Suzu, Tony, Sarah, and I headed back to the waterfall again this saturday, making it the fourthweekend in a row for Suzu and I. The previous weekend at the end of the session I tried the terminator 5.12 and got super shut down. After about 1/3 of the way up it I yelled take and then continued to hang dog my way up the route like a total punter. The worst part was since it was so late in the day I couldn’t give it another go to see if I had just gotten spooked trying to lead it or if the thing was just way over my head.

After ruminating over this experience and literally dreaming about doing it I went back saturday to get vengeance on this classic finger crack. This time I was able to put up a top rope on the terminator by penduluming over from a neighboring route.

I top roped it clean first try and found some good places to place gear then lowered and got prepared up for a lead attempt.

After about a 20 minute rest I was psyched and terrified to commit to giving this thing a solid lead effort. I had already visualized where I would place pieces and what sections I was just going to have to climb through and not place gear. The lead went well I placed all my pieces well, locked everything down, thought only about climbing, and utilized all the rests. When I got to the anchors I was pretty freaking psyched and got a high I hadn’t really gotten from climbing in awhile. Let’s just say I’ll be chasing more experiences like this one.