Boy Scout Rocks
Climb Review
Boy Scout rocks is composed of sandstone of similar quality to what’s at Castle Rock. Because it’s sandstone, it’s not as sticky as granite, but at least it’s not slippery like serpentine.
As is with the reputation of Amazing Face, it was already taken and we had to wait about an hour before we could climb it.
Amazing Face (5.10a; Lower Boy Scout Rocks)—On the drive home, I was kinda disappointed by Amazing Face as it was built up in my head as this amazing one-of-the-best climbs in the bay area—I had just climbed some amazing granite the day before and while I thought Amazing Face was good, I didn’t think it lived up to the reputation. Writing this now though, I do think it is amazing. This is because I should be thinking of this route in terms of sandstone and it’s legitimately the second best sandstone route I’ve climbed (only second to Waterfall Cliff at Castle Rock). The holds are very different from anything else I’ve climbed and almost feels like the rock’s spine in parts. And the route gets nice and shaded around noon, which means it’s climbable throughout the day. Also, the amazing face is actually Amazing (though I forgot to take a picture of it). Given all I’ve said and that it’s a nice long sustained route that’s not too long, I can’t believe I was disappointed w/this route on the drive home. I blame my negativity on the lack of sleep.
Thanks to Javan for the last photo above!
What I Learned
I thought my right ankle was good because I had driven 7 hrs with it the previous day while climbing a multipitch in which I had to smear with that foot while putting most of my weight on it. But on the lower half of Amazing Face, I put my weight on it for a split second (must have been at a weird angle) before I felt a searing/pinching sensation on my right foot. So I was much more careful with it the rest of the day and it felt okay. So yeah, not fully healed.
It was my first time using a bosun chair to shoot pictures from above and it took a while for me to get used to the exposure and keep my shit together while looking down from such a height. But after a bit, I found a mental space to calm down and take some good photos. The bosun chair totally makes shooting way more comfortable, so I’m glad I got it. It does complicate moving up/down though, so I think I’ll use it less than I thought I would when I first got it. Oh and because I’m so comfortable, I discovered other discomforts of rock climbing photography, which is that my foot baked while sitting up there with real burning pain on my left foot (it felt like it was getting slowly cooked) and my neck felt like it was slowly getting roasted too. I lasted an hour in that chair before I threw in the towel, so we’ll see how much better I do in the future once I address my foot/sun issues.
The Peak Designs strap and clip system worked well and I was glad to have a backed up system for my camera (my greatest fear is accidentally dropping something heavy like my camera and hurting my friends down below). I was able to shoot and feel 100% confident that the wrist strap and neck strap would hold even if I dropped the camera (which I didn’t).
I had shot rock climbing a few times from above, but this was the first time where I lasted a whole hour instead of maybe 20-30 minutes. In the moment, I felt really good about my photos, but when I came back, I threw away more than 70% of them—I found that the photos were only interesting when the climber was looking up and not resting. Still, I think the keepers that I got are up there for how good they look. Sadly, because I only lasted an hour, I only got photos of Louie, Pedro, Mark, and Eve (and because Eve was on the Chimney route, only two decent photos).
A lot more people came to climb than I had anticipated. And all the new comers were all cool people, so glad that went well. Just shows how many awesome people are in the Coalition Crag group. :)
Hiking to the top of the Lower Tier to set the anchor for the Chimney route and to take photos was pretty fun. I needed to climb (and down climb) a short chimney and generally scramble up stuff that made my heart rate go up just a bit. On one section, I couldn’t wear my backpack, so I ended up clipping it to my PAS, then have it hanging below me as I down climbed a short section—first time I tried that!
Holy moly, so a lot of people showed up. Due to the amount of people, we had two routes setup and I think next time I might even think about a third. I still don’t have a great grasp of what the perfect routes-to-people ratio is especially since I think longer routes like this day would be a different ratio compared to shorter routes. Maybe I could come up with a formula that takes into account the number of people, number of routes, and the length + difficulty of each route?
Half way up Amazing Face, I was just dumb founded at how Louie led this route as there are a few tricky parts above the two faces (which I found to be easy; probably due to my height advantage) that I found terrifying. Once day, I’ll have that mental toughness as I believe it just takes practice.
One thing that I should remember is that while I was sitting in my bosun chair, I would get scared and I would bring my hand up to hold onto the ascender. This is probably the worst idea as there’s almost zero risk of a sudden drop in the setup that I have and that the only things that’s holding me there are my two ascenders. I should keep my hands far away from them as I don’t want to somehow loosen the locking carabiners or to activate unlocking mechanism in the ascender.
Fears Faced
Fear of heights—compared to rock climbing, when I’m only paying attention to the rock maybe 3 feet above me to where my feet are, looking down at the entire route while photographing really activated my fear of heights in a different way (my palms are sweaty just remembering how scary it was). My heart rate also jumped up every time an unexpected sound rang in my ear, such as when pigeons suddenly flew out of the rock cracks or when an unused rope was suddenly pulled down for the first time (my brain through it was my static rope having issues or my ascenders failing)—so much so that my watch kept warning me that my heart rate was elevated! When I came down from shooting photos, I felt totally exhausted just dealing with my fear.
Friends
The people who were new to my events were Darlene, Ananke, and Eve. Darlene was super cool in that she showed up with a 70m rope that was perfect for setting up the second route and was so generous—willing to share snacks, taking photos for others, reminding me to put on my helmet, etc. Ananke and Eve I talked to much less, but were super nice people (and strong climbers) who ended up climbing both routes (I think both did the Chimney route to warm up, then Amazing Face). It was especially nice to Ananke to show up with a bicycle helmet probably due to the conversation we had about helmets in the Coalition Crag discord server.
The veterans that showed up were Vivian, Louie, Sarah, Javan, Amanda, and Aubrey. It was awesome to see Vivian at one of these events again as she recovers from various physical aliments. She burned herself out on the Chimney route, but damn it, even though she was tired, she made it all the way up! Louie was their strong (mentally and physically) selves as they led Amazing Face (and then climbed it again on TR to clean as they wanted to practice cleaning). Sarah had a prior engagement, but I was glad she still showed and tried a bit of Amazing Face before she had to go. Javan was his strong awesome self as always and made Amazing Face (and the Chimney route, actually) look way too easy—I appreciate it since if I don’t have Javan around, I always assume the route is way to hard for anyone to do easily... seeing him makes me think “maybe it’ll be easy for me too!” Amanda set the FKTM (Fastest Known Time to Me) at I think 15 minutes and 30 seconds. Obviously, no one else was faster (even Javan nor Louie) since there were no other official clocks recording their times. Lastly, I think Aubrey got her harness on for a bit before deciding to play in the fine sand that sits at the bottom of Lower Tier. She was the cutest when shouting words of encouragement and endearment to her parents as they climbed. She’s still one of the shyest kids that I know, but it’s been awesome to watch her slowly come out of her shell.
At the crag, I also met Pedro and Mark, who climbed Once was Lost while I was taking photos. They were really strong climbers who seemed like good people. Maybe I’ll get to climb with them in the future... until then, I hope they like their photos!
Oh lastly, there was this couple (Michael was the dude’s name, I didn’t get the lady’s name) that showed up around 10am and they were friends with Pedro and Mark but seemed to be looking for their own routes. Anyways, when Ananke was climbing Amazing Face, Michael asked us nicely if he could practice leading the first few pitches of the route and to put up quickdraws. We were fine with that so he started the first few pitches. When Ananke touched the anchor, Michael happened to be around the second face, so I asked him if he wanted to hide in the cave and surprise Ananke—I was surprised that he fully agreed immediately. It was pretty fun when Ananke was lowered past the second face. I think she saw it coming due to many factors... the rope that Michael was tied into was a dead giveaway! Ah, I love how climbing has allowed me to meet lots and lots of fun people :)
What Happened?
For my current skill level, I’ve done most of the bay area climbs, but one that I really wanted to cross off was Amazing Face. It’s a route that I looked at a year and a half ago, when Venkat and I first utilized our anchor building training to climb at Boy Scout Rocks. In those eighteen months, I’ve changed a lot, especially as a climber, but Boy Scout Rocks is still Boy Scout Rocks and Amazing Face is still a super popular route.
I carpooled with Vivian and Louie and got to the route by 8:45am, but that wasn’t early enough, as there was a party of three already climbing Amazing Face (later I found out that it was Mark who was leading it). So, we waited and our group started to show. Once enough people were there, I decided to climb up and set up a second route on the Chimney route while we waited for Pedro, Mark and their other friend to finish with Amazing Face. When I got up there, I set the anchor and rope for the Chimney, then setup my static so that I could take pictures of Louie lead Amazing Face. I ended up with mostly pictures of Louie, Mark, and Pedro and a few of Eve as she climbed the Chimney. I found myself being a bit bored and a bit lonely and wished I had brought my airpods (though I would hate to drop them on someone from such a high location) so that I could enjoy a podcast or something. Although I wanted to wait for more people to climb up and take their pictures, I just could not stand my left foot being cooked and the intensity of the sun, so I bailed and hiked back down w/my stuff.
I sought out shade and Darlene was nice enough to fan me down while I got my scrambled brain back together. I then belayed for a bit; climbed Amazing Face; and had a great conversation about books with Vivian, Amanda, Eve, and Ananke (and got some recommendations I’m super excited about). When it got closer to 1:20pm, I said my goodbyes to everyone and headed back up to the anchor point to clean Chimney route and the static line I had left up there. I then met up with Vivian, Louie, and Darlene (she had parked next to my car) between Middle Tier and Upper Tier (thank goodness for my walkie talkie which saved me the trouble of hiking back down then back up). We all then went out for lunch together in the town of Danville, and we ended up walking through a classic car show to get to an awesome pizza place. We had fun conversations about backpacking with “friends”, our non-climbing lives, and the possibilities of moving to Norway. I had so much fun, but was turning into a pumpkin, so we said our farewells to Darlene (who walked us all the way back to our car) and headed back to the south bay.