My first outdoor lead

It is a great experience to lead your first route outdoors. It is super exciting and super scary at the same time. It is even scarier when you have never led even indoors before. And don’t even ask me what happens when it is a 11A.

Last weekend I visited the Castle Rock State park in the peninsula. It is a great place for climbing outdoors in the bay area. I have been there a few times for bouldering. It has some of the most amazing boulder problems in the bay area. It is definitely my favorite place to climb. The only disadvantage is that it is a little far from San Francisco (~1.5 hr drive). I was invited to join Michael and Norman who live in Mountain View to go rope climbing at Castle Rock and I was super excited.

Norman and Michael have been climbing outdoors for more than a year now. They taught me some of the basics of sport climbing like clipping, setting up anchors and cleaning anchors. They were super chill and lent me their gear as I had no useful gear with me. My first lead was a 5.8 on the South Face of the Indian Rock. It was a very chill climb and I actually made it even easier (like 5.7) by starting from the cave on the left. When I got to the top and set up the anchor I climbed a little bit to see the awesome view. It was a great start to my life of lead climbing.

After that we climbed a few routes near by and then we ran in to this rock next to the Indian rock. It had bolted routes by it was not to be found in my guide book.We all decided to give it a try (without knowing the grade of the problem). When I got on the wall Michael had already clipped the first bolt. So it was not very scary. The crux at the bottom is to get over this ledge by throwing a heel over it. It was very similar to some of the boulder problems in the gym and suddenly I was cruising up this route. I precariously clipped the second bolt. Then the route got very difficult. I had to take a break before I managed to get to the top. I set up the anchor and lowered down. It felt amazing. I was very happy to have led a very hard route.

What I did not know at that time was I had led a 11A - Baby Fat. Michael found this later and sent us an email. It definitely made my day. I had so much fun climbing with these guys that I have started to get some gear and planning the next trip. I have found a few good climbs in North Bay and also some cool routes in Castle Rock.

Until next time.