A Day at the Ranch

Had a fantastic day out at Reimer’s Ranch today.  I had been dreaming about climbing at Reimer’s for a while now; most importantly, I’ve been dreaming about climbing at Reimer’s in sub-100 degree temperatures.  Today I got both!  It was a little humid and moist this morning, but overall, I couldn’t have asked for better conditions.  Ryan, Rami and I got out nice and early, and had the entire park to ourselves for most of the day.

We did warm-ups on Dr. Suess Wall, starting with Smitten Psychopath (5.9).  This was a surprisingly fun climb, with an exciting start.  Ryan made it look pretty easy on lead, but he was really on his A game today.  Next we jumped on Star Belly Sneech (5.10a), with Ryan getting another redpoint ascent.  This one turned out to be pretty tough.  Rami affirmed that he wasn’t feeling good today here, but he still climbed pretty hard today regardless.

Dr. Suess was fun, but I wanted to do something over-hanging, so we hiked.  Our destination was T-Roofic Wall, with it’s over-hung routes and big suitcase handle holds.  T-Roofic Detour (5.10d) was our first route.  Ryan led it perfectly again, and then it was my turn on the rope.  It was an incredibly fun route to climb.  At one point, you’re practically doing a one arm pull-up, then extending your opposite arm up to jam your fingers into a fist-sized pocket three feet about your head.  Intense!  In another memorable move, you’re literally supporting your body by a middle finger, pulling hard on it to grab the next hold.  I was excited to get up it, and even happier to have Ryan around to put up cool routes like this.

We strolled next door to Arbor Wall, and set up my 70m rope on two adjacent climbs, Mrs. Johnson (5.10b) and Cliptomania (5.11a).  These two would keep us entertained for the rest of the afternoon…  Cliptomania was especially fun and tricky.  The crux move had us going from two awkwardly wide and painfully sharp side-pulls, jumping for a ledge we discovered was equally poor to hold.  We worked it out to a point that I think we can send it the next time we’re out.  Mrs. Johnson turned out to be pretty good too, but the holds were fantastically sharp once again.  I aided up most of this one to clean the anchors, and we called it a day.

On the drive home, we saw our friend Ollie at a highway intersection on the outskirts of the city, manning the Hey Cupcake! Airstream trailer.  We knew that a visit would result in delicious cupcake consumption, so we had to drop by.  I didn’t realize how tired I was until I walked through my door, but I’ve been completely out of energy since getting home.  My fingers and toes are sore, and just typing is a chore.  What a great day!