Stone Hill Rock Climbing
The Junior Explore Interns for this year (Andrea Lint, Jen Derr, John Carter and I) drove up to Prairie at the end of the summer a week after the Senior interns left. We had 3 days to get there, so we spent two nights at Stone Hill, in northern Montana, where I climbed during rock climbing specialization last year. I lead climbed a short easy 5.7/5.8 to get to the top of rocks so I could set up a toprope for a fun 5.7 crack climb (Cripple Crack). Jen did her first lead climb on the short route I led. The next morning I set up Night Flyer (5.10b), a hard mixed crack/face climb that I had done during specialization. I didn't really do any better than last time I tried it, falling 2 or 3 times but I did make it to the top, and got some more good crack climbing practice. I tore up the back of my right hand doing hand jams. Then we went down to the lake and swam along where the rocks go right in to the water and did a ton of bouldering the whole afternoon. We found a couple places to jump that were about 40 feet. We wanted to make Macaroni and Cheese (Kraft Dinner if you're in Canada) but we forgot a pot. I had even bought a styrofoam cooler and ice and butter and milk for it though, so we brainstormed for a while and then Jen thought of using our first aid kit, which was an old ammo box, to boil the noodles in. It worked out great, minus the little green specks of paint that will probably give us all cancer. After dinner I lead climbed Room with a View (5.8). It was quite scary because the first bolt was after the first big overhang, and I had to stretch way out and blindly clip it. I climbed up once to the overhand, couldn't reach the bolt and then climbed back down. Then I climbed again and this time clipped the quickdraw to the bolt, with direction from the ground. Then I climbed back down and then back up again and clipped the rope, and tried to go over the overhang but fell, and was twisted around the rope, so I got a rope burn under my armpit and on my back. I got over the overhang the next try and then clipped the next two bolts and then made it to the "room with a view and took a rest. The last bolt was even scarier to clip because it was way to the left, and high above the last clip, meaning I would have a long pendulum fall if I slipped while trying to clip it. We spent another night, and had to wake up in the middle of the night to make a tarp lean-to off of our van because of rain, but by the time we set it up it stopped raining. We drove the rest of the way up to Prairie the next day.
