I am instructing the crag course this weekend. Saturday I team up with Aaron and Jeff on R&D. Arron led pitches 1 and 3, Jeff led the other 2. I’d hang out in the middle. We topped out in 4 hours, which is pretty good for a 3 person team. The 2nd and 3rd pitches are a little wet. Jeff went off route on the last pitch and we climbed the lichened slab without good pros. It feels a little stiffer than the usual route. It’s probably a 5.7 friction slab and s pretty sustained for a long stretch. After we parted I went to check out the route I’d be climbing on Sunday since I haven’t done it before. A group of 6 are climbing it. By the time I got to the base they were already done. Loni wanted to check out a bunch of people at Castle Rock so I gave her a ride. After we parked she asked me if I wanted to climb to logger’s ledge instead of taking the trail. I repied “why not” so off we went. We quickly geared up and started on The Fault. I led the chimney to a ledge beyond the rappel tree. I used a fixed piece, a mid sized nut and a red metolius cam to build an anchor and brought up Loni. She then led the second pitch (1st pitch of Catapult) which has a few 5.8 moves. I followed and cleaned. The 3rd pitch is low 5 so I didn’t even bother getting the rest of the rack. I ended up placing one piece (the red cam I brough up). Loni followed and we broke down everything, coiled rope. 1 exact hour. We are pretty fast considering this is the first time I have climbed with Loni.

Sunday, I paired up with John and climbed Ground Hog Day. I already scouted the approach the day before and got enough beta info from the gang. So the job was pretty easy. I let John lead all 3 pitches. He was a bit nervous on the first pitch and got progressively better. We climbed and rapped in 3 hours, which is pretty good for a new trad leader.