchors.
  We then drove to East Peak, where we met Lanier Benkard (an economics 
grad student at Yale).  Ken has a key to the gate, so we could drive to 
the top of the crag.  The gate has cut down on the litter/broken glass 
from the usual teenage crowd of years past.  We toproped the routes 
here.
  1. Dol Guldur 5.11.  Ken cruised a loop on this.  It's his standard 
workout route, and he has done it over 3000 times (roughly 17 miles?).  
Along the way, he has set various mini-records on it, such as:
  - blindfolded
  - barefoot
  - 40 times in 8 hours
  - speed record of something like 1:23
In the winter, it can be climbed on sunny days (it faces east), since he 
shovels snow off the top of it (and whiskbrooms it dry), so no water 
seeps down it.  After one storm last winter, he spent 8 hours shovelling 
snow there.
  The route follows a thin crack, and is mostly reasonable moves, but 
there are 3-4 crux sections.  I made it past the first crux, but had to 
hang below the upper 2 cruxes.  I skipped the final crux (Mordor 
variation) by taking the original finish.  It's a real classic, with 
lots of finger buckets, fingerlocks, liebacks, and some hand jams.  
Maybe next time I can link it free.  Ken drove down to pick up his 
friend Lisa, and she fired the route.  Ken and Lanier climbed out on the 
route before dark.
  2. Volcanic Eruption 5.11+ (face left of Dol Guldur).  Lanier did this 
twice without falling.  Ken fell a couple of times on the thin crux, but 
got it his third try.  This looks like a great route, with several 5.11 
and 5.10 sections and a couple of rests.
  3. Cat Crack 5.10-.  I did this route, which I had led years ago, and 
had toproped in my sneakers in the early 80s.  It had rained the 
previous day, which had left a bit of dirt dusting the crack, so it was 
somewhat slow going as I brushed it off before most of the moves.  But 
the jams are solid and it stays interesting for a long ways.

The trip was a great contrast from bright sand, wild kids, sailing, 
etc., and it was a lot of fun cranking the classics with good friends 
both new and old.

Clint