First Independent Venture

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

A-Lot, Ithaca, NY

            Rob, Alex and I didn’t make the final decision on whether to go climbing until fairly late the night before.  The weather didn’t look great (rainy and 40’s), but we opted to get the stuff so that if the weather was friendly, we could still go.  So at 9pm we all walked down to Bartels and convinced a slightly wary Chris that we weren’t going to kill ourselves with the gear he gave us.

            When Alex and I got out of class around noon, it was barely sprinkling, so we decided to go for it.  We hiked back into A-lot, found a suitable tree, and started throwing.  Retrieval was an annoying process, as the ground was a mess of snow and mud.  The throw weight buried itself at least 6 inches into the muck on every throw.  After some very close shots (and some way-off ones) Alex managed to get the lowest crotch.  We had a mess of a time hauling the rope up, since we didn’t do much repositioning with the zing-it and throw weight.  We got it through eventually, and I rigged up an anchor to give Alex a little refresher.  I set up a z-drag to test the rope (just in case, but really more for fun because the tree looked really sound).

Alex, enjoying the view from the top

            Alex jugged up first, and after he had a look around, I lowered him on the full circle.  He helped reset the anchor, then I went up.  I was working on sizing my new prussiks, so it was a slow process.  At the top, I switched to rappel, after some difficulty with my prussiks getting stuck.  I really want my own ascenders.

Rob switching to repel

            By this time, Rob was out of class and came to join us.  He took his turn at climbing, then Alex lowered him down.  I showed Alex how to transfer to rappel while hanging in free space, and he climbed up again so he could give it a shot, then Rob did the same.

            After that, we walked around a bit looking for another suitable tree, more for the throwing practice than anything.  When the sun was just starting to set, we quit throwing and went back to the tree we had climbed to blow our anchor and pack up.  The rope was all wet muddy, so once we got back to the basement and returned our other gear, we hung it up to dry.  All in all, I was thrilled with how the weather held out for us and amazed that we managed to successfully throw, rig, and climb a tree completely on our own.