This past weekend Lisa and I ventured on south to spend a weekend on the steep basalt crag of Rat Cave. We started on Friday and after getting close to onsighting the 'warm up' I tried a couple of other lines. One line I like was Shitfire 5.13b/c. This line starts up a good 5.12a and veers straight up some steep bulges. After going clip to clip I managed all the moves but the route was gonna be a race against the clock. Lisa then sent the 5.12b second go and returned to her propaganda-esc 12c.
We came back on Sunday depumped and armed with beta from the locals. It was nice. The weather was just cool enough and after receiving the correct sequences managed a send of shitfire 3rd go of the day. The route comes down to big moves off of pinches, underclings, and the ocasional sloper and crimp. The blockiness lends itself to many, many drop knees and these were key to the send. Another thing we learned is it is the norm to stick clip the first two bolts here. I also sticked clip a pre placed draw for the first time, on the 7th try! Lisa made great progress on Shitfire and she'll be returning to the crag all fall. I'm planning on returning too later this ummer to finish up some of the other good lines. If you like steep and bouldery, this is the place for you. But there is loose rock, trains yards away, a highway in the background, rats...
Also, Dom, Lisa and I meandered up to Little Si yesterday. Oval was wet so I worked my way up Gerbil Rising 13c and was able to get my beta back and could everything except for the Flatliner crux. I'm psyched to send this by the end of Aug. Dom is also ready for a change so for the next couple weeks we'll be venturing out to some new crags and try some new stuff!
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