We decided that Mark and Jenny would climb with Dan and I would climb with Tim. After me and Tim dragged our feets around for a long time we finally decided to go to Glacier Point. The Grack was on the menu, and in particular the Center Route (5.6 classic).
Unfortunatly there were so many people in line and on the route when we got there that we decide to do something else. Being lazy and late we decided to do Marginal. Marginal is a 5.9 R route. For those that don't know, R means runout, and runout means in short that you will fall a long way if you fall ! Tim had done this route on toprope earlier this year and felt he could do it. And with my encouragement we decided to do it.
After soloing the first 5.2 pitch, we got ready to climb. But just as we got our ropes ready and were all set to go, it started RAINING ! Especially since this is a friction climb we quickly decided to just rappell off and count the loss. The rest of the day I just toured the valley, drank some beer and did some reading.
Next day, sunny ! Since me and Tim had worked ourselves up so much the day before to do Marginal, we decided to give it another shot.
Mom, please look away now ... :)
Tim took the first and scariest pitch I ever climbed. Even as a second you are looking at falling over a roof and probably mangling yourself pretty bad... Anyway, I am still in awe that he lead that pitch. The second pitch had not much protection either. In fact I had three pices of protection, one of them including an old piton ! Anyway, I managed to not fall, probably because I ruled out the option, when looking at a around 40 feet fall. The last pitch was still just a lot of friction, but not so runout as the two first ones.
When we topped out we were two very happy climbers.
Also, that was my first 5.9 on lead !