Romping In the Rain

Rain, rain go away.

We have gear to take away.

Sundown is the perfect place to climb on the weekends. No crowds, routes that stay dry in the rain, and easy access off the Conway side of the Kancamagus highway. The path leading to the cliff is subtle enough that casual hikers usually don’t stray too close.

The classics start at 5.11c for sport routes, so you won’t find any community groups in matching helmets lined up to try top roping for the first time. It also means that for non-5.13 climbers like myself, the warm-up route is your first project of the day. There are easier trad routes on the upper cliffs, dipping as low as 5.4 in grade, as well as several mixed sport and trad routes, with bolted cruxes.

If there are three groups on main cliff it’s a busy day. You might have to wait in line for Eyeless in Gaza, the 12b four-star-on-Mountain-Project mega classic, but there’s always three-and-a-half star 12a Romper Room a one minute walk away. The other climbers you’ll meet are either seasoned locals or long-time returners who know that Rumney is too jam-packed on a Saturday to to lie out all of one’s gear yard sale style and project a 2+ star classic for the day. The crag dog to climber ratio is much higher than average, and most of the canines are friendly.

While much of main cliff does stay dry in the rain, it is important to note that in torrential downpours Romper Room becomes a river. Project Dikenstein and Eyeless all you want during precipitation events, but get your gear off Romper Room before a stream overtakes the upper crimps.

Let me tell you how I gained this vital piece of Sundown rain beta:

Unfortunately for us, the cliff blocked the approaching storm clouds. Tristan had gotten himself stuck at the top of one multi-pitch trad route, so Matt and Tim had gone to rescue him with the 70m. Erin, Tommy, and I were finishing cleaning Dikenstein when it started to sprinkle, beginning the race to gather our draws before everything became soaked. It was pouring by the time Tommy, the only one of the three of us strong enough to lead 12a, was figure-eighted in. Water cascaded off the cliffs around us, and the top of Romper Room was soaked. So, naturally Tommy went for it.

After pulling onto the upper face, Tommy was stuck. There were streams running down every key crimp and the draws were too far apart to solely aid climb. A soaked Tristan, Matt, and Tim trio hiked by and informed us they were on their way out. Having tweaked her ankle on an earlier whipper, Erin opted to head out as well. It was another two-man adventure.

Twenty-seven tries later, Tommy still hadn’t made any progress or given up. For some odd reason, I was incredibly happy to be belaying in the rain. I was outside, the mist rolling in was beautiful, the water pouring off the surrounding cliffs gave one the feeling of being in the center of a waterfall, and I’d remembered my rain jacket. My sole concern was that Tommy was getting more frustrated with each failed attempt.

After eleven-and-three-quarters more tries, Tommy decided to dirt. We waited out the rain, me climbing up the ropes and traversing the bottom of the cliff while trying to convince Tommy I was perfectly and unreasonably happy in our current situation. Worry about getting the gear off wasn’t going to make anything dry out faster, and worst-case scenario we’d have to make a detour the next day to get it back.

Toward the end of the rainstorm, the sun came out. There was probably a rainbow somewhere and maybe even over the climb as Tommy rescued the gear through a mix of aid climbing and gripping damp, but no longer stream-like, crimps. However, I’ll never know for sure on the rainbow front, as the cliff and surrounding trees blocked most of the sky from view (it’s just a nice idea, so I added it in).

Laden with all of our gear plus most of Erin’s, we hiked out in the sunshine, ready to trek to Shell Pond and climb again the next day, all draws accounted for.

The Adventure Started

A wise man from the documentary 180 Degrees South once said:

“The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong – that’s when adventure starts” -Yvon Chouinard

By that definition, Lincoln Woods was a small adventure.

“Or we could go tonight,” was Tommy’s response to my reiterating our plan to spend the night in beds at home and set out early in the morning to explore the boulders of Lincoln Woods. I was not packed and spent the next forty minutes throwing gear peanut butter, and graham crackers into various bags. I then spent the following thirty minutes trying to locate my wallet, forgotten on top of the beer fridge.

It was after 9pm when we typed “1 Twin River Road” into TomTom the GPS and began the two-hour trek from New Hampshire to Rhode Island. Everyone, meaning Matt and Luke, had ditched our adventure, Luke for parties and the convenience of nearby Pawtuckaway and Matt for icing pulled shoulder muscles. Tommy and I were two-manning it to Lincoln.

The plan was to scope out the park and find a place to set up the four-man tent I was borrowing from the Outing Club gear closet. After two hours, several missed turns, and the several more U-turns we arrived at the park overly excited and completely naïve to the potential dangers lurking behind the picnic tables.

I have since heard that one does not enter the park at night. Ever. Especially not if one of your pair is a 107 pound female. Its location outside of Providence, Rhode Island means the same unspoken rule for Central Park applies: don’t enter after dark. * So, naturally we began exploring immediately, wearing headlamps alerting anyone wishing to harm us of our exact location. Over an hour was spent trying to locate different groups of boulders, which we referred to as letters of the alphabet corresponding to the lettered pictures in the guidebook. After discovering many paths not on the guidebook map, walking in circles always leading back to the same spray-painted rock, and climbing up several down-climbs in sneakers, we headed back to the car.

While driving around the park looking for the perfect place to toss some crash pads for the night, a friendly park ranger informed us that if we were not “actively fishing” we needed to leave the park; since, it was after midnight and clearly closed. Not having thought to bring our fishing gear, we left.

There are no campgrounds in the vicinity of Lincoln Woods, though the GPS did try to bring us to Camp Road, which had few trees, dilapidated housing arrangements, and did not look like a safe place to park for the night. This left us with the option of driving around aimlessly in hopes of finding a safe parking lot to crash in for the night. I chose all of the darkest, sketchiest looking spots behind old warehouses, and Tommy continuously talked me out of sleeping somewhere we would likely be mugged.

In the end, we settled on the brightly lit parking lot of “Twin River,” the largest casino I’ve seen in my life. It looks like five Sidney Opera houses all connected in the rear with the front doors facing outward.

“There is no way I’m fitting in there,” Tommy said, surveying our sleeping situation. We’d folded down the back seat of the Saab and crammed in the Five Ten Organic as a mattress. All of our clothing, additional crash pads, and Tommy’s longboard were shoved in the front. Miraculously, we both fit and spent the next few hours trying to sleep while security vehicles circled the lot and angry drunkards several spaces over swore about losing their friend.

I awoke from a short nap and rolled over expecting to see Tommy asleep or at least with his back turned toward me. Instead, I found him staring intently at the Organic, nose nearly to crash pad. “I have not slept,” he stated, overemphasizing each word in frustration, surveying the quickly lightning horizon.

I disagree with the claim that “America runs on Dunkin,” as I do not see most of their customers running regularly. However, as sleepy climbers looking to send, we certainly climbed on Dunkin. A gigantic iced coffee and a bagel each later, we were half functioning, Tommy on an hour of sleep and me on closer to two.

We stayed in the park for eleven hours, adventuring to every area, B to P, in the guidebook. We climbed till our pads were shredded off and then switched to climbing trees and v0-s.

Late in the day, we found a small corner of fall in the park. The beech trees were prematurely yellow for August, the breeze between the boulders was cool, and it even had the characteristic smell of rotting leaves. I’m always psyched to climb, but I’ve never been so excited for a season of flannels, hot apple cider, and scaling rocks. 

*Despite our fortunate escape from great adventure/catastrophe while in the park at night, please do not repeat our mistake and reserve night bouldering sessions for safer locations such as Pawtuckaway State Park.

In the Beginning...

The transition from gym to outdoor climbing can be a difficult and unfortunately seldom one for new climbers first introduced to gym culture. I admit, I started out as a gym rat, dragging myself up V0s after joining the University of New Hampshire climbing team on a whim. I wasn’t fast enough to run Division 1 cross country, and I have less than zero coordination abilities for team sports, so trying to climb up textured holds screwed into a wall seemed like a good option. I loved scaling the slimy plastic of the local gym, not knowing that there was anything better. I’d hiked Rattlesnake Mountain the summer before, but I had no idea what the cliffs of Rumney below me had to offer—or that they exited at all.

My first experience outdoors was a rough one. I had the flu, but I didn’t want to back out on my first outdoor trip with the UNH climbing team. Not yet having my own shoes, I rented a worn, unaggressive pair of Mad Rocks from the UNH gym and boarded the bus for Pawtuckaway State Park. 

Thirty minutes and a long walk down a dirt path later, I found myself by the boulders of “Round Pond,” where I was supposed to warm-up. Unfortunately for me, the “warm-up” route, a classic V0, fittingly named “classic,” was the hardest climb I’d attempted to date. Where were the feet? (Something I still ask myself every time I climb at Pawtuckaway). V0s inside consisted of gigantic jugs that I could wrap my whole hand around and then use like ladder rungs to step on with my feet. Not outside. There was one jug high up that I had to “paste” one foot on the face of the rock to reach. I tried it. I fell. I tried it again. I wimped out. I watched other people attempt it and became jealous when they sent. I tried several more times and finally topped out. We moved on to other areas where I attempted a few more routes before succumbing to flu-induced exhaustion and the pull of lying on mats instead of falling onto them. I enjoyed the nature-filled afternoon, but I didn’t understand why others would get excited to subject themselves to the experience each week.

I bouldered outside one other day that fall, but I was unprepared for the cold weather and spent most of the day jogging around to stay warm and lying on sun-warmed mats. I still didn’t understand why everyone liked grabbing onto cold rocks so much; all that happened for me was a slow numbing of my hands that prevented me from feeling any hold by the time I was attempting to top out, thus usually resulting in down climbing.

Luckily for me, many of my friends, including the guy I began dating, were climbers who loved climbing outside always, even when Pawtuckaway was under three feet of snow. When there was too much fresh powder to climb, they took me on hikes to look for boulders, and, when the first few boulders became climbable again, we donned snow boots, winter jackets, and crash pads to freeze our fingers off on V0s. The snow banked up against the rocks forming a perfect crash pad slide when we fell, creating the only setting where I could successfully take out my large guy friends by knocking their feet out from under them when I fell. I alternated taking warm-up runs and doing core obsessively to retain feeling in my hands and feet between climbs. I was slowly gaining an appreciation for climbing, though I can’t say I enjoyed the feeling of my hands freezing to the rock, even if it provided excellent grip.

I liked climbing enough to spent spring break of 2014 in Alabama scaling the rocks at Horse Pens 40 and returned to Durham, New Hampshire, wondering why it was so cold and why I couldn’t walk ten feet from my tent to play on the most condensed rock jungle gym I’d laid eyes on. I was officially hooked. Outdoors was better. Plastic was fake and only to be used for strength training during torrential downpours.

Since then I’ve spent as much time and money as possible on climbing. I boulder, sport climb, follow on multi pitch trad, attempt to plug gear on 5.6s, top rope through the draws on my seasoned climbing friend's projects, and think all sunny days are for climbing and rainy days are for overhanging routes.

I aim for this blog to be a collection of adventures, lessons I’ve learned, funny things I’ve experienced, contemplations on random things climbing, and whatever else I happen to type up. I’m still a baby climber, so don’t expect heaps of seasoned climber wisdom. This is not an instruction manual, but a collection of words about climbing, but I hope you'll enjoy at least some of them between days at the crag.