Lower Guadalupe Rock

MVP:

Camp Lift and Petzl Micro Traxion—Both of these devices allowed me to solo top rope—I can go climbing safely without having to procure an available friend. The Lift is my primary progress capture device, stopping me from falling if I were to lose my grip. The Micro Traxion is my backup in case the Lift fails. I learned about this setup from the Weigh My Rack Blog (https://blog.weighmyrack.com/guide-to-best-setup-for-toprope-tr-soloing/).

Climb Review:

Lower Guadalupe Rock is located right off Hicks Road, and the trail to reach it is just a few dozen feet.
The rock itself is graywake sandstone, which means that it shouldn’t be climbed after rain (it absorbs water, and thus can easily break off).
I think it was because I went climbing during a weekday, but there was no one else climbing. While I was climbing, I did see a few cyclists on Hicks Road. There was enough parking for at least 5 cars, with more parking a few hundred feet up the road.
I didn’t see any trash, but there was graffiti on various rocks.
Bolted For Beginners (5.4; Lower Guadalupe Rock)—The bolts are located about 10 ft from the top, so this route is meant to be sport climbed. Which makes sense, since it is an easy 5.4, which bomber holds on the entire route. The “crux” is at the beginning. After the first 10 ft or so, the route is almost like a scramble given it’s non-verticals nature. Still, it makes a great introduction to this rock. I can’t wait to come back with friends and lead this route!

What I Learned:

I learned that I really need to pay attention to the route path and to correct it while I’m climbing down if possible. I dropped down way left of the actual route and that led to the rope getting stuck in a crevice half way up. This meant that when I started climbing, I followed the actual route and the rope got stuck left of the route. When I approached the half way point, the rope pointed the wrong way and my ascenders would not feed—I would have a painful fall if I were to have fallen at this point, especially since I was climbing on static rope.
During my anchoring class, I could not grasp the bunny ears knot (aka double figure 8 loop or figure 8 on a bight) as easily as my instructor made it seem. Well, I had a break through, since I made two of these beautiful knots for a bomber anchor.
The elastic loop holding up the upper carabiner was too loose, and it led to the top of my safety system being a mess. Half way up, I got sick of it and fixed the elastic loop during the climb. I was on a safe part of the route, but still, not ideal.
I climbed with my approach shoes since I felt that a 5.4 route was super easy. I was right! I didn’t have any issues with my feet during the climb. I love these La Sportiva TX4 approach shoes.
This was my first time rappelling with a grigri and what I learned is that like belaying, I need to keep my right hand on the brake rope. I had it on the guide rope, and it didn’t work well. When I moved my hand to the brake position, it worked much better. I also need to trust the grigri more and make my body more horizontal.
When I got to the lower anchor, I put a secondary (and tertiary) connection to the anchor by putting in two alpine quick draws. I clipped this to the overhand knot I had placed below the grigri. I should have clipped them to my belay loop. I should also make the tertiary safety just the climbing rope clove hitched to the anchor (instead of another quickdraw).
I had remembered that someone stated that I should be working with the anchors around my head level so that the anchor was easier to work with. I don’t think this is a hard and fast rule, given that I followed it blindly to my detriment on this climb. There was a bomber foot hold that would put the anchor at waist level, but I didn’t use it because of the head-level advice I had read. This led to me being so far away that my alpine draws were too far away to clip without an additional quickdraw. I wasted so much time just managing my secondary connection to the anchor.
During the climb, I wished that I had brought my PAS since it might be a little longer than the quickdraw. But right now, I just wish I would have stood a bit higher.
I was worried about how well the grigri would work with a static rope, given how I read about how a stiff static rope sometimes has trouble working through a grigri. I did not have any issues. Actually it fed smoother than my friends dynamic rope.
I tried soloing a short part with a grigri (backed up with a single ascender) and it was a terrible experience. I for one will not be doing that again, if I can help it.
I felt really confident on this climb, even though it was my first time trying out many different things on this day. I have no doubt in my mind that I can easily lead this route. I wonder what difficulty I’d feel dubious about leading. 5.6? 5.7? 5.8?

Fears Overcome:

Solo Top Roping—I was super scared if this safety system of two in-line lifters would be actually safe, but once all hooked up, it worked really well. Especially, with my backpack keeping the rope taut.

What Happened?

I drove to the parking area in 25 minutes flat from my home and started walking up the road. When I asked the fellow hiker where the rock was, he just told me that 50 ft down the road, there would be an easily visible trail that would lead me directly to the rock. He was accurate on both of those things.

I took in the majesty of the rock, took a picture, then headed off to the right side. I crossed the small stream and hiked up to the backside of the rock. There’s a short 5.0 climb to the top of the rock and you can look down at the drop. I mean, it’s still scary for me to look down, but I think all the bouldering I’ve been doing has been giving me confidence in my balance, and so, the view looked compressed. Like, it didn’t feel as high as it should have. I think my fear of heights is lessening! Anyways, I searched for the bolts for my route and found them. Though they were the old ones, not the super new ones I had read about.

I assumed the new bolts would be located on the very top of the rock, but they were about 10 ft from the top (and hard to get to), so I couldn’t easily/safely reach it while not roped (I learned that they’re positioned this way to make the chains harder to steal!). There was one bomber looking anchor (and one not-so-bomber hanger) on the top (the latter spun a little bit). I took a minute to figure out how I would anchor and decided on the following plan: I would rabbit ear off the top old anchors, rappel down to the new bolted anchors, then rabbit ear on that one too. This way, I would be ultra safe for the entire climb. I’m basically on 4 anchors for the majority of the climb.

The plan went well, though, I felt that I was really slow. But still, I did everything pretty safely and was happy about not taking unnecessary risk. After I setup the bottom anchor, I rappelled down with the grigri and started getting ready for the solo setup.

I first tied the backpack to the rope to weight it down. I then attached the Micro Traxion, then the Camp Lift. I lastly attached the elastic band to the carabiner holding up the lift. I then climbed.

Even though I ran into the issue of the rope getting stuck and not feeding well, the climb itself was easy and uneventful. I felt great about all the holds that I found and climbed up without much fear. Once I reached the first anchor, I cleaned it safely, though for some reason, I had a brain fart and removed the ascenders and connected my grigri. When I realized my error, I kept it and added a single ascender above it. I had read about how some climbers use the grigri to solo top rope and wanted to try it. Well, it was terrible. You have to pull on the brake strand every few feet and the grigri doesn’t automatically feed.

Anyways, I climbed all the way up, removed the anchors, hauled my backpack up by pulling up the rope, and hiked back to my car. It was already almost sunset and I didn’t want to another route while it was dark.