Au Revoir Mon Ami

This picture illustrates one of my happier moments with my lost friend - butterfly chain. Yes, she was technically known as a 'Daisy Chain', but she was always a butterfly chain to me.

Last Saturday, I experienced what climbers refer to as an "Epic Repel" at the City of Rocks on the Classic Route of the Lost Arrow. It was a wonderful 5.7 climb with great holds and views of the City. I was able to use Butterfly after I finished the first pitch and then gave the Beauance a belay as he ascended the 2nd and final pitch of the climb.

After we were both at the summit, and ready to make our repel descent, we had to make the decision of who would go down first. Since this would be a hanging repel, there could be some chances of something going wrong, so the person who went first would have to clear the way. So down he went as I waited at the top. Before the Beauance went down, he ran through what I would need to do in order to get ready for the repel. As soon as I heard, "Off Repel", I set to work preparing myself.

Everything was set, and it was time to go over the edge and down to the ground. I lowered myself and decided to move my lockers to the lower chain link. Unfortunately, as I did this my weight was transferred from the repel to my daisy chain. Ordinarily, this would not have been a show-stopping situation, but with only 2-3 feet of rock wall ahead of me, I ended up lowering myself too low and was unable to unlock the beaner from the daisy chain. And so the epic repel began...

During the next 45 minutes to 1 hour of hanging from the top of the Lost Spire, I had to figure out how to detach myself from the daisy chain since I had given up all hope of getting the daisy chain unclipped from the chains. I tried to reverse repel to get myself higher, but at the end of climbing 6 routes my arms were tired so I didn't have the strength. I had some extra beaners clipped to my harness, so I was able to "climb" up the daisy chain in order to get the locking beaner off of my harness. Whew! Now I just had to get the beaners off and then repel down. The first beaner was fine with my plan, but when it came to getting off the second beaner, I ran into issues. It wouldn't come off the daisy chain's link! I struggled for a while and then FINALLY I was free and ready to repel down!!

The repel was nothing compared to what I had endured on that rock. During my epic "hang time", I had the Beauance put me on fireman so my hands would be free to undo the beaners. In the end, this countered against me each time I tried to get higher on the rock. I did end up slipping a couple of times and swung across the rock which scraped me up pretty bad. Also split the skin from the thumb nail during the numerous times I was trying to unclip.

I was able to get a parting shot of my beloved butterfly chain as she blew in the wind at the summit of the Lost Arrow rock. I felt awful leaving her, but I felt more awful being stuck to her on that rock! I hope someone finds her and gives her a good home... she's a hard worker and knows how to do her job [sniff, sniff].

I'll always remember you Butterfly Chain! You were my first and no other will be able to replace you in my memories!!

Other than losing my fair-weathered friend, the City was a wonderful weekend adventure! We did two great climbs on Tommy Knocker Wall: Lady J, 5.8 with 2 stars and Tommy Knocker, 5.10a with 2 stars. After Tommy Knocker, we headed over to Mushroom Rock and did two more climbs: North Face Left, 5.7 with 2 stars and North Face Right, 5.9 with 2 stars. Interesting note about these two climbs... the guide book showed there would be chains at the top of the climb for us to use; however, those chains were NOT there so the Beauance had to use some chains at the way top of the rock (these chains weren't even in the book). This caused some MAJOR drag on the way down, but was doable :-)

The weekend was full of adventures, lessons, and relaxing time spent with the most wonderful man in the history of the world! Can't wait to head down there for next year's climbing season!