We spent the last weekend in April at the CDT Trail days in Silver City. The prior weekend we saw signs for it and go very excited to learn about the CDT and meet some thru hikers. The event did not disappoint. We spent two days learning about the CDT, hiking in the desert, checking out new gear, meeting awesome people and getting inspired. It was time for us to move on and we drove north to Albuquerque for a day to replace my helmet then back south to Box Canyon for some rock climbing.
view from the top of a climb
For our rock climbing adventures I research using Mountainproject.com. They have an amazing site that makes it easy to find climbs and I cache the areas we want on my phone. The downside is that sometimes the location description depends on you knowing the wall. The saving grace is that we can often use the photos to identify the rocks. Anyway, this time we were unable to find the first wall I saved. We skipped to the second, I found it more easily. I lead a 5.7 climb which I bailed on... it was a full on breakdown. I started out feeling confident and ended up in a ball crying and wanting to get back down. Matthew realized I have never taken a fall on a sport climb and it was high time for me to experience it so I can get over my fear. I am a good climber and there is no reason for me to not complete a 5.7 sport lead. It was my own fear that was holding me back. What I haven't mentioned is on this wall the rock was a bit crumbly. There were holds that moved, pieces of rock all over the wall that had already broken off.. so it didn't give me much confidence in the rock. Anyway Matthew did the climb, finished it and set up a top rope and I did it and completed it, learning how easy it could have been from a different approach he took.
at the top of the first 5.7 climb
The next climb was a 5.8 that he lead and I followed, thinking how scary it seemed and would have been if I were leading. We only did those two climbs that day because we spent a while trying to find the first climbing wall and I took a while to finally bail on the 5.7 climb.
I'm not sure what I did but the next day my lower back was really hurting. We took an off day, stayed at a campsite all day working on projects and playing with the new alcohol stove we bought at the CDT trail days event. I also did a lot of stretching, yoga, got a massage from Matthew and took some ibuprofen for my back.
We went back to climbing but this time went to a different wall. It was easy to find and we got started much earlier. We started the same as the previous climb day, with me leading a 5.7. I started out just fine and after I was clipped in to the second bolt and just a little above it Matthew made me jump. It took me a few seconds to let go but I did it and it was so ridiculously fine. It gave me a lot of confidence to complete the climb and it felt good. I completely cleaned the climb and then Matthew lead it and did a couple of falls as well. He said we should have done this a long time ago. Oh well. He set up a top rope and we did the climb next to it, which would have been a trad 5.7 climb. We took the opportunity to just mess around on the climbs and try different moves. All this time and we haven't really worked on getting to know a climb and trying different approaches. It was really fun to play around on the wall, even trying to not use our hands at the start of one climb (to work on our balance and because it was a super easy start). I was pretty worn out and my toes were aching but Matthew wanted to do one more climb. He lead a 5.8 and it was tricky but he enjoyed it. I attempted it but my arms were already pretty tired and toes were hurting a lot (the aggressive climbing shoes I have are like wearing ballerina shoes), I backed out of it and we rested the next day.
For our rest day we took a drive to see the V.L.A. (Very Large Array) Antennas that were featured in the movie Contact, among other things. It was neat but not all that impressive really. I mean it's really cool what they are doing and able to see but the museum was not all that informative... we realized it was made more for children and if they were to explain more of how things work it would probably be too complicated. From there we made our way to Pie Town and had ourselves a New Mexico Apple pie.
New Mexico apple pie with green chili's and pine nuts, YUM
We returned to Box Canyon, choosing a new wall to climb. I lead a 5.7 with no trouble, then we moved on to a 5.9 that Matthew lead and I climbed. He then did two more climbs that I coud not complete. One was a 5.10a, ok out of my league anyway.. the other was a 5.9+ and I think I could have done it if I wasn't already worn out from attempting the 5.10a. Both climbs I really tried and just ended up wearing out my arms. Still it was a good workout and good practice on a few moves I'm not good at ie lean backs. We had a blast and are going to climb this wall again tomorrow. After that we head to Albuqurque area to do more climbing, hiking and exploring.
Rappelling down on the 5.10a climb
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