Another cold day.

The weather promised to hold, at least until the afternoon.

5:30 am I wake, sip some coffee, and begin my trek downtown to meet Chris. We hop into his car, and we're in the parking lot at the Grand Wall just past 8am, to meet Tom and Scotty.

Our first real stop of the day is at Viper (V5); classic, which neither Tom nor I had sent. Scotty made it look easy, Chris insisted it was easy and then fell repeatedly, and then Tom and I both sent it in quite different styles--his, smooth and stable, mine with feet flying out behind me, but still holding on.

We moved from there to Skin Graft (V4), which looks obvious until you step onto it. We try at least six different sequences in every different way until we find one that works; a precarious cross right onto a shit foothold on the slab, step up, cross left to another (slightly better) hold, and match the left arête. Gently up to the crimp up high, and over.

At least that was the idea; I managed the first send, after slipping twice on the way up, yet still holding on. Later, Michelle shows up and points out that we took the somewhat scary ascent option. Fun!

Off to fight Superdyke again, the hardest V3 in Squamish. Chris has better beta and both he and Tom send it, but it eludes Scotty and I. I blame my reach, though I know that's a poor excuse; a woman shorter than me who passed by finished the route with relative ease.

Up to Practical Horsemen (V4), which while decent, didn't really grab me.

At this point we went up to join the others around Autobody (V8), Encore une fois (V11), and The Weasel (V8). That last problem developed quite a crowd, yet not a one of us was able to send it before the rain misted in. We tried to hold out as long as we could, but tiredness and rain make fearsome foes.