Climbing at Cotton Hill - Day 3 of 3

I spent quite a bit of time and typed up a nice long account of our third day at the New, then my computer crashed and needless to say I lost all of it. I'm feeling a bit disgruntled, and really don't feel like retyping everything. So here's a short account of our third day:

All of us decided to go to Upper Cotton Hill, some went bouldering, most climbed routes. The first wall we came upon had three routes, we didn't know the name nor the grade of the routes, but we climbed it anyway, and agreed that they were 5.10b, 5.10d, and 5.10a from left to right. I led the 5.10a as a warm up, as a continuation of yesterdays good style, never asked for take and just climbed till I was too pumped, took a 10-footer above the last bolt. I toproped the 5.10d in the middle, then led the 5.10b on the left. The technical crux was getting past the first bolt, it took me two tries to get the move. I fell twice more, but eventually got to the anchor, cleaned the route, and we all packed up for the long drive home.

The end.

Fighting hard to staying on the 5.10a

Photo: Eric Stemer