After nearly two years without going climbing, I finally got back on a rope. As climbing trips go this one would barely count in most peoples books. IN fact, the climbing was an after-thought for the day,. We had taken the family down to Ijams to hunt for spring salamanders, and after spending the afternoon doing that, I dragged everyone over to the new Ijams Crag to check out the clibing.
Ijams Crag was only recently developed and opened to the public, and is a small limestone wall with sport routes. I jumped on two of the easier routes on the far left hand side of the wall. Bruce Banner (5.8) was my first taste of rock climbing. I didn't know what it was graded at the time, but it didn't look that hard. At the 3rd bolt was a cruxy move, which is probably responsible for the rating, but other than that it was easy going. For not having been climbing for so long, I felt pretty comfortable leading up. My wife said I wasn't as fluid as I used to be. No surprise there.
I jumped on an adjacent route next, Down on the Corner (5.7). It started sprinkling a little, and the rock started to get slick, and the crux section here felt more awkward for me, but I got up quickly (it is only 4 closely spaced bolts to the top). Liz took a turn on the route next, it's been even longer since she climbed, and I thought she did wonderfully.
As afterthoughts go, this was pretty fun. I may have to try to get in a few more climbing trips before move.
