Ragged Mountain, Sunday Oct. 19

It was a brisk, windy day at Ragged on Sunday. Although it did warm up a little when the sun peeked around the cliff, it still made for a cold day sitting in the shade while you weren't climbing. This was our second trip rigging with our own gear, and it was a little trickier than Chatfield. The trees are smaller, and farther away from the cliff than at Chatfield, and I almost didn't have enough static line for our second rig of the day. I'll definitely be picking up some lengths of webbing to supplement the static line.

Not many pictures this time... the camera ran out of batteries early in the day.Here's Jun on the bottom portion of Juniper Wall, picture taken from on top of Juniper block.

And here's Darlene on the same section of Juniper Wall, from the ground.

Short trip to Chatfield Hollow

Well, we made a very short trip to Chatfield Hollow today, in Killingworth. This was our first time climbing outside with our own top rope gear, and we brought along a friend who had never climbed outside before. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, but it seems that we got to the crag too late. A large (30+ climbers) group of kids was there, and their guide had rigged topropes on just about every halfway decent beginner climb at the crag. We wanted to find a route suitable for the beginners in our party, and we were pretty stuck with Cornered (5.6) at the South end of the cliff. Cornered is a scrabbly little route, not more than 25' high. The crack was wet, although I think it had been days since we had any rain. And to top it all off, we had to leave early to take our cat to the vet. A disappointing day, but nevertheless it was good rigging practice, and a beautiful day to be outside.
Some photos:Darlene highstepping to get her toes into the crack.

Jun with an impressive edge, considering he's wearing sneakers.
I'm taking the stretch out of our new climbing rope while Darlene puts on her harness.