I’m still feeling off, but agree to go with Ted to Echo Cove to TR stuff while Ann makes a run into town for ice and beer. First we play on a steep, thin crack with just a couple of pockets for holds. Ted works through it, I don’t quite get it. Then Ted leads…

Ted has never led Double Cross, and Ann wants to climb it, so we make it our pre-breakfast climb of the day. On the trail to the climb, blocking our way, is a big hairy tarantula. I remember the last one we saw at Wagon Wheel – Ted poked the ground in front of it…

Ann graciously goes back to camp for beer while Ted and I set up a TR on Big Moe in Echo Cove. Ted sends it twice. I get a bit further on it than last time, finally getting a foot into the big divot, but come up a few inches short of the next hold.…

After breakfast Ted and I look at Dogleg and Double Cross, but they are both busy. So we wander over to The Flake and he starts up. The beginning chimney looks a little scrunchy even for him, then he exits right and puts a piece in that provides plenty of rope drag for the rest…

Ann has agreed to head out early, before tea, to do this popular climb, provided we return for tea immediately afterward. It works well. We arrive around 7:30 and have Echo Rock to ourselves. After I clip the first bolt Ann persuades me to try climbing some edges to the right, which ends feeling like…

Ann and I pull ourselves together by 8 o’clock and drive south. Sort of. We get hungry and stop in Kramer Junction for breakfast, but still make it out to the swirled, jumbled rocks of New Jack City around 10. We have Roy’s printed-out guidebook, but can’t make much sense of it, so we just…