It's Spring, and a (not) young man's thoughts turn to......climbing.

The foothills are green and happy.

In our long-running quest to sack up for 'Greasy But Groovy', we set out to climb 'Arches Terrace'.

Kind of rare, but another party was there also, so we did another short route while they got started.

Looked at 'Flakes Away' (flattened bolt hangers, but still clip-able). Rated 5.10, a greaseball start and those two bolts lead to a grass- filled crack. The odds of impaling on a small tree, and heavy gardening if you survived that caused us to look at...

'Slander Session' 5.10-R

This has actual holds, but at least two out of five of them come off when you pull on them.

The view, however, is sweet.

If we keep this up, we'll be ready for the real slick-ness.

This climb is run-out at the top. I went up another twenty or twenty five feet to avoid belaying from the side, and from there, there was exactly 1/2 the rope out as Tony left the top-most bolt, on 5.9 rice crispies.

Then on to Arches Terrace- first climbed in 1957. Good stuff. You should do this climb.

Traverse. It looked hard in the flat mid-day light, but it's pretty sticky.

More cool views.

After an elaborate group rappel, it was off to pizza and beer.

But a good look at the objective on the way down.

Greasy But Groovy

What's on your list?