Intimidation and head games!

Well this weekend I ate some humble pie.... Steph and I went to Marshfield for some serious granite climbing.  We had been to this cliff and climbed once before and I remembered it as being big but I forgot how awesome it really is.  You drive to Groton which is the middle of nowhere VT and then get on an old logging railroad bed that is now a road and drive 2 miles until you get to a spur road.  The road gets progressively worse so I just stop where there is a good pull off and don't beat on my truck too much. 

From there it is a half an hour hike on logging roads, faint trails and across an old beaver type flow area. The cliff is between 300 and 700 feet tall in places and has some really good slabs, faces, and features on it but it is exploratory type terrain.  Because it is so tall you can see a bolt line going up the cliff and think all the climbing will be bolts but then you get to pitch two and find you need gear.  The rock also can change as you go up so it can go from grainy to smooth slabs or holds to no holds.  All of this adds to the commitment.

When I first looked at the weather in the morning I saw that the percent chance of rain had gone up to 50% from 9-4pm so when it got cold briefly I questioned if I should start up the mossy slab. The sun came out a few minutes later and Steph was saying I should go so we went for it. 

I picked a slab that was close to the trial in where it met the cliff just thinking it would be a nice long moderate with a chance to explore and really see the cliff. 

I started up a relatively clean but with some lichen that looked like it would vanish as I went up.  It ended up being about 5.7 with one hard move at the bottom and was 4 bolts over about 110 feet so it was a little run out. For the last ten feet getting to the first ledge which was full of branches and leaves and was a little heady on lead since I have only been climbing in well travelled areas lately.  Steph made short work of the slab on toprope and so I started off exploring the sections above when I was back on belay. 

It turned out to be another slab pitch after doing some high angle leaf crawl/climbing on lichen to get to the clean stuff again.  As I was going up the rock got cleaner and cleaner but the rope drag got pretty bad and the bolts got really spaced out even though the climbing got harder. The rock also got pretty smooth.  The bolts started traversing to the right and they had some space so I just kept telling myself I would make it to the next one and see not knowing the grade or anything else. 

After 4 bolts on pitch two like that and around 100 feet I was heading out and feeling bad so I rested at a stance and tried to talk myself into the rest and had no luck.   We bailed..... It was a neat day and we had the whole cliff to ourselves.  There is so much adventure climbing there and so few people show up to do it. This is one area that is so close to home for me that I have to start getting out here more.   I guess humble pie never tasted so good!