For me 5.10d is hard. So hard, that it is really over my limit. For me, the "d" in 5.10d stands for "Dog", as in hangdog.

Sunday I met Dr. OW for some climbing in Boulder Canyon. It was only the third time the good doctor had climbed in the past year. His 18 month old daughter and his wife's quest for a law degree have curtailed his climbing and consequently his fitness to the point where we can actually climb together. In the past Dr. OW has dragged me up a series of brutal 5.11 climbs that I had no business being anywhere near. Now it was my turn to drag him up some routes…of course, things didn't turn out that way. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Our first stop was Super Squeeze on the Dome, a popular granite crag. The classics on the Dome include East Slab (5.5), Cozyhang (5.7+), and Gorilla's Delight (5.9+ R) and I had done them all. I'd even aided my way up the brutal Umph Slot. But the one particularly obvious route I had not tried was Super Squeeze. This route, rated 5.10d, climbs up through an A shaped roof. From a distance, my only view up to this point, it looked very overhanging and difficult to turn. I did wonder where the name Super Squeeze came from though…

After I followed the 5.7 approach pitch to the base of the A roof, it was obvious where the name came from.<description of the route>

lost skin

hoping for rain

agreeing to go to Blob Rock

Decade Dance

While following this pitch Bruce came upon a cam that was fully retracted and couldn't remove. He yelled up to notify me of the problem and I told him he could just leave it and we'd get it on rappel. This suggestion was greeted with silence. I then suggested that I hold him on the rope so that he could work on it. He quickly agreed to this suggestion and I wondered if he wasn't looking for an excuse to rest. If it was any other partner, I'd assume this was the case, but if Bruce isn't being fully tested then he isn't happy climbing.

He removed the piece with no trouble and I lowered him to a better position. He climbed smoothly up to the traverse and then I heard "I'm off" and I was holding him again. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I have never seen Bruce fall on a mere 5.10. Ah, what fatherhood has taken out of him. Bruce certainly is still many levels above me, but well below his top form. Apparently he had fallen trying the traverse move and since the next piece was over in the Aging Time crack, he swung over and never had to do the traverse move. Of course he was now faced with the 5.10+ flare section. He cranked through this quickly and hardly hesitated on the dicey traverse move. Soon he was at the belay saying how bad that pitch felt. "It seems like I climbed Aging Time in another lifetime," he said.

It didn't take any coaxing to convince me that Decade Dance was a very difficult 5.10 pitch, but then Bruce said "As bad as that pitch was, imagine something ten times as hard and then you have Aging Time." I thought about this for awhile and looked closely at Aging Time on the rappel. The crux move certainly looked brutal, but the rest of the route looked easier than Decade Dance. I said as much and he concluded that I didn't know what I was talking about, which of course I didn't. To solve that dilemma I asked for a toprope.

Sure enough the initial moves of Aging Time are straight forward and lead to a fairly good rest from an awesome hand jam and a couple of good footholds. But then things take a turn for the worse. Above the crack, straight up until here, turns to the right and then becomes a seam. The wall to the right is completely smooth and vertical so the right foot will be nearly useless until reaching a small bump that marks the end of the crux. I place my left hand in the highest jam possible - just before the crack disappears and each up for a tiny face hold where the seams turns straight up again. I torque my left foot as high in the crack as I can and then reach as high as I can with my right hand for a shitty sidepull/lieback hold. And promptly fall. This high lay-away is awful. Bruce tells me I have to lay-away on this, at maximum reach this feels more like a pinch than a lieback, and move my left foot still higher. I tried two more times and fail miserably. But now I have an idea. I think I can get a backwards, thumbs down jam behind the lay-away hold. There isn't a crack there; it's more of a flare. It's not obvious that a jam would work there at all. Just making this reach is absolutely at my limit, but when I set the jam it holds. I pull and move my right foot onto the nubbin and step up. The climbing above is still difficult, but only 5.10 now and I'm able to make the rest at the beginning of the flare.

I think Bruce is surprised that I was able to do the move at all. Even on a toprope where it doesn't mean much. He lowers me back down to the good rest and I immediately do it again. Apparently it is no fluke. But then again, topropes don't mean shit to me.

We make the final rappel to the ground and hike out just as it starts to rain. I've been thoroughly trashed by two 5.10d routes. A level which I'm supposed to be flashing, but feel I couldn't even follow now without falling off. My hands, knees, and shoulder are cut and scraped. Yet I'm not demoralized. I got up them albeit ugly. I successfully TRed an 11b. I'm concentrating on the positives and know I need to work on my endurance. Enduro cracks are my biggest weakness. I can't rest in a vertical crack no matter how perfect the jams. More work, more work, more work.