Climbing at Annapolis Rock

It's the end of April, and it snowed today. What's wrong with this weather? I climbed at Annapolis Rock with Megan, Mikl Law, Ness, and Jen Linko. But it was so cold, Ness and Megan didn't climb (they both hurt their fingers), Linko toproped a 5.8 that Mikl set up for us. I toproped the 5.8, then belayed Mikl on Faint's Roof (5.10a), "the best route in Maryland" according to Mikl. And having hangdogged the route while clipping the gear Mikl already placed, I have to agree with him, it was a really fun, juggy route! Can't wait to get strong enough to come back one day and lead it.

Belaying Mikl

Hangdogging Faint's Roof (5.10a)

Climbing in Red Rocks - day 3 of 3

Today was my last day in Red Rocks, my flight back to the east coast leaves the next morning at 8:04. Today's grand plan was to link Johnny Vegas (5.6R, 4 pitches) and Solar Slab (5.6, 7 pitches) together into one long day of 11-pitch 5.6 fun. Well, that WAS the plan anyways. Megan's injured finger was hurting a little, and my fingers were starting to get sore from crimping too much on plastic. Also, Megan's friend Ben (who's also from Australia) asked last night to join us on some multi-pitch trad adventure. So we had a new plan: to climb Johnny Vegas as a team of three, then climb as much of Solar Slab as we can with a turnaround time of 3 pm (Megan flies back to DC on the same night).

So the plan was made, and the plan was set in motion. Figuring Monday would be less busy than Sunday, we set the alarm for 6 am.

Megan and Ben were already awake when I got up, they were listening to Tammy's story of the rest of the posse's legendary exploits last night: selling a cooler full of beer on the Strip, then gambling away the earnings. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the three of us had to miss all that for climbing.

We packed up all our belongings into the rental car while failing miserably at trying to be quiet. A short breakfast at a gas station later ("Boer, do you want a bite of this strawberry pie pastry thingy?" "Uhh..." *looking at the unnaturally bright red filling* "No, but thanks."), then we were back in Red Rocks. The weather was looking to be as nice as yesterday, sunny with just a thin string of cloud in the far distance, but it was kind of windy. I was getting a bit chilly just standing in the Oak Creek parking lot, which contained only two other vehicles at 7 am.

The approach to the Solar Slab Wall was twice as long as Mescalito, and ten times as treacherous. I mean, good god, we had even crossed into... *eerie music* THE WILDERNESS. There was a sign in the ground and everything. It looked very official. The fact that the inside of the wilderness did not look any different than the outside of the wilderness, does not matter. We were in the wilderness, and there was a sign to prove it.

At one point when we were scrambling onto a low boulder, Ben lost his balance, tilted precariously backwards, with arms swinging in the air like a windmill, no doubt on the brink of death from falling over... two feet, to the ground. Megan saved the day by sacrificing herself and bravely pushing Ben back in balance. Actually I think she just wasn't paying attention to where she was going and bumped into Ben from behind, but Ben didn't have to know that. He is now forever indebted to Megan for saving his life.

Another miracle, and by miracle I mean a demonstration of my supernatural navigational skills, brought us to the base of Solar Slab Wall without any detours. There was already one party on the first pitch of Johnny Vegas, the leader was just placing his first piece. That was fine by me, as I was breathing a little hard, sweating heavily, and my thighs were burning a little - results of my job driving a computer desk all day. I needed a little time to rest. This was fine by Megan too, who promptly lay under the sun and took a nap. Megan wasn't feeling well, so she would be just seconding today. Ben may swap leads with me if he felt confident leading on gear, but he hadn't lead trad since last year, and wasn't totally trusting gear on sandstone.

The leader of the other team climbed very fast and efficient, soon both the leader and the second were out of our way (and we never caught up to them for the rest of the trip). Just as I was racking up for the first pitch of Johnny Vegas, another party of five showed up at the base of Solar Slab Wall, apparently intending to climb Johnny Vegas as well. I quickly started on Johnny Vegas, with Ben belaying and Megan napping. I wanted to make way for the other party as fast as I could... which was not very fast at all.

Right off the deck, Johnny Vegas felt steeper than Cat in the Hat. Later I found out that in some guidebooks Johnny Vegas is listed as a 5.7. The moves were still within my limits from a pure climbing ability perspective, but mentally I was more challenged on Johnny Vegas than Cat in the Hat. There were more than one spot on the first pitch that I was a little scared, combined with a little harder route finding and less opportunity for gear placement, it took me quite a while to lead the first pitch.

Early in the pitch there was a section of left leaning crack on a half-moon shaped depression, which made the crack just slightly overhanging. The handholds were juggy but not very close together, and the footholds were a bit small. I thought it was a bit tricky to climb, and stopping to place gear was quite strenuous. I climbed through the overhanging section, stopping near the top to fiddle in a piece, but I was starting to get a little pumped. Eventually I gave up the placement and just climbed up, stopping to place something at the first good stance I got. Whew!

Higher up the pitch, that left leaning crack I've been following disappeared, left me with what appeared to be a fairly easy face with no gear placement. I climbed a bit too far left, in order to place a piece of gear in a crack. Then I had to climb right again to get back on route, which added tons of rope drag.

Eventually I made it to the anchors, feeling just a bit less than terrified. I set up the belay and started to bring Megan and Ben up at the same time, each climbing on one of the double ropes we were using. The belay was a double-bolted small ledge 160 feet in the air, which was more exposed than any of the belay stations on Cat in the Hat. The view was great, but I was mostly thinking about the tricky lead on the first pitch, wondering if I was up to the challenge on the rest of the route.

Megan and Ben were making steady progress on the first pitch, but then I heard Ben yell something (we only had two FRS radios. Megan had one, I had the other), and his weight came onto the belay device. He then yelled something else again, which I thought was, "Slack!" Thinking that he may have fallen on a blank section of rock and need to get lowered a bit to get back on, I started the a bit complicated procedure to feed out slack with an autoblocking belay device. "Boer, aren't you going to take up some slack?" Megan radioed up after a few minutes. "I thought Ben needed slack." "No, we need you to TAKE UP slack." "Oh." Happy that I didn't have to go through the whole shenanigan of lowering with a B-52, I started taking in slack again.

Megan and Ben on Johnny Vegas

When they finally reached the anchor, I found out that a foothold and a handhold had broken off at the same time when Ben was climbing, so he fell. Not a big fall since he was on a toprope, but now Ben was all sketched about leading on such "dodgy" rock, he would not be taking the lead on the second pitch.

Their story didn't instill confidence in me either, but if I didn't lead the next pitch, our only option would be to bail. I contemplated our next move. The second pitch started with a vertical crack in a small corner, at least it looked well protected. I decided to lead on. The corner was easy to climb, and took large cams and hexes very well. When the corner ended, I move right along a ramp, then I was lost. The face in front of me was low angle and looked easy, but there were no apparent gear placement. Looking for the path of less resistance with the most opportunity for pro, I traversed right around a blunt arete, and saw a low angle crack with jugs everywhere. But the rope drag had me stopped dead in my tracks, this was definitely not the route.

After a bit of up climb, down climb, right climb, and finally, left climb, I eventually got back on route, which followed a vertical crack to my left that was hidden from view by all the features on the rock. The rope drag was very bad because I had slung a knob far to my right. Rope drag and getting off route were fast becoming the theme of my leads on Johnny Vegas. The last section to the 2nd pitch belay was a bit runout, but somehow it didn't feel nearly as terrifying as the first pitch, and I was soon at the anchor belaying up Megan and Ben. The five person group behind us had gotten tired of watching me shaking on 5.6 moves and getting lost all over the place, by this time two of them had gone off to a different area to do something else, and three of them were climbing as a team on Bealah's Book, a 5.9 route to the left of Johnny Vegas. These guys were tough, I wonder if they use cactus as hairbrushes.

Two pitches down, two more to go. After leading the second pitch, my confidence was back, and I didn't try too hard in talking Ben into leading pitch three. I flipped the rope from my anchoring sling to Ben's sling, and off I went. Moving quickly, and with great efficiency I got myself lost again. Well, I take that back, I didn't get "lost", exactly. I knew very well where I had to go. The third pitch was supposed to be the most challenging pitch, right off the anchor there was a big run out slab to the right of a single bolt, 20 or 30 feet from the belay. I could see the bolt, how to get there was what I had trouble with. Going straight up from the anchor and traversing right to the bolt was 5.9 friction climbing, not something I'd like to try on lead. Traversing right would make it a runout 5.4ish slab, but just how far right? Well, the only way to answer this question was... by using scientific experiment! My hypothesis was that, by traversing as far right as I could, and eventually getting stuck somewhere, I would be able to empirically measure the theoretical right edge of Johnny Vegas third pitch. Plotting the distance from the belay station against the coefficient of Elvis Leg, and I could get a graph of rope drag vs. the "#%@#!" factor.

Of course, for any given scientific experiment to produce relevant data, you have to repeat it more than once. So in the name of science, I climbed up the first 30 feet of the third pitch, then down; up, and down; up... a total of three times. In the end, I found out that the only way not to get totally stuck by rope drag was not to traverse around the blunt arete, and just go straight up at the arete. The moves were very easy, in fact they were easier than the airy traverse.

After passing the bolt, the route then went up and right of an impressive looking overhang (glad I didn't have to pull over that directly). I traversed slightly left again once I was above the overhang, then following up a shallow right leaning crack. I was happily plugging gear into the crack when I heard a voice from above. "Hey." I looked up, it was the leader from the three-person team who was climbing Bealah's Book. They had gone a pitch ahead of me while I was playing with my little science project. I replied, "hello." "You know you have an anchor to your left, right?" "Really? That's interesting. Bolted?" "Yes." I poked my head around a low face to my left, and there it was, a two bolt anchor, and I was above it. DOH!! "Thanks!" I said, and started down climbing. Again. Cleaning gears from the crack. Which I had placed. Just two minutes ago.

Another traverse on low angle rock while fighting tons of rope drag, and I was at the anchor for the third pitch, bringing Megan and Ben up. The last pitch of the route was short, and went at 5.0 according to Supertopo. Ben finally felt hardcore enough to lead something, so I passed the rack to him, and plunked down on the belay ledge, finally able to relax a bit and enjoy the view. Ben led up the last pitch of Johnny Vegas, placing as much gear as he could, according to him. But I don't know... the 6 feet runout between the first piece and the second piece looked awfully scary.

Ben was at the last belay in no time, and quickly set up the belay to bring us up. Megan and I climbed this pitch with bare feet, because somehow she talked me into believing this would be a smart and fun thing to do. I guess it was fun... for her... to watch me suffering. My super sensitive feet with my baby soft skin did not like direct contact with rough sandstones and pointy knobs very well. I was wincing and whining on every step I took, while Megan was dancing around me laughing at my expense.

We were finally at the top, enjoying the fantastic view out to Las Vegas. It felt great to have climbed so high, nothing else was higher than us (and by "nothing else", I mean "everything else"). My watch read 1:30 pm. We coiled the rope, taking a short break to demonstrate the proper technique in making a huge pile of tangles with a set of double ropes. Ben's last lead still did not give him enough confidence to lead on this "sandcastle", as he referred to the rock quality. This meant that I would have to lead by msyelf if we were to push on, but I was pretty mentally spent from leading most of Johnny Vegas, and having to climb up and down more than a few times. We decided to at least scramble up to the base of Solar Slab and take a look at it.

We scrambled some 3rd class terrain up this huge terrace, which was really cool to look at, with bands of rock running horizontally across. Solar Slab looked like an awesome route, but the first half of the first pitch was 5.4 runout slab, and after leading Johnny Vegas, I was not particularly interesting in doing more runouts. So we decided to start rapping down Solar Slab Gully, saving Solar Slab for the future when we are faster climbers in better shape.

Ben above Johnny Vegas

Rappelling Solar Slab Gully was a fine adventure in canyoneering (or canyoning as them Australians would call it) with more trees and less water. It was when we started the first rappel of Solar Slab Gully I saw the two-person team from earlier, they were rapping from what appeared to be the top of Solar Slab. Man, they were fast. But at least they weren't able to catch up with us on the rappel. Ah ha! We had awesome rappelling powers. Going down Solar Slab Gully was quite straight forward, save for a bit of excitement when Ben and I thought Megan was dropping our rope through one of the rap anchors. But everything worked out in the end, Megan was not crazy, nor was she entirely evil, and we were back on the ground by 4 pm.

Reversing the treacherous approach, hiking out of *eerie music* THE WILDERNESS, we got back to the car, drove to Powerhouse Gym for a quick shower and a change of clothes, then met up with the Last of the Vegas Posse - Terence, Tammy, and Ming - similar to the Last of the Mohicans but with a hint of Asian flavor. We all decided to go to the Belagio for *happy music* THE BUFFET, which was excellent, especially the desserts.

After *happy music* THE BUFFET, Megan left with the Last of the Vegas Posse to the airport for their red eye flight back to the east coast. Ben and I were the Last of the Last of the Vegas Posse, and we wandered around the sin city aimlessly looking for stuff to keep us awake, occupied, and yet still financially sound. We settled for the free light show on the Old Strip. Ben, being the energetic young buck that he is, was totally ready to paint the town red... or gold... or whatever color he was thinking of. I, being an aging old man that I am, was totally beat and getting increasingly sleepy, as I had missed my afternoon nap. Finally around midnight, I told Ben that I couldn't stay awake anymore.

Thus I ended my adventure in Vegas by sleeping on the backseat of my rental, on the parking lot of a 24-hour Walmart. I'm a jet setter, I know. Ladies, ladies, please. Get a hold of yourselves, there are plenty of me to go around.

Climbing in Red Rocks - day 2 of 3

I woke up three minutes before 5 am, before my cellphone had the chance to go "beep beep beep!" Today Megan and I were to climb this easy classic trad route called Cat in the Hat, which is 6 pitches high and goes at 5.6. I got up from the living room floor of Terence's condo (feeling a bit stiff because I didn't bring a sleeping pad), cracked open the door to the room Megan was sharing with Tammy and five others (spread around the floor like a human body mine field), and whispered into the darkness, "Megan, it's time." She bounced out of the bed and was ready before I turned around. Man, that girl likes to climb!

We loaded up the rental car with our packs and a rack big enough to aid up the Nose in Yosemite, and took off for Red Rocks. We got to the gate with 5 minutes to spare before the opening of the park, and there were already eight cars lined up outside the gate.

The race is on! Lucky for us, only one of the eight cars ended up at the Pine Creek Canyon parking lot. But still, I was silently trying to get the gear out of the trunk as fast as possible while eyeing the other party in the parking lot with suspicion. Megan, being a nicer person than I am, simply asked them, "What are you guys climbing today?" "Dark Shadows. What about you?" "Cat in the Hat." Both parties visibly relaxed. I decorated myself like a climber's Christmas Tree, with every conceivable piece of climbing gear except for Big Bros (but only because I do not own any Big Bros... I'm sure if I do own them, they'd on my rack somewhere), and we started down the trail toward the easily recognizable formation called Mescalito, complete with sound effects as I stepped: clink, clunk, clink, clunk.

The approach, Mescalito in the background

I've been looking forward to climbing in Red Rocks for two months, constantly scouring the web for any related trip reports. Now a typical Red Rocks trip report goes something like this:

"We woke up at 5 am to beat the traffic on this easy classic route called 'Wheelchair Accessible' in U-B Lost Canyon. We were the first one in the park when the gate opened at 6 am, then we spent 3 hours on the approach getting hopelessly lost, bushwacking through cactus jungle and fighting off the Desert Stripe Squirrel of DEATH. We finally found the route at 9 am, and there were ten parties already in line before us. Six of the ten parties were three-person teams, three were four-person teams, and one was actually an elementary school field trip that also got lost. Some of the these teams were very experienced, fast moving climbers... but most were really off-duty traffic cops practicing building road blocks in a vertical fashion. After waiting for 2 hours and taking a nap, we got on the route, and spent 5 hours climbing the first half of the first pitch, because one of the climbers decided to give a slide show for the elementary school field trip at the next belay station. At 4 pm we finally decided to bail, leaving behind five cams since that was the only way we could build an anchor in soft sandstone we would trust our bodyweight on. We started the hike back, and proceeded to get hopelessly lost for another 3 hours in a totally different direction. It seemed that as the sun is setting, all the plants and rocks in the desert grow legs spontaneously and suddenly, walk around, and randomly relocate themselves. We got back to our car at precisely 8:01 pm, and there was already a ticket on our windshield for staying past the park closing. We were so disheartened we shaved our heads and became monks in a Tibetan monastery."

You know, your typical trip report with a slightly tragic ending. In all the TRs, everything seemed to go wrong after the protagonists got lost, so I was a bit wary of getting ourselves lost, checking the guidebook every two minutes. Our guidebook, being totally accurate and very user friendly like all guidebooks are, essentially said this about the approach: "Hike. Turn left. Scramble." With such detailed instruction, along with my superior sense of direction (just a week prior to this trip I was showing Megan how to find the North Star by searching the southern night sky and proclaiming the stars were too numerous to see the Big Dipper), we managed to get to the base of Cat in the Hat with minimum sightseeing.

I started my pre climb ritual: racking up, putting on sun block, change out of my approach shoes, go to the bathroom, eat a snack, take a nap... "Hurry up!" Megan had already flaked the rope and tied into the ends, with belay device in hand. Geez, that girl REALLY likes to climb. I started up on the first pitch of Cat in the Hat, which follows a left leaning crack on a broken face. The moves were easy, and there were plenty of gear placements. The rock was still a bit strange to me, juggy holds and big huecos everywhere, but all the knobs and flakes seemed a bit... fragile. So I stepped up gingerly.

Soon I was passing the belay ledge for the first pitch. After reading the guidebooks and talking to people who have done this route, it seemed logical to combine the first two pitches. Above the first pitch, the angle of the route lessened even more, and even though I put long slings on every piece of gear, I was starting to experience a lot of rope drag.

I got to a big ledge where I thought the P2 belay should be, but I didn't see any bolts. Hmmmm. I took the topo out from my pocket and tried to match up squiggle lines with rock features, and it seemed like the anchor should be just around the corner. I tried to walk around the big corner to my right, nothing. I tried to climb up a low angle crack/corner to the next ledge, the rope drag was pulling me back down. Hmmmm. Megan radioed up, "Boer, how's it going?" which was our unspoken code word for "what are you doing up there? Hurry up!" I radioed back, "It's going ok. I'm trying to find the anchor." I lifted a small rock nearby to see if the anchor was hiding under there. Nope. I was a bit disappointed. Finally, I decided to climb up to the next ledge, and if the anchor is not there, set up a gear belay. Fighting terrible rope drag, I hauled myself up onto the next ledge, and to my great relief saw the rumored three-bolt anchor to my right. But much time was wasted looking for it.

I set up a belay and brought up Megan, who dispatched the first two pitches with speed and ease because 1) she is a very good climber and 2) she had become very cold standing in the shade. We coiled the ropes, made a short 3rd class scramble up and right to the base of the next pitch, which was Megan's lead. It was a short pitch, Megan was at the next belay station in no time. I seconded up the third pitch, it was a good lead on Megan's part, there were some awkward moves. but the pitch itself was too short. I felt a little bad for Megan as I took the lead for the next pitch, which was suppose to be one of the two best pitches on the whole route.

And it was excellent. The pitch followed a crack up to a small roof, but you traverse left before the roof, and climb around it to a low angle gully. The belay was a big block with slings around it, I backed it up with a #5 Metolius cam in a crack, and brought Megan up. There was a shiny looking yellow DMM cam stuck in a crack just around the small roof, Megan wanted it very bad. She spent a while working it, wiggling it, probing it, singing to it, and finally had to leave it behind. I thought we could try to get it again on rap, but unfortunately we didn't get the chance.

Megan again ended up with a short and fairly uninteresting pitch: a short traverse down and to the right on some low angle rock. She climbed it quickly, brought me over to the belay, and to repay her for all the crappy pitches she had to lead, I gave her the lead on the last pitch, which along with the 4th pitch were the best pitches on the whole route. In the interest of full disclosure, I should also mention that there was a bit of 5.6 slab runout near the top of this pitch, and since I'm super hardcore, of course I should let my partner take the crux pitch.

Megan on P6 of Cat in the Hat

Even with suicidal sparrows that were dive bombing Megan, she calmly led the last pitch, which was a near vertical face with a crack running down the center that ate up pro like me in a buffet. She then fought some rope drag on the runout bit, getting to the anchor with ease. I seconded and cleaned, enjoying her excellent lead with the safety of a toprope, and we were soon both at the top. The view was great, we were only half way up the Mescalito formation, but it already felt pretty high. We sat at the top for a while, enjoying the sun and the view, but remembering the horror stories of stuck rope and epic rappelling we've been hearing, we soon decided to start our descent.

It was a bit windy that day, so I tried a trick I knew but never used: I coiled the rope in two slings attached to my harness, and rapped with the rope hanging below me to prevent wind-blown snags. But we soon abandoned this practice because 1) it really wasn't THAT windy, and 2) the rope was kinky and like to get themselves into a tangling mess.

We rapped the 5.10b arete variation to prevent rope snag, and we were back at the P4 belay when we met the only other party on the route the entire day. It was our lucky day, we should have played the slot machine that night or something. I chatted with the leader of the other party as Megan rapped down to the tree anchor on pitch 3. The other party was a two-person team from British Columbia. They just got in to Red Rocks that same day and decided to run up an easy multi-pitch route.

Megan rappelling the 5.10b variation

We rapped from the tree anchor (while Megan commenting all the time how dodgy it was), down scrambled the big ledge between P2 and P3, and then two more rappels we were back on the ground. We stopped at every single rap station to lessen the chance of our rope getting stuck, and apparently it worked. My watch read 2:30 pm, we still had a lot of time before it gets dark. Our options were: 1) to go climb as much of Dark Shadow (5.8, 4 pitches) as we can; or 2) to soak our sore muscles in a creek nearby and lounge lazily under the sun. Being hardcore climbers, of course we had to pick option 2)... the water in the creek was icy cold, it would be good for Megan's injured finger... yeah... that's it. So we sat on warm boulders near Pine Creek, watched the other party climbing Cat in the Hat, said "hi" to passing hikers, and basically just relaxed and enjoyed the good weather.

Two hours later, we hiked back to the car, congratulated ourselves on a good day of non-epic climbing, and went back to the condo to meet up with other hardcore climbers (who climbed till much later than us) for all-you-can-eat buffet.

I had a huge plate piled high with assorted sushi. Life was good.

Cooling off in the stream

Climbing in Red Rocks - day 1 of 3

"Ding ding ding!" That was the sound that greeted me when I got off the airplane. I scanned the terminal, and there it was, rolls and rolls of slot machine lined up right in the middle of the hall. This was how I know I was indeed in Vegas.

One and half hour later, I was standing right next to my rental car at Red Rocks, with a trunk full of shiny metal things, looking at the massive amount of rock in front of me and remembering that Megan had both of my Red Rocks guidebooks. Hmmm... finding the Panty Wall, where I was suppose to meet up with the rest of the gang, would be a challenge. I grabbed my shoes, my harness, and my camera. My plan was to wander around aimlessly, ask random strangers for directions, and if I failed to find anyone, I'd boulder around for a bit and have a good time. But luck was on my side, just as I was walking down the trail, I met the early departers Jason, Gil, and Oscar. They pointed me to the right direction, and soon after I was united with the rest of the Vegas posse.

Unfortunately, the Vegas posse was leaving to go slacklining. Nooooooooo!!! James, Reed, and Doug took pity on me and decided to stay and climb some more. We moved to the Magic Bus, where we found three other parties already there, some leading, some toproping, all have ropes up here and there and everywhere. After a bit of diplomacy, James roped up to lead what he thought was Blonde Dwarf, 5.10 (but after checking my guidebook when I got home, I believe the route we did was actually the 5.9 Electric Koolaid to the left of Blonde Dwarf). James made short work of Electric Koolaid, and Doug and Reed decided to climb it on toprope.

I wanted to stay on lead as much as I could, so I roped up for Ken Queasy (5.8). The first bolt is a bit high off the deck, so James placed a green Camalot as my first piece. After clipping the first bolt, the moves became fairly easy, I was able to claim an onsight.

Now Doug was leading Neon Sunset (5.8), so I decided to lead Electric Koolaid. The first bolt was a bit high also, but the moves getting there were easy enough so it wasn't too bad. Since Doug and Reed left the draws up there, I had an easier time climbing it. The last bolt on this route was a bit tricky to clip, the handholds were not huge like all the previous bolts... until one climbs just a bit higher and found this huge jug for the left hand. I made it to the anchor without too much trouble.

Doug finished leading Neon Sunset now and getting ready to take off, the sun was low on the horizon, but I decided to do a quick lead on Neon Sunset. It was a nice route, pretty closely bolted, fairly easy for its grade. I rap off Neon Sunset just as the last ray of the sun left the Magic Bus, a fitting route to end the day.