Jason, Brad, and I took off at o-dark thirty in the morning and headed west, stopped for a quick breakfast burrito break, and hit Reimers around noon.After high-centering the Neon on Reimer's gravel road a few times, we got all the gear together and headed for Dead Cat Wall. The crowd of climbers already roped and climbing and "Cold" was the word. We climbed a 5.10a route to warm up, but found our fingers frozen so quickly by the Limestone it was hard to even feel the rock by the top of the ascent.

So, we headed for sunlight on the grand "Mellineum Traverse" (5.10c?). Jason and Brad took turns leading this massive route across the top of an in-cut wall. From their point of view there was no rock below them. With up to ten feet between bolts, the fear factor of swinging had to play mind games with them. Falling straight down is one thing, but falling down and to the side is totally different. It's crazy how much harder it is to concentrate when fear creeps in. I took a sequence of picture of Brad moving across the wall, so I'll post those up soon.

Finishing the traverse they were pumped and I was ready to hit some lead climbing. So we took off passing the usual 8-Flake(5.8 classic) and Centipede(5.11?) crowds to the back wall. The route I first lead was only 5.8, but it helped a lot for the confidence to finish it. Leading is very different from top-roping! I also figured out from sagely advise of Eric Horst's 5.12 book how great down-climbing is for footwork!

Ready for some difficult routes, we headed for the back-back walls and found a gold mine! Jason started hopping around like a kid in a candy store checking out the rock and I locked eyes on a 5.10c route just to the left of "The Ant Trail" (5.11). If there was a route for learning how to fall on lead, this was my route. Jason stick-clipped the first bolt for me and I shot up and quickly got the next clip. Unbelieving that I was actually leading a 5.10c I'm feeling motivation and fear all at the same time. I gripped a few more ledges and huecos almost clipping the third bolt and blew two flats. Both hands just stopped gripping and I was on my way down. There's that distinct split-second when you lose control and the relaxed cat-like reflexes turn to rigid this-is-going-to-hurt flailing. After taking a rest, I headed back up, blew a flat and this time I caught my feet on a ledge going down leaving me dangling almost upside down. That was a bit unnerving. One last attempt with the dead limbs and I finally clipped the third bolt. Realizing I was in no shape to finish this route, Brad finished it off with two falls, some pumped forearms, and some ninja-climbing moves.

We left around 6, ate at Central Market, and hit the highway east back to SFA. By 9pm, Jason's 6 foot frame is contorted across the teeny back seat of my Neon dreaming of future bondo handholds and Brad is asleep sitting up. I had the honor of slapping my face, holding up my eyelids, and fighting that pre-sleep stage for the next 4 hours until that beautiful Nacogdoches sign appeared. It was all worth it.