climbing the mountain of youth

I spent Sunday at Cragmont Park in Berkeley for Stacey's birthday/climbing/potluck, themed "Climbing the Mountain of Youth".

It was a fun-packed day -- friends, climbing, and birthday cake! There was a huge group of us out there, and climbs set up from 5.6 to 5.10a, a little bit of something for everyone. Stacey's friend Mark had set up two toprope anchors, and Kristian and I set up the third one.

I made it up 3.5 climbs. I started out on Undercling Crack (5.7), then ventured on to Moss Slab (5.10b). These two climbs were on the anchor I set up, and hey, I'm still alive! After that, I made it up halfway up Farewell to Arms, at which point I decided the satisfaction that would come from finishing that climb wouldn't be worth making my shoulder injury worse. My last climb was a 5.8 slab... good fun!

Some other highlights:

- Watching Stacey climb Farewell to Arms... with a floral lei on her head!

- Birthday cake! Delicious and baked by Martha. The candle lighting was also a highlight, as the table almost got set on fire. Giggles abounded as water bottles were stamped upon the match that didn't quite go out.

- Chatting with Stacey's friend Felix, who was visiting from Colorado. You think it's crazy that I run marathons? He's done a couple of Ironmans and some ultramarathon distance runs. Not to mention he's doing marathons in 10 states this year! Of course... think how much more I could eat if I did stuff like that! Hmm... ;-)

- Listening to 11 year old Ryan tell us how people are multicellular organisms.

- Watching Ronnie levitate up Farewell to Arms. I think that climb took him like 10 seconds to do. So how does one turn off gravity, anyways?

- Rob's first time climbing outdoors... he did awesome!

- A surprise lesson on gear placement and anchor building, as well as an introduction to the equalette as a rigging method. A local climbing club was doing a class on that, but nobody showed up. Since the instructor was already there, he generously gave a lesson for those of us who were interested. Kristian, Mark, Cathleen, Jenny, and I stuck around for that.

Pictures are coming soon, I promise...