Intro to climbing - getting our friends hooked ;-)

We went up to Sacramento to spend some time with friends of ours who we have threatening to take climbing for - probably years now. Our plans to go explore the 'world's largest corn maze' were dashed by crappy weather, so we took them to Pipe Works in Sacramento instead.

We instructed them in the safety basics - how to tie in as a climber, how to belay, what things to check for, etc. And got them up on the wall. They both really enjoyed it, and took a brochure home with them to contemplate gym membership. Mission accomplished! :-D

We've been to pipeworks one time before, and the last time we were there I was not terribly impressed with what they had to offer. They hardly had any beginner climbs, and that was my level at that time. This time, they had many more beginner and intermediate climbs, and I actually found the few climbs I did to be pretty interesting.

I did a slabby 5.9 (clean) as a warmup and a preliminary demonstration. I did a tall 5.10a corner climb (clean), and a tall 10a climb with a fun/funky dihedral feature which i really struggled to get past (several falls) - all because i just couldn't quite bring myself to trust all of my weight to my right foot and step up on a tiny foothold at a slightly strange angle. I feel a little bad because one of our friends was the one belaying me, and - through no fault of her own - she was having a hard time keeping up with the slack***. And it's really hard to be patient with a new learner when you're struggling with your own fear thresholds, so I'm afraid i was a bit snappish :-(. Daniel was there on the ground to help her though, and she did a great job.

Overall I felt like I had a pretty good climbing day, and it was a lot of fun to introduce our friends to the fun that climbing can be.

***Weirdly, due to the damp weather, some ropes were just not feeding through the pullys as they should and you really had to muscle the rope through. It was particularly interesting when you got stuck trying to come back down.