Climbing Log: Boulder Canyon, Happy Hour Crag

(Been way behind on postings!)

Climbed in Boulder Canyon 2 weekends in a row, 8/2 and 8/9. Never been there before. The rock is a wonderful friendly granite. Charis, Tori and I headed out for an easy climbing day on 8/2 and Happy Hour Crag fit the bill. It's so friendly, I finally get my first trad leads of the season in! Yeah!!

The online guide tells of overcrowding on weekends...except for us, there was only 3 other groups there. We started on the far left with the easiest climb in the book, I Robot. Tori, who's been trad leading for years, shot up it easily. I followed and found the initial dihedral with a flared crack a little awkward. The finger crack at the top was a breeze...on top rope. After one full found and waiting out a little bit of rain, I find my nerve and decide to lead the easy variation that starts slightly to the left of the dihedral. The start is then only 5.6., and joins with I Robot for the mid and finish. As I start, the rain begins. The bottom section is a breeze! When I reach the finger crack section, the rain picks up...but more disturbingly, the lightening gets closer, rather than letting up. The finger crack is completely straight forward except for the last move before the jug on top of the flake. There's a small smear for your right foot, and you sort of have to gaston the crack with both hands with your left foot cammed in the crack. Just feels extraordinarily committing on lead plus I've never even fallen on trad gear before. I must be on this spot, unable to commit, for at least 5 minutes. Of course, it doesn't help that a bright flash hits the ridge above us . I look down, and Tori has a helpful smile on her face as her hand gestures, move up...go... Finally, I take a deep breath, tell my silly self, "You're able to hang on pinches in the bouldering cave...so no matter what, you can power through this! Dumbass, just do it!!" This is actually a "calming" mantra and I finally just go. It's literally a one move wonder, I get through it, clip into the anchors...and in pouring rain, clean so we can get out of there. I'm actually fairly exhilarated with my first trad lead of the season.

We go clean up at Charis' and head over to the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House. Cool place! The lunch menu is akin to indian cuisine. We decide to order a bunch of apps and share. My favorite is the Scotch Eggs, basically a hard boiled egg encased in pheasant sausage and deep fried. My "tea" drink is Hibiscus tea with sparkling wine. Charis had a green tea mojito...the best mojito I've ever had! Everything was exception for lunch. The desserts weren't too impressive though. But all in all, an amazing day!