This was a day of recovery, new friends, and climbing.

We started the day hung over as fuck. We we still planning on going climbing with Beckie.

At this point in the journey I want to note that we’ve been waking up before 8 am basically every single day. I don’t wake up this early in my normal life. But that’s just how it goes when you go on an outdoorsy vacation.

So we wake up at 9, and go down to a restaurant to get some food. When we’re there, we run into some of the Kiwi’s from last night. They join us at the table across. We get some food, try to recover. I have the TERRIBLE spins, to the point where I don’t feel safe driving a scooter. I wasn’t sure I’d recover in time for climbing. Beckie also happens to walk past us and confirmed she’s hung over as well. Whew, I was afraid it was just us!

Anyways we eat, drink tea(Vietnamese tea is great!), and try to recover. We finally make it out around noon.

On the way to the crag we get lost 2-3 times. We keep getting directed down these ally ways that turn into dead ends. We also run into Beckie(again!) on our way, and together we finally find the way to the crag.

There was a bit of a hike in, and we took some pictures with the local cattle:

And the CUTEST THING EVER happened on the way in. We ran into some kids, and they guided Beckie BY THE HAND down the path to the crag. So cute:

Which reminds me, the previous day we had run into some local kinds when we were climbing in Butterfly Valley. They were watching us, looking at our rope and stuff. Sean asked if they wanted a picture and they posed like this:

They promptly ran away right after the picture, before Sean could show them. Lol.

Anyways we finally get to the crag, and we have it ALL to ourselves. Beckie leads the first climb, a 5b, and then I lead it after, followed by Sean. Pretty fun stuff.

They beckie leads another climb that has an overhangy bouldery problem near the start. It was pretty tough. I was able to get up it on top rope after falling a couple times.

Here’s me trying to cruse over the crux:

Beckie leading it:

Note this picture is a weird angle, I promise I was spotting her better than it looks!

At this point Beckie had proven she was a bad ass, and lead the rest of the routes for the day. I learned a new term for someone who just throws up routes: a “rope gun”. Thanks Beckie!

She then lead a fun dihedral climb:

Not sure what climb this is, but she’s looking like a BAMF:

(Great photography skills btw Sean!)

More obligatory butt shots:

Here’s some of Sean following on this route:

Next, Beckie lead this hard fucking 10b. After following her on it, I realize I still have a lot to learn before I can confidently lead all 10b. This one was scary AF, and a bit runout in places (change for 20-25 foot fall). It was also VERY sustained and pumpy.

Here I am following:

Me being silly on top of a tufa:

And here are some other random pictures:

Beckie Hanging out, being a cool belayer:

If you want to see the full album of pictures, it’s here:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOfp9xz1bNxGBqjs0yR1R7ima3vGuH2hwT1TA0ZQnbcE0eC0m6PMWNhPxDJyp0mtQ?key=aDNXVmtHNy1WaTd2MVdzbW55RGFUZ3ZxTkF3ZjBB

After that, we headed back. We returned our gear to Asia outdoors.

I then took a picture with Travis, our guide from our first day of climbing:

This guy was great. He took time out of his day to teach us SAFE climbing. I’m sad that I didn’t get to do screw loose, but part of being a climber means sometimes letting go of your plans to stay safe and stay alive for the next climb. I’m also sad we lost a day of climbing so we could go over some climbing fundamentals with Sean. BUT, it allowed us to explore the island, I learned a new technique for lowering that didn’t require me to undo the rope, so that was pretty cool. So thanks Travis!

Also a BIG shotout to Asia Outdoors for all their help, suggestions, etc. They also maintain 90% of the bolt routes out here. Definetly one of the coolest outdoor shops I’ve been to. You can check out their website here:

www.asiaoutdoors.com.vn

Also worth noting that it’s customary to lower off the rap rings here, which is much safer than how we do it in America. Of course that wears out the bolts faster. I was going to donate some money to their access/bolt fund, but I forgot to do it before I left. If I ever find myself in Cat Ba again, I’ll be sure to donate. Thanks for all your guys hard work!

That’s it for today. I’m typing this ON the party boat right now, at 11 am. Time to go enjoy the scenery.

Today we climbed, met locals, and drank excessively. It was a great day.

The plan today was to go back to Butterfly Valley for some more EPIC climbing. I was planning on doing a 10c that I had seen that looked doable.

We went to Asia outdoors to get rope and rent bikes again. We returned both yesterday because we had done the boat tour.

While we were there, Sean The Magnificent, with his eagle-hawk eyes, saw ad ad for a climber looking for a climbing partner. Her name was Beckie, and she said to look her up on FB. I did, and I found out she lived in SF, and I had a mutual friend with me! She seemed to climb the same level as us. So I decided to message her. Hopefully she’d respond…

After that, we headed off to the valley. My bike was much worse then before. It would die if I stopped or wasn’t giving it any power. I feel like I was in the movie Speed with Keanu Reeves, where if I went below a certain speed my bike would blow up.

So we make it to the valley, and everything is MUDDY as hell. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to do any climbing. We went off to find a route called Roots Reggae, a 4+ something. We had a lot of trouble finding it, and we realized a giant root that had originally been there had snapped off. But eventually we found it.

While we were climbing, there was a farm across the valley that was playing some pretty hardcore EDM.

Here’s a video. It might be a bit hard to hear:

We joked that they played this every morning when slaughtering the livestock.

So next I lead the 4+(which was actually a 5b because we were off route). This might have been one of the scarier leads I did this trip, not because of the rating, but because it was muddy as hell. My shoes were covered in a thick layer of mud, a lot of the holds had mud that had slipped down from above, the holds were slippery, and all in all a bit of a shitshow. But I made it to the top.

Here’s Sean at the top of the route:

You can barely make him out with his tiny orange helmet. Here’s a closeup:

Next, we did a 5c to the right. Also a really fun lead! Here’s a pic:

It traversed a bit left, and then back to the right. Really fun.

Next, it was time to push some grades. I lead a 6a(5.10a). It had a really hard mantle near the 2nd to last bolt. Here’s sean at the top of the route:

You can see the mantle to the left after the 2nd to last bolt. This angle makes it a bit deceiving, it was pretty vertical.

Next, came the most fun route of the day: time for a looooong 10b. This one was 110 feet.

First off, I want to make a note about ants. Ants were EVERYWHERE on these routes on both days we were out here. This route in particular. There was one point where I was holding on with one hand and trying to clip with the other, and the ants were just crawling all over my jacket, shoes, shirt, ect. And a few were biting. But you just gotta power through and clip, or you fall. lol…

Anyways, I really struggled on this route. There was one traverse move where  I committed with a slightly dyno move without seeing where my hands were going. Luckily there was a wonderful undercling that I could grab as soon as I moved.

Then later up the route, there were a few times were I had to climb PAST the bolt, and then reach down and clip. A good 10 feet run out. with a 20-25 feet fall factor. My heart was RACING, probabily akin to what people feel when they get a panic attack. I was able to clip two of these scary falls, and calm myself down after.

Looking back on the route after another guy lead it after me, I could see if I feel there it wouldn’t have been a bad fall, as it fell mostly into air. Though it would still have been scary!

Anyways, here’s a pic of Sean at the top of the route. He’s hiding in the little cave at the top:

Here’s a closeup:

After that, we planned to do one more easy route. But the sun was setting, so we headed back home.

When we got home, it seemed that Beckie had responded to my text! She said she would be down to climb the next day, and we should meet up to figure out logistics.

Me and Sean went out to dinner at Oasis. There were two girls and a dude sitting next to us that were drinking out of this giant coconut. I asked them what it was. First I asked the girl on the left; she gave me a disgusted look. Then I turned to the girl on the right, “it looks really good. What is it?” another disgusted look. Finally I turn to the guy and he tells me it’s just party bucket that they put in a coconut to drink out of.

Thanks dude. And fuck you girls. They were clearly European, and very attractive by anyone’s standard. Maybe that’s why they thought they could be so mean, but whatever.

The food we ordered here was DELICIOUS. Here’s my southern noodles:

And some ice cream to top it off:

Beckie then texts me that she’s on her way. She shows up with a friend, I think her name was Jessica. Jessica and Beckie had known each other for a looong time, and they were hanging out in Vietnam for a couple days. Jessica was going back tomorrow, so it was just going to be Beckie climbing with us. Cool. They said they were going to a spa and would meet up with us later. Sounds good.

After dinner, we headed to our favorite bar, “The good bar”. There we played some pool. Here’s a great pic of me doing my “special face” shot:

I learned during this that Sean sucks at pool. I kicked his ass twice. Sorry Sean 😛

While we were playing pool, some Vietnamese dude came up and asked if he could play with us. Sure sounds good. He kicked my ass easily, and I could tell he played at lot. But that’s not all he did with my ass. A couple times he brushed past me a little too close, or  pressed himself onto me. I didn’t really think anything of it, and kinda forgot about it until Sean mentioned a similar experience. Cool, so it wasn’t all in my head. Me and Sean left before he could use the pool cue for more than pool.

That’s the second time people have gotten handsy with me here on Cat Ba. Remember girls, guys can be harassed too!

Next we joined Beckie and her friend at Rose Bar. This is probably my favorite bar on Cat Ba; it’s got loud music, cheap drinks, and a “fun” atmosphere.

This is where the night also starts to get a bit wild.

There was some really cute french girl that didn’t speak any English. She was clearly plastered, and she remained that way for the entirety of the night(until we left at 3am). We started out with a couple beers, mixed drinks, did some more laughing gas. Beckie and her friend Jessica went outside to talk with some other people.

Remember how I said I wanted to buy a whole bar a round of shots at some point? Well that point was today. I counted the patrons in the bar, something like 18. Thats about 36 worth of shots, easy. So I turn off the music, and I shout

ALL YOU MOTHERFUCKERS GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE, I BOUGHT YOU ALL SHOTS

or something along those lines. I got to ring a giant bell a few times which was fun. A couple people came up and shook my head, I kissed a few babies on the head, you know, people were taking pictures and video. I felt like a famous politician.

Here’s a video of them pouring the shots. I apologize I don’t have better footage:

At this point, I’m pretty drunk. The drunk french girl is going dance crazy, and I decide to join her. I put on bachata song(you’re allowed to control the music in these bars, and everyone takes turns putting something on). I dance with her for a song, realize she’s too drunk to dance properly, and call it at that. Still fun though!

After that I head outside to join Beckie and friends. Sean stays inside and hangs out with the friend girl, putting on his moves.

Beckie and friend had found a group of Kiwi’s. They were all dressed in pajama onsies. Apparently one of them was getting married, and this was their bachelor party. We talked for HOURS apparently; I don’t remember much, I was pretty drunk. Stuff about climbing, biking, other outdoorsy shit. Music and stuff. I don’t recall. At one point I buy a sandwhich from a guy right outside the bar, and then the sandwhich guy joined us a bit to chat as well.

I go back inside for a bit to check on Sean, he’s still working on the french girl. I saw this guy in the bar which was pretty funny:

This basically continues until 2-3 am, when we decide it’s time to go home. Me and Sean leave; Sean’s pretty grumpy(probably because he’s going home with me :P), and we go to bed, ready to start the next morning.

Today was an action packed day, with injury and regret.

WARNING: If you’re sensitive to a bit of blood/cuts, you probably shouldn’t read this post.

So today we had planned a kayaking trip. We were supposed to have a van come pick us up at 8 am to take us to the boat for kayaking. The day basically would go like this:

1. Go to monkey island, do a bit of hiking(see some monkeys)
2. Go to a place to kayak, do some kayaking
3. Have lunch
4. Go to a place for swimming, then go home

We started a day a little rushed because I spent all morning writing a blog from the previous day. This stuff takes a lot longer then I’d expect; it usually takes me an hour to write everything down from the previous day. And even then, stuff is pretty “raw”.

Anyways, we were able to order some banh my just in time before our ride came. They picked us up, we got on the boat, yadda yadda yada, boring logistics.

The trip itself also started out strong with some beers at 8 am. Here’s Sean double fisting:

Once we got to monkey island we did a bit of hiking. Here are some pics from it:

That beach on the left is where we started, just before the house.

START OF INTROSPECTIVE RANT

Remember those girls from the previous day that we met while climbing? The California ones’ from around Shasta? Well I ended up running into them at the top of the hike. We chatted a bit, I found out they were staying at the Full Moon Party Hostel for $2 a night in a dorm room. I asked them if they were climbing again and they said that renting the rope was a bit expensive($10), and there weren’t a lot of climbs they could do(which is true for us as well; a lot of shit is 10d+ or harder). Then I told them we were staying in this “fancy” place with a sea view on the 9th floor and that it was super cool. I don’t quite remember the phrasing, but they said something along the lines of “is that an invitation?”. I laughed it off, we chatted a bit more, and I said we’d probably see them around. Then I left to go to hike back down because I didn’t want to miss the boat.

Once I was back on the beach, I saw them again. Or at least I think I saw them again. I’m fucking god-awful with faces; even though I had just talked to them, I wasn’t 100% sure what they looked like, so I didn’t want to go approach some random people that looked like them from far away and start chatting them up just to realize I had the wrong people.

Anyways, I regret not asking for their contact info so we could meet up later and have drinks or something with them. It seemed like they were open to the idea, but I was being kind of closed-off  to them and sort of shooting them down. It could have been really fun to hang out with them, seeing as they also climbed and were California, near SF. And were girls of course and pretty cute.

Maybe I was reading into it too much, maybe they would have turned down the offer. I also don’t like “hanging out” with people I meet while travelling if they’re not into it. A lot of times people will hang out with you just to be polite(especially if you’re a solo traveler). It really bothers me because then I can’t tell if someone genuinely enjoys my company, or just being polite. In this case, even if we exchange contact information, it might just be because they were being polite. But then again, they initiated the conversation with me at the hike, so maybe they did want to chat?

I also have this weird problem where I suck at socializing, so anyone that I DO end up socializing with I do it to the point where they get annoyed/irritated with me.

But alas, I’m thinking too much into it. The moral is just take more social risks, and talk to people more.

END OF INTROSPECTIVE RANT

Once I got down to the bottom of the island, we took a couple pictures of the monkeys. I even got a picture of a monkey drinking a beer, and another picture of the monkey holding my finger! The quality on the second picture isn’t that great because it was on Sean’s older phone:

Here’s two monkeys making out or something:

Sean and I hanging out on the beach, waiting for our boat:

Here’s me being a goof on the boat ride:

We also saw some fishing villages earlier on the boat ride. They’re basically houses and everything you’d see in a village, except they’re on the water. Here’s a pic:

Here’s a video of the fishing village:

Anyways, once we got to the kayaking place we went exploring. Here’s a pic:

I really liked the rock formation on this spire, the way the diagonal lines cut through the rock:

Here’s a cool pillar we saw on our way in that would be so cool to climb:

The kayaing was really fun. There were tons of little tunnels that we went through(I’ll upload a video of one once I get can get my gopro footage working).  There were a lot of spires/walls that you could “talk to”, and your echo would talk back to you 1-2 seconds later. It was really fun.

This is also when the injury happened.

So at one point I saw an outcropping that would be cool to take a picture on. I asked Sean to row me up close to the rock, I’d get out of the kayak and jump on the rock, climb up to the top, and Sean would take a picture of me. Note that I was not wearing any shoes, because the tour guide told us to take them off before we got in the Kayak(probably because he was afraid they’d get wet; but I was wearing flip-flops anyways). But I took them off. So when I went to climb this outcropping, I was barefoot.

When I first hopped out of the boat, the rock was super slippery, so I instantly slipped and almost fell into the water. I caught myself, but I’m pretty sure I stepped on some really bad stuff. Then I slowly proceeded to climb up the piller. This was the SHARPEST rock I had ever felt in my life. So sharp you couldn’t stand. It was basically like standing on coral, but much much worse.

I got to the top and Sean snapped this picture:

You can barely make me out in my gray-outfit(groutfit) against the gray background.

In the process, I really cut up my foot. I think when I fell in the water it happened. Here’s a picture of the aftermath just after:

I had created a bunch of lacerations on my foot, the worst one on my toe.

You can see in a bit more detail here:

I cut up two toes, a gash on the outside of my foot, and a couple of gashes elsewhere. Luckily because I have such thick callouses most of the lacerations didn’t bleed. Yayyyyy

Anyways, I cleaned it up, got all the rocks out of the cuts(thanks to Sean for having a SIM card remover that acted as a tweezer!), and I think I’ll be just fine for climbing tomorrow.

The rest of the kayaking was uneventful(comparatively). We found a secret tunnel that went to another cove, but the cove was filled with a bunch of bro-y australians. I’m pretty sure I heard something along the lines of”Hey all, I know we’re all in our 2o’s, and I’m glad you’re all here”. “Actually I’m only 18!”.

We paddled out of there as quickly as possible.

Next we ate lunch. I talked to a cool German family, we also met some cool folks that are from Mexico and were studying abroad in Seoul. They told us some cool tales from visiting the DMZ in North/South Korea. I definitely want to go there at some point.

Next up was swimming. The water was really cold, and after saying I wasn’t going to go in for 30 minutes I finally relented. I jumped of the top of the boat a couple times(which was fun!). I’ll upload those videos later…

After that the boat trip was over and nothing else noteworthy happened.

Later on that evening we decided to go to the Full Moon Hostel and see if we could book our Junk Boat. Most Junk Boats were booked up at this point, seeing how it was just about NYE. However, as soon as we walked in, the manager of the place saw us, and motioned us towards a little “travel-agency” desk. This was the same manager that we bought the Santa Hats from a few days before.

We talked to the guy there(I think his name was Micheal). We told him we wanted a party boat for NYE, and after making a BUNCH of calls, he landed us a room in the 2nd-most expensive boat(the most expensive one was already booked). We also mentioned we wanted to go to Sappa, so he booked that for us as well. It’s quite an action-packed itinerary, as we’ll be sleeping on buses and getting back to hotels around 4am. But it’ll be fun.

I think both Sean and I are relieved that we were able to book both the Sappa trip and the Junk boat. We were both a little worried we wouldn’t be able to find anything.

I would like to say that booking these two things was a MUCH more pleasent experience doing it through a person. If we had tried to book it on our own, we might not have gotten a boat with the right “vibe” that we were looking for, or been able to link up or boat tour and our sappa tour so nicely. But because we’re talking to a human and not a search bar, he understands these things, such as “vibes” and logistics. So he was able to create a great itinerary for us.

I’ll have to book stuff in person more often.

I’d also like to note that both Sean and I are getting a bit sick of the island. We’ve been here 4 days now, and I think it’s wearing on both of us. The day activities are fun(climbing, kayaking, driving around), but the going out to drink every night is getting tiresome. We’ll be climbing for two more days, and then moving onto our next destination. And having that destination booked makes us both a bit more relaxed.

One more note to close it out on: I had some pho today, and this time, it was delicious:

Time to sleep. Tomorrow we’re going back to the crag(Butterfly valley), and we’re going to do some more climbing(foot and weather permitting).

Today was a good day. We got to climb 🙂

We started out the day as usual: got breakfast around the corner. They food they have here is DELICIOUS:

We also got some banh my to go:

We had gotten up a bit later this day, so I was somewhat anxious to get going and get to the crag. After food, Sean had to go to the bathroom, so we went back to the hotel. Then we head off to the climbing store, and half way there, Sean left his backpack at the hotel. So I had to go back from the store, give him the key, and let him in. Oh silly Sean. It was a rough start to the morning, but finally we both made it!

We went to the climbing store, took our safety test, PASSED this time, and they rented us a rope. WOOOOOOO

So then we took off on our scooters to the crag. We first filled up on gas, but this time we went to an actual gas station. It cost us only 80,000($4) to fill up both tanks. About 5 times cheaper than the time we got ripped off yesterday.

We finally arrive at the crag. It’s a pretty cool place! They had a little restaurant at the beginning of the crag, incase you got hungry. The signage to get there was pretty good as well.

Here’s a picture of us hiking into the crag. Notice the cows and chickens everywhere:

Here’s a picture of the crag itself:

This is called “butterfly valley”. We ended up climbing on the far left, at an area called the “upper mantle”. We basically climbed to the top of the treeline on cliffs on the right.

We started on an easy 5b(5.8/5.9). I lead it, and then sean lead it. As Sean was leading it, a cute couple came by. Turns out there were from Chico, around the Shasta area of California! What a small world. We talked a bit. I let them barrow my book; they asked if I had bought it, and I said something along the lines of I like buying them so I can have a collection of books that makes me look like I’m really into the outdoors. In a manly/bro-y sort of playful-mocking voice, they said “Oh yeah, you like to impress the girls huh? Like did I tell you about that one time  I went climbing in Vietnam? No big deal”. But yes, pretty much. That’s my deal.

Just as this conversation was happening, Sean said “FALLING!”. I had an inking that he was going to possibly fall, so I had taken most of the slack out of the system. However I should have been paying more attention, and not getting distracted by girls(the #1 cause of deaths in climbing). Anyways he fell, and I caught him. It wasn’t too big of a fall(I didn’t get lifted off the ground, he maybe fell 5 feet). But his first fall outdoors in a while!

Here’s a pic of him climbing this route:

Next we went over and did a 5c(5.9). I don’t have any pictures of it. It was short and sweet, with a few fun moves. Sean and I both lead this one. Great climb 10/10, would recommend.

Next we did the highlight of the day for me: a 6a, 5.10a. After yesterday, I was eager to “prove myself” by climbing a 10a. Because it should be easy, right?

I lead it; it was hard, but not too hard of a lead. The struggle however was setting up the anchor I literally thrashed around and fell like 10-15 times. It was a really awkward last move to get to the anchor. I could reach it and clip in the rope just fine, but getting close enough to clip in my PAC was another thing. You had to shove your body in a little cave, and then move and stretch out to the left to reach the anchor. I basically “aid” climbed to get close enough that I could clip in with my PAC, and then setup the rope for toprope.

Then Sean climbed it. He fell a few times but made it up. Sean did what I will now call “Sean’s way” to get to the top; basically going left, right, and swinging, making his own route to the top. Sean answers for nobody!

Here’s a pic of Sean on the climb. Sorry for the terrible focus, I didn’t have my zoom lens and my auto-focus was fucked up:

Finally to round off the day, we did a short 10b route. There were some New Zealanders next to us that had been working a 5.12a/b the whole day(these guys are basically in another league/doing a different sport).

The route was hard because the last move had a tricky balancy mantle. I had a short fall 2-3 times on the bolt, but finally I was able to do it after the worlds hardest crimp. Here’s a pic of the route:

Basically you start on the boulder on the left, and go up to the bush. The mantle move is out of this picture because I take bad shots.

We called it a day after that, as it was starting to rain. We headed back, in the rain, on our bikes. I felt like I almost skidded out a few times; rain is dangerous on scooters! We took it slow to avoid any accidents.

After we got back, we booked a kayaking trip. Which we will be doing today. We then around for like 30 minutes trying to find a bank. Who knew it would be so difficult to find one! On our way, we met-up with this cool guy:

We eventually found a bank on the street. Whew!

Then it’s time to eat. But first some smokes and me trying to look “cool”:

I really just look like I’m kissing my hand. I, much like Bill Clinton, smoke, but “don’t inhale”. I honestly do it just to wake up(because I feel I’m still jet lagged). Or that’s at least what I tell myself.

We went to a cool rooftop bar next door, and I had a really good meal again, bun cha. It looked different then the bun cha I ordered in Hanoi though. Here’s our food:

And a coconut milkshake. Woo!

They always give us silly straws at all these places for some reason…

We got into a 2 hour deep conversation about finance. We talked about me leaving AppDynamics, and if it was the right choice. I keep thinking I made a mistake leaving there because I left a bunch of money on the table. But we actually crunched the numbers, and saw that it was a wash for me to join LinkedIn vs AppD. Although it would have been a lot better for me to stay at AppD because they got acquired, there was no way for me to knowthat would happen(nobody did), so at the time, with the info I had, I still made all the right choices. Which is all I can ask for.

We then went back to the bar with the laughing gas(the one we went to on night 1). They remembered us there! I considered buying everyone in the bar a round of shots(it only costs $30 even with 18 people), but I decided to wait on it for another night. It’s going to happen though.

We did more laughing gas. Except this time we REALLY went in. I filmed a video of me doing it and considered putting it up here, but it was MUCH too embarrassing to show the world. That’s a first for me. If you wanna see it just ask and I’ll send it to you.

After that, we got some more food at the “Full Moon Party Hotel”. Here’s me looking super content eating it:

Anyways, that’s all for today. I’m 20 minutes late, got to shower, and go on our kayaking adventure. Talk to you tomorrow!

Today was a memorable day. A day of disappointment, and a day of adventure.

The plan for today was to get up at 7, go get food/ pack lunch, and then head over to the climbing shop to rent a rope and then head off to do some climbing.

We got to the climbing shop after breakfast, and they asked us to take a test to show that we know how to safely utilize rope and equipment. No problem I thought. We had only brought one PAC between us(personal anchor system; Sean had forgotten his), so I struggled a bit during the test to figure out how to safely anchor. I wanted to try an achor without my PAC, because I’d probably let Sean use it. I ended up using two slings to anchor myself which was perfectly fine.

Then Sean did his test. It didn’t go so well.

He got to the top, but struggled to figure out how to anchor in. At one point he connected a sling to his gear loop for an anchor(a big no-no); he looked, according to the instructor, unconfident in his abilities. I was also coaching him through most stuff on how to setup the anchor. Also, when he was lowering me, he had the climber side and the belay strands flipped around. Another big no-no.

Safe to say, the instructor denied renting the rope to us. Pretty damn humiliating if you ask me. We came all this way to climb, and they said we weren’t even fit to use a rope.

This was a lesson in humility. After the machete ridge incident, I realize that I need to be a lot more cautious. I had underestimated how rusty Sean’s was; he KNEW all the stuff we needed to do, he just hadn’t utilized the skills in over a year, so he was really rusty. To try and rush out to the crag and climb when he didn’t have the proper abilities would have been dangerous for him and me. It’s better to play it safe and not do the things I wanted to do if it means keep Sean and I  safe.

This was really hard for me to “let go” of all these grand plans for climbing.

Now that’s not to say that we arn’t going to go climbing at all this trip; but we probably won’t do Screw Loose(a climb I’ve really wanted to do).

I talked to Sean about it; he felt bad, I felt bad for making him feel bad. But I think we got over it. I wasn’t mad at Sean. He didn’t do anything wrong. This was more on me for again putting someone into a position for something they might not quite be ready for.

Luckily, the guy who tested us, Travis, did everything in his power to make sure we could get to the level of climbing where he felt confident we knew what we were doing. He personally offered to teach us later that afternoon(around 2pm), and do 1-2 climbs with us to get us ready.

So that’s what we did.

In the meantime, we decided to explore the island a bit. So first we rented some scooters. The scooters were empty fuel-was, so we decided to get some gas.

We rode down to the pier to a place with a “petrol” sign. We pulled in, a guy asked if we need gas we said yes, good so far. He started filling up our scooters with bottles of watered-down looking petrol. Nbh, they did this in Thailand. But here’s where the problem happend: we didn’t ask him how much it would cost beforehand. It ended up costing us $20 to fill up both tanks. More expensive gas then even the US! Safe to say, that was the biggest rip-off of the trip.

Finally, we set off for a local place called the “Cannon fort”.

It was an old fort on the top of a hill. According to Lonely planet,

The tunnels and gun emplacements here were first installed by the Japanese in WWII, but were also utilised by the French and Vietnamese during subsequent conflicts.

Here’s an overview of where the fort was:

There were some great views on top of the fort:

We also took some fun pictures with the “locals”:

A note about these cannons: They can fire up to a range of 40km — that’s about 20 miles! Wowza!

We also saw some pretty cool trenches. And munition depots. There was also this long tunnel with a “track” in the middle of it; we assumed it was for moving the cannon through the tunnels to the different “rooms” inside to load it, repair it, etc.

Here’s us searching for weed in the tunnels:

Here’s Sean being a goof:

Andddd some wildlife:

After that, we went back to Asia outdoors, and met up with Travis to check in about the class later that day.

Then we took another adventure to the “Hospital cave”. This place was used as a hospital during the Vietnam war I believe, and later was used as a secret meeting place for communist leaders :O

Some of the locals. This guy was clearly being treated for shell shock:

Sean contemplating why he was here:

Here’s one of the biggest caves in the hospital

Here’s me meditating:

Past the forbidden zone:

And me crawling like a crab:

After that, we went back to the shop. On the way there, Sean got in a little accident. He was supposed to be behind me following me to the outdoors shop, but I waited a few minutes and he didn’t show up. I then texted him “are you okay” and this was his response

I fell ove4 near the hotel. I’m alright but there was a bit of fuel leaking so a guy told me to turn it off. I’m going to walk the bike over

Apparently he was doing a low-speed uturn and fell over. He bruised his knee a bit, got a scrape on his hand, but otherwise he was fine.

Whew.

Anyways, we met up with Travis, followed him to his home to pick up some gear(apparently he lived in a hotel by the bay), and made our way to the crag. We got like like 4-5 times trying to find the climbing area(because it was pretty well hidden). It ended up being behind a guys house; you had to pay 10,000 to enter it. It was a pretty cool little cave area! Travis taught me a new way to clean an anchor on top-rope and lower down; Sean also did the same climb twice(leading it) to get practice on how to lower. It was a great afternoon.

I then tried to do a 10.a, just as the sun was setting. I wore a head lamp, and tried to rush up the climb. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to do it; I had to bail and leave a couple quick draws, which Travis was nice enough to go up really quickly and fetch. Also during this climb I had to take a small fall.

But anyways, not being able to complete the climb  was really frustrating, because I believed 10a to be completely in my ability range. I’ll probably go back and try it sometime later this week(if not day 4, another day).

After that, we rode our bikes back to the beach(in the dark I might add!). We decided to go get some pho for the first time this trip(it wasn’t that good tbh), some more street food banh my(fucking delicious), and go for some more drinking.

We walked around the pier at one point, and a man walked up to us and asked if we wanted some “boom boom”. Finally my first time hearing it in person! I was kinda happy people actually talked like that lol

In one of the bars we met up with an Irish man; he claimed to be 36, but it looks like the years had taken a toll on him. He was travelling alone, and we chatted him up; apparently he was a carpenter, had lived in SF for like 10 years, and now was trying to go to Canada(after he was done with Vietnam). He got a giant laughing gas balloon(yes we did them again today), and it looked quite funny:

Anyways, after talking with us for about 30 minutes, he kinda went off and talked to other couple. I guess we weren’t interesting enough for him? Oh well…

We also did some “Seesha” which I learned is just another word for hooku. Sean took this “cool” pic:

Anyways, that’s it for today. Time to climb!

First off, Merry Christmas to everyone in America!!

Today was a travel day. We spent the day going from Hanoi to Cat Ba Island in Ha Long bay.

Started the day out at 7 am, writing my blog (which I posted yesterday). We went to a coffee shop, got some money, and then went to a place to eat in the Old Quarter. It happened to be right down the street where we had spent the previous night!

I got some chinese braised beef on rice. It was probably the most delicious thing I’ve eaten in Vietnam so far.  Here’s a pic:

(Yes we are drinking beers at like 10 am).

After that, we got on the bus. This bus would take us to another bus, which would take us to a boat, which would cross a river, which would take us to another bus, which would finally take us to a hotel. Quite a journey!

Here’s a picture of the bus:

Some quotes I overheard on the bus from an anonymous source:

“This bus is nicer than some hotels I’ve been at”

“I don’t wanna do anything today, I just wanna sit on this bus”

“I’ve messaged some girls that have more red flags then some soviet-bloc countries”.

Very entertaining quotes, whoever sad those ;D

Here’s Sean very suprised looking when I took a photo of him on the boat:

We finally arrive at our island. It is BEAUTIFUL. We find our room, and its on the TOP floor, floor 9. Here’s a pic with me on our balcony view:

I have a bunch of great pics on my camera I brought, I just got to try and figure how to upload them. The wifi here isn’t being cooperative.

EDIT: Here they are:

After that, we wander around for a while. We get some street food includuing crepes(YES!!) and ban my. So. Fuckiing. Good.

IF you can see the paper that it’s wrapped in, it’s like literately someone wrote on it in pen in Vietanmese. Maybe they’re recycling old homework?

Then we walked around some more, Sean bought some shorts.

We went to the Outdoor Asia shop, where we were going to figure out where to go climbing, but it was closed. The lady told us it’d open at 7 am the next day, so (today) we’re going to go check it out.

We also got some tips from some locals about things we should do — motorcycle rides, kayaking trips(to a island with monkeys), among other stuff.

Then we spent a while at a resturant (called the “Full Moon Party Hotel”) and ate a bunch of food. We asked where we could buy santa hats, and the manager there pulled some off a tree for us to have. Yes!(We payed him $5 for them which is a lot):

Also, fun sidenote, look how tiny these elevators are! We basically take up the whole elevator with our packs:

Also I found this rock in the town Square. If anyone can read Vietnamese and knows what it says, let me know:

Finally, to close out the night, we went to a really cool bar. There we met some guy from spain who was travelling for a month. He was being a little touchy to me — brushing up on my leg, sitting really close to me, throwing me glances. I don’t know what his deal was(I was just talking to him and trying to be friendly since he was alone and looked like he wanted to talk). Maybe that’s just how friendly Europeans are?

This bar was GREAT. First off, they had Hooku with the funny writing “No weed in it”:

They also had LAUGHING GAS. Yes you heard that right. You could buy it for 100k($5, expensive!), or you could get it for free with a beer between 10 and 10:30. So that’s what we did. Two giant ballons of laughing gas later — I didn’t feel much different. After holding my breath, I felt a little tingly — like if you were high on weed, minus the phycological effects. But after about 1-2 minutes it was gone. Still pretty fun though. Sean wants to go back again, so we’ll try it another day.

Here’s some more picture of food we ate. Deep friend beef spring rolls:

Here’s a funny knock-off frozen toy we found:

And finally, here’s our bathroom. It combines a toilet and a shower — not really seperate. This is pretty common in Asia, and honestly, it kinda makes sense. The whole bathroom generally is a gross place, why not just wash it off?

Okay, I’m off. Got to shower, pack, eat, and go climbing. It’s supposed to rain at 6 pm today, so I think we should be OK for climbing!

This weekend I went on a trip with Eric, Megan, and meet up with Tom and his friend Collin on an epic weekend in pinnacles. It did not go as planned, but it was still a lot of fun; however, there was a very dangerous incident that occured that could have proved fatal under slightly different circumstances which overshadowed the whole weekend(at least for me). Let me give a day-by-day report.

The plan for the weekend was as so: we’d arrive Friday night, camp, get up early the next day and do machete ridge. It’s an AWESOME 6 pitch “climb”(really more of an alpine adventure) that traverses over a bunch of spires on machete ridge. It’s not very hard — maybe 5.7 on the hardest pitch; it’s all sport, and doesn’t require any trad gear, but knowledge of how to rappel.

Here’s a post on mountain project about it:

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106912474/old-original

I was SUPER excited as I had never done anything like this before. I was capable of all the technical aspects — rapallling, setting up anchors on bolts and natural protection(trees), how to combine ropes for rappelling, fourth class traversing. It seemed totally within my technical limit.

The main unknowns in my mind where 1) how much time was this going to take? and 2) how do we do this with a backpack? Seems kinda annoying.

Since the days are short around this time of year(sun rises at 7, sets at 5), I figured we’d get an early start and just spend the day(10 hours) going along the ridge. Well –closer to 9 hours, since it’d take us an hour to hike in. That should be plenty of time, right?

As for the backpacks, I only had my 22 liter, and my giant backpacking backpack(60 liters). My idea was we’d try hauling the backpack up on the hard pitches, and carry it on the pitches that weren’t as hard. Failing that, I’d just carry it up all the pitches.

So that was the plan anyways. Basically nothing went according to plan.

Here’s what happened:

We arrived at the campsite on Friday night. Traffic was really bad — (an hour! to get from the easy bay to SF). We stopped by whole foods(to pick up food –they only had vegan marshmallows — lol what?), and the habit for food. By the time we were at the campsite we were behind schedule a bit — it was 10 PM, and the plan was to wake up at 6, get ready in an hour, and take an 1 – 1 1/2 hours to hike in, so be at the base at 8-8:30. So that’s okay, we’ll just get a little bit less sleep, NBD.

That night I had trouble sleeping — probably because I woke up at 10 am that day, and was excited about the next day. Also I should mention it was COLD — below freezing; Megan’s car said it was 28 degrees the next day when we left, so I can only imagine how cold it actually got.

Anyways, we wake up at 6 the next day, before dawn, and make breakfast and whatnot. By the time we leave it’s already 8 — an hour behind schedule, but hopefully NBD right?

We arrive at the trailhead around 8:15-8:20. We do the hike in, passing another group that was doing an alternative version of the route that starts elsewhere and has aid sections — I had briefly considered us doing that but went against it, mainly because I didn’t want to add to much new stuff to the plate on this day.

It took us a while to actually locate the ridge; after hiking in and getting to “machete ridge”(the north end), it probably took us another 45 minutes to locate the start — we did it with surprisingly little trouble(with respect to finding climbing routes anyways). By the time we got to the base of the climb it was 10:30 — 4 1/2 hours after we had woken up, and 2 1/2 hours behind schedule. I thought we could skip a few parts of the traverse and that’d save us some time(like middle tour).

I should also note that I had changed our route to have an alternative start — we were starting on bullseye (1 pitch) to derringer(2 pitches), and that would meet us up with the normal start of old original. This was an extra 2 pitches to our climb. One comment said this would take a “full day” on the mountain project forum.

I led the first pitch with little trouble, without a backpack on. Not really too run out, not too hard, kind of fun. Great!

At this point, I should mention the gear we were carrying. I was carrying a couple of cams, nuts, a couple of quick draws, lots of other random gear(anchor building, a bunch of alpine draws, rappelling gloves, etc) a  mirrorless camera, a lens, some food, 1.5 liters of water, sunscreen, a cap, some other small things here and there. My pack was pretty damn heavy. I had also brought my 70m rope.

Eric had(and was carrying) a 70m rope, a 30m rope, and a few quick draws. I assume he also had food, water, and things for a day out as well.

We both had our backpacking packs and they were pretty heavy.

So after I completed the first pitch, Eric followed me. The way we were setup, I was attached to eric but a rope, and then Eric was also attached to Megan. So basically I’d lead, he’d follow, and then he’d belay Megan. I’d had this done once before on a trip in Thailand, and it wasn’t a problem. And after the “incident”, I don’t think I would have done things differently(in terms of that), however my inexperience of thinking of a system like this may be what lead to the issue that occurred.

The incident

Once Eric was at the top of the pitch with me, he had instructed Megan to clip my backpack onto the rope with an overhand on a bite:

That way we could lug up the backpack. We started lugging it up, and it was HEAVY. It took both me and Eric coordinating our movements to get the backpack up. After a bunch of work, and after we got it 1/2 way up(Megan says it was 3/4 of the way up but I suspect it was less based on the distance left in the climb and us not seeing it), it got caught under a “lip” which we couldn’t pull it past. We pulled and pulled, but nothing.

We decided it was futile to try and pull it up, so Eric decided to descend down to it and bring it up on his back.

I think I had been pulling the backpack up with a ATC — or on second thought, we might have just been pulling it up with our hands, and dropping it would have lost our progress.

In any case, so we didn’t lose our current “progress” of pulling the backpack up, I put the rope on a clove hitch on a quickdraw that was attached to our anchor. Now that I was hands free with the backpack, Eric started his decent down to the backpack. Eric still had his rope that was attached to me, so I was simply lowering him on a GriGri. Eric was ALSO attached to another rope that was going down to the backpack, and then down to Megan. Note that Megan was tied in at the bottom — a very important note.

Now at some point, Eric couldn’t descend anymore  — this was because the green rope, which was attached to him, then to the clove hitch at the anchor, then to the backpack, and then to Megan. This rope was taught between him and the clove hitch at the anchor. It looked like this:

Notice how eric is tied into two ropes — the purple one going to me, which I’m lowering him on, and the green one which is clove hitched to the anchor so it can’t go anywhere.

Now again, Eric was taught on the green rope and couldn’t lower anymore. In my mind, the problem and solution was simple — simply undo the green rope from the clove hitch, and Eric will be able to continue to lower. I have him on the purple rope, so he won’t fall. The rope will simply slide to the ground and let him continue.

Now I made this decision in about 2-3 seconds. I neglected to remember that the backpack was attached to this rope. I somewhat forgot that Megan was attached to the rope(she was on the ground, so I assumed she was “safe”). And as I type this, I realize how dumb it is to think that undoing the green rope will allow Eric to descend — the whole reason he’s descending is so that he can grab the backpack, which is attached to the rope!

So anyways, I undo the green rope and let it drop. Then I see it quickly falling. I hear megan yell “the backpack is falling!” I realize I had made a mistake(oops, dropped the backpack), but didn’t realize how bad it was. The backpack probably took 3-4 seconds to completely fall. During this time I processed the information that Eric might get yanked pretty hard if/when the backpack gets taught, so let me make sure I’m holding on tight to the break hand of the grigri.

What I DIDN’T consider:

1)The backpack might land on Megan(pretty bad)

2)The backpack might bounce off a cliff, AND TAKE MEGAN WITH IT(very very bad).

To be honest, I had kinda forgotten(in those 3-4 seconds) that megan was down there really and was a concern to be reasoned about — perhaps because I hadn’t had a lot of experience with 3 people climbing at a time.

In any case, number 2  is what ends up happening.

The backpack slides down and lands on the ledge with Megan, and the CONTINUES to slide down past her to ledge 2. Megan says a few moments after she saw the backpack falling she realized she might get dragged with it. She decided to brace herself and grab onto whatever she can.

Now what happens next is somewhat interesting — Megan said she felt a big of a tug/pull, and that was it. When we went to retrieve the backpack, it seems like it had landed on ledge 2.

Eric said he might/might not have experienced tension on his side of the rope as well — he can’t quite remember.

Surprisingly, when Eric went down to get the backpack, it was mostly fine. I couldn’t notice any serious tears or breakages in it. In any case, either before Vietnam or after I will be retiring this backpack(or perhaps sending it into Opsery to be fixed!). It has gone on ALL my backpacking trips — through Iceland, my 2 months abroad, to being sprayed with human feces in Chile, to my belt loop being used as a tourniquet when my friend fell off a cliff, to falling off this cliff itself. It’s had quite a time.

Also, miraculously, my camera and second lens that were in there were fine — yay for putting stuff in cases! However, my phone screen had shattered. Perhaps the fall wasn’t as bad as I thought for the backpack, or perhaps my cases just really protected my camera.

Now to some serious stuff.

Analysis

This event could have EASILY been fatal. The only reason it WASN’T was because that ledge #2 was there. If it had not been, and if instead there had just been free air that the backpack had fallen into, Megan would have certainly been yanked off the cliff. Because the distance of rope between her and Eric was pretty high, she would have taken a pretty bad fall before be caught by his end of the rope.

It was also strange that Megan only felt a slight tug on the rope — that would only happen if the distance of rope between her and the backpack was precisely the distance between her and ledge 2. It would have made more sense if she felt a STRONG pull and was pulled off(because the distance between her and the backpack was shorter than her and ledge 2), or didn’t feel much pull at all(because the distance between her and the backpack was MORE than her and ledge 2). However, she described it as a pull, and she said the rope was taught between her and the backpack once everything stopped. I don’t dispute her story, but it seems *very* lucky that the rope was *exactly* the length of the cliff, in that it’d cause only a slight pull rather than yanking her off her feet. Perhaps I don’t understand the physics 100%, and under/overestimate how much of a tug the backpack would cause; but it doesn’t matter, because theoretically(and in a very probably case), the backpack could have fallen into free space and could have yanked her off her ledge.

It’s also worth noting that this is basically a greater than 1 factor fall(probably close to factor 2) involving the backpack — it fell twice the distance as rope was out. If you think of the backpack as a climber, and Megan a belayer, the backpack fell that distance(to Megan), and then that distance again, to ledge 2. This is not good for your rope — they’re only rated for some many falls that are > 1. You can read more here:https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/508/climbing-rope-is-rated-to-x-uiaa-falls-what-is-a-uiaa-fall

Here’s a better explanation(I think) of fall factor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_factor

It’s basically just distance of rope out / distance of fall. The only way you can have a > 1 fall factor is if you fall past the belayer, and the greatest fall factor you can have is 2.

Now it is the case that the backpack was much lighter than what these ropes are tested for(40lbs vs 180 pounds), and the factor fall might have been much less because the backpack was sliding, and it might not have fully extended the length of the rope because of my misunderstanding of the series of events. But I’ll leave it up to Eric to make the decision about what to do with his rope.

Analysis to prevent this

Now how do I prevent something like this in the future? For one, this isn’t the first something like this has happened — I had a very close call with my friend Sean in Thailand where he was trying to lower off a rappel. You can read more about it here:

Chiang Mai day 2

I just re-read my reflections from that incident, and I would like to say a year later, I think I do follow them. I do do buddy checks. I do have 2 points of safety. I do tell people to put their rappel extension through both leg loops(I actually taught Megan this one just yesterday!). So I’m glad I take my own advise seriously.

Now onto what happened here.

This incident has my questioning my ability to lead other people on these types of trips — people are putting their trust in my, and their lives in my hands(literally). I keep letting them down with foolish mistakes like this. This one especially foolish. If I had just thought for a few more seconds about the consequences of my actions, something like this could have been prevented. I would have realized — 1 the backpack was still on the rope, and that 2 Megan was attached to said rope.

Saying to myself, “just think about your actions a bit more before you do them” is not going to solve this for two reasons.

1. It’s hard to form a habit to “think more” at the right times, and it’s too vague of a rule to follow to prevent this.
2. Even if I had thought about it longer, I had forgotten that the backpack was on the line to begin with. How this slipped my mind I don’t know, but thinking more might not have solved this.

Regardless, I will try to be more mindful about the things I do when I go climbing. There’s many times I have put a helmet down and it’s rolled off a cliff, or I’ve kicked rocks that almost landed on people’s heads(that was less than a month ago), or other things of that nature. I’ve formulated rules to follow to prevent these specific things(never take off your helmet, be very careful when you’re stepping around on a climb above people), but the root cause is not being mindful.

Eric had a good suggestion on how to prevent these situations: any time you’re doing something you haven’t done at least 5 times, think about it 5 times.

This is pretty good advise. I’ve built an anchor more than 5 times, so even though it’s crucial to get right and dangerous if you fuck it up, I’m confident in my abilities, so I’m not going to do it 5 times.

Lugging up a backpack is something I have NOT done 5 times, so I should definitely think about it 5 times. Or in this case, when I unclip something from a clove hitch when I have another rope that I’m belaying someone on, I should think about it for more than 5 seconds.

Another rule, which I think might be easier to follow than being “mindful” is to be very careful around loading/unloading systems.

In the case with Sean, he was loading a system to check if it was ready to rapell down — obviously it wasn’t, and it could have been fatal if it wasn’t.

In this case, I was unloading a loaded system(the backpack was loading the system).

It intuitively makes sense — if you’re loading a system, you’re most likely putting something into the system for the system to protect — most often this is your life you are loading. If you’re unloading a loaded system — well you better have a damn good reason, because there’s a reason the system is loaded(probably to prevent something from falling).

And to make sure this rule actually checks things that might actually be problematic, I have to make sure I do basic safety checks — that is, to test a system(load it) before fully committing whatever it is to that system. And when unloading a system — though I can’t think of many cases where you’d want to unload a system that is actively being loaded — make sure that there’s nothing depending on that system that you don’t want to fall.

In a greater sense though, I just need to be more mindful. This is something that I not only struggle with in the rock climbing world, but even in my day to day life.

I also want to believe that because we were rushed for time, I was trying to be a bit more quick about things, and never giving things the full amount of thought they deserved — if we hadn’t been so rushed, I think I would have spent more time about this problem. But in the moment I was still hoping we could complete machete ridge, and I wanted to get Eric down as quick as possible so he could get to the backpack. So I wasn’t thinking at my full capacity.

Futhermore, there is a few more rules about leading in general that I want to follow.

For 1, we’re not carrying big-ass backups up a route anymore. Tom’s friend Collin suggested something which intuitively makes sense to me — the leader carries no backpack, the follower carries one. And nothing too big, maybe just a 22 liter. A 2nd 70m rope would *not* fit in 22 liter pack — we’d have to ask around on how people carry this second rope. But some people suggest just to trail it off the end of your gear loop while leading, or just tie into both ropes at the same time. These both make sense — but if this incident has shown me, maybe I should get some professional advise on how to do this, rather than just reading some internet forms.

Next, I don’t want to do 3 people for an adventure like this. It was too many people, and it really slowed us down.

Finally, if I’m going to do an adventure like this, I want to be able to make sure the other person with me is capable of moving *quickly*. What I mean by this is they’re competent in following and doing all the things required for following, belaying, ect — I shouldn’t have to remind them how to do any of this stuff, and anything they do, in terms of setting things up, rope management, ect, should be muscle memory. This also applies to me — obviously lugging a backpack up the side of a hill is not muscle memory.

Once this criteria are met, I’ll try again on Machete ridge. There’s also another “traverse” in Pinnacles that’d I love to try.

Perhaps I’ll try climbing around with a backpack and trailing a rope just to get a better feel for these things.

One more note I’d like to make about time management: this trip had horrible time management. I think I was afraid to tell Eric and Megan that we should wake up REALLY early and ideally be at the crag at sunrise. In a perfect world, I’d have asked them to wake up at 4am with me, and been more strict about leaving the camp on time. That would have given us the chance to arrive at the crag at 7:30, and may be prevented us from being rushed, and perhaps would have prevented “the incident”. I think I need to treat rock climbing with a bit more respect — it can be a “leasuirely” activity, but trips like this need to be respected as a hardcore alpine-like activity, with alpine starts, and an “this is dangerous, respect the mountain” alpine mindset.

To summarize:

1. Be mindful
2. Be careful and thoughtful when loading/unloading systems(and question why you’re unloading a system)
3. Better time management, more strict about time management
4. No large backpacks, no backpacks for the leader!
5. Get more efficient/comfortable with belaying/clipping/rope management
6. Only 2 people on complicated trips
7. Only experienced/comfortable people on complicated trip.

So now that the incident has been summarized, onto the rest of the day…

The adventure continues

TBD. I’ll work on this tomorrow.