Smith Rocks, June 24-27

This was a tough trip for me. Not because of any climbing or anything — my climbing partner seemed determined not to have a good time. I tried to let him pick where we climbed, decide when we left every day, asked him if he wanted to go home, but it didn’t work. I tried to do what I usually do and get on a route and leave it on the ground, but it didn’t work. I tried to have fun anyway, not care about having fun, not care about climbing, not care.

Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if Smith wasn’t one of my favorite places, if it wasn’t one of the most friendly, most beautiful climbing areas I’ve been to. If I hadn’t arrived with a list of routes to try and new areas to explore. If this wasn’t supposed to be fun. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. And why should they not?

Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he wasn’t my boyfriend. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if this hadn’t been happening almost every trip for a year or more. Maybe it’s supposed to be enough that he’s willing to climb with me at all. But I’m selfish. Sometimes I want him to want to be there too. I’m lazy. Sometimes I want to have fun because of who I’m with instead of in spite of. After a trip I want to talk about the amazing things we’re going to do on the next trip, or relive the amazing things we did on the last trip, instead of hearing about what I did wrong, why we should have never went.

Sunset Over Smith

• Dihedrals, Moonshine Dihedral, 5.9 trad (lead)
• Dihedrals, Heinous Cling start, 5.12a sport (lead attempt)
• Dihedrals, Wedding Day, 5.10b sport (lead)
• Spiderman Buttress, A Desperate Man, 5.9 trad (lead)
• Spiderman Buttress, Iguanas on Elm Street, 5.10c sport (lead w/falls)
• Christian Brothers, Testament Slab, Revelation 5.9 mixed (lead) listed as a sport climb but I placed 4 “optional” pieces before the first bolt
• Christian Brothers, Testament Slab, New Testament 5.10a trad (lead) unexpectedly good
• Christian Brothers, Testament Slab, Barbecue the Pope 5.10b sport (TR)
• Northern Point, Burn Baby Burn 5.10a trad (lead)
• Northern Point, Playing With Fire 5.7 trad (TR)
• Northern Point, If I Ran The Circus 5.10b trad (lead w/falls)
• Monkey Face West Face Variation/Panic Point 5.8 A0 (lead p2, p4) don’t do Panic Point. Do Monkey Off My Back — it’s very similar, not that much harder, and you don’t have to do the awkward unprotected walk/scramble around the boulder