Ann rejoins us and we take off for the climb Ted’s been talking about all weekend, Run For Your Life, 10b. In the book it’s the only bolted route on the prominent face of the Tumbling Rainbow formation, so Ted doesn’t bother even bringing the guidebook. On the approach I experience nervousness for the first…

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…

When Ann, our friend Alice, and I pull up into the Whitney Portal area, all I know is that there are some climbs on the Candlelight Buttress I want to find. I have a general idea where the buttress is, but I’m not sure which of the massive granite faces south of the Whitney trail…

Bradley Davis (one of Curis’ kids) shows promise as an up-and-coming climber. Ted, Clare, Walter, and Greg join us for an early evening session by the Little Loaf. Ann now easily climbs some of the problems here that stymied her earlier in the year. In contrast, I fail on some of the harder problems I’ve…