Cathedral Ledge, NH

The Fourth of July started pretty early for me this year...five o'clock in the morning, to be exact. I rolled out of bed after hitting the snooze a couple of times, grabbed some breakfast, and drove into town to pick up Dave. In spite of our ridiculously early start, we weren't on the road until 6:45.

Once in Conway, we stopped to pick up a hitchhiker who was going our way, dropping her off at North Conway just before the turn to Whitehorse and Cathedral. With our karma fully stoked from the good deed, we knew it would be a great day.

Recompense looked like the ideal route for us. Its four pitches are 5.5, 5.7, 5.8+, and 5.9, in that order, so it has its own built-in warmup. My new shoes didn't feel quite as comfortable today. I started up the first 5.5 section and immediately slipped. What's this? I was beginning to realize that my new Syncros did not friction as well as my Enduros. Over the course of the day I would actually micro-edge sections that, before, I would have smeared without a second thought.

I led up half of Dave's pitch before I realized I had missed my belay ledge, so I set up a belay on a small stance. Dave finished his pitch and I geared up for the third, while the party above us sent a big old Chuck Taylor and a cam back to earth the fast way. The shoe bounced directly over our heads and actually hit someone at the bottom (off a bounce), but the cam missed us on the side. This pitch was really cool, ascending a huge dihedral under the shade of the massive BEAST FLAKE. Dave mentioned that while ordinary mortals eat corn flakes for breakfast, rock climbers eat Beast Flakes. I wasn't sure they would be marketable, but you never know.

Dave led the last pitch, a 5.9 layback that really wasn't all that strenuous, and I soon joined him at the top for celebration and that most beloved of rock climbing rituals, the taking off of shoes. As we searched for the descent trail, a group of friendly picnickers graciously offered us some cookies. While this was a kind gesture, at this point I think a tall glass of ice water would have been even more welcome. After all, it had been about three hours in the hot sun since our last drink.

The descent itself was an almost-epic bushwack. I say almost because we lost the trail and had to use our Jim Bridger skills to navigate toward the descent trail that I knew had to be straight ahead. Miraculously, it was straight ahead, and we happily tramped back down the trail to our waiting water supply.

After a long break, we began looking for Diedre. As always, the guidebook overestimates distances, and the two hundred yards south of the practice slabs turned out to be only about fifty. I began leading up an ugly, dirty chimney (why are all the chimneys I've ever seen ugly and dirty?) and reached a huge ledge. Dave got set up to lead the next 5.9 pitch. He went straight up and stepped right, as the guidebook instructed, but instead of "awkwardly" escaping under the roof, he went up over it. This mistake would be regretted by both Dave and me, but mostly by me. Having no real place to go from there, he decided to lower down off a cam, pull the rope, and re-lead the pitch properly. The moves under the roof turned out to be pretty wild, but at least they were protected by a pin. I followed gingerly, and soon joined him at the belay.

Excellent pitch! We had only one problem now...Dave's cam was still out there on the rock all by itself. Since the next pitch was my lead, I was the designated retriever. I climbed up about ten feet, clipped a pin and backed it up, then tried to pendulum over to the cam. This proved to be very difficult since I had to pendulum across a big dihedral which prevented me from running the whole way. A few fruitless leaps into space called for a change in strategy. I decided to climb up another fifteen feet to a small ledge. By this time my shoes were killing me, but that's just a lousy excuse for FALLING on a 5.8 move. Don't ask me what happened. I don't know. All of a sudden I just came off, but my pro was good and I fell only a couple feet. Rattled and somewhat pissed off, I climbed higher and put in two #2 Camalots to lower/pendulum off of in my desperate attempts to retrieve that blasted cam. I ended up having to sling a bush and place a nut as directionals before I finally got it. Climbing back up this section for the third time, I had an awkward time retrieving the nut before I could finally start the pitch for real.

If this doesn't sound like starting a pitch in the right frame of mind, you're a keen student of human nature. For some reason I turned this 5.8 pitch with "unexcelled hand jamming" into a nightmarish struggle to stay on the rock. I stemmed and laybacked the whole thing, cursing and sweating and slipping off holds. I reached a white birch tree near the top and hugged it like a long-lost friend. Somehow, I made it to the top, wrenched off my shoes, and lay panting and gasping in disbelief. I had thought of myself as being able to lead 5.8 in better style than that!

Dave followed the pitch coolly and led up a little balancy flake to a blueberry terrace below the final 5.9 overhanging chimney crack. He started up calmly and immediately confronted the first hard section. Placing much gear, he continued up to a decent rest, led past it, then backed off. "It's all there, I've just got to go for it!" he called down. He found more pro to protect these moves, then headed up. Ten feet above his pro he was still not through the crux. His whole body was shaking like a leaf and I totally expected him to lob at any second. I saw him finally pull through the overhang and breathed a sigh of relief.

I had decided that the only way to feel better after my last lead was to kick some butt on this 5.9 pitch. I laced up my shoes for the last time, ignoring the now-familiar screams of protest from my feet, and grabbed the rock. I had to fist jam over the first hard bit, and the blood oozing from fresh wounds on the back of my hand only brought a grim smile to my lips. I worked steadily upward to the foreboding crux. I stepped up, took out the last cam, stepped back, got psyched, and went for it. As I pulled over the top, my wave of elation faded a couple notches as I realized that this wasn't, in fact, the top. The guidebook said that there were two 5.9 sections on this pitch, with the second near the end. I foolishly tried to convince myself that this last bit was really the section near the end. I couldn't fool myself for long, and the overhanging hand crack at the top beckoned evilishly. Even these hard moves were no match for my desire to finish the climb, and I was soon at the top giving Dave a high-five.

Just a minor problem remained. It was nothing, really. Although we were done with the technical climbing, we were still fairly exposed, so Dave belayed me while I got to safer ground. I picked a nice spot next to a tree, slung it, and brought Dave up. Hmmmm...We still didn't seem to be completely safe. Dave lead through on this "seventh" pitch until he got to actual safe ground. Just a minor miscalculation on my part. No big deal.