2015-05-31 有笠山

Earlier in the morning we were biding our time at Ichinokurasawa deai, expecting the rain would cease and that the afternoon sun may allow the rocks to dry, yet it didn't happen like that. The rain was gaining in intensity and we surrendered. A few minutes in the car and not even 5 kilometers from Doai station and the skies were blue again. It was only raining around Tanigawadake...

Reaching Tanigawa by train took me 4 hours, and probably all the other members were similarly disappointed that the efforts made to reach the place the day before had not been rewarded. As a result we couldn't possibly go back home without doing anything.

We all had double ropes but only 1 single rope for rock climbing practice and we ended up going to Arigasa-yama. The approach is only 1 minute to the Northernmost rock wall, yet we had a lot of trouble to find the trailhead.

We set the rope in a way to allow 2 climbers on 2 different routes at the same time.
Most of us couldn't nail the first 10.b route. The 10.a was on the other hand too easy.
We then moved to another spot, a 10.c route proved just right and 3 or 4 of us managed to climb it.

Finally there was an overhanging section at the bottom of the wall, a 10.b and 10.c routes. It required some effort but the 10.b was manageable and the 10.c in its first half but in both cases I needed to rest in the middle.

Meanwhile a family of 3 was climbing 11.b to 11.d routes on the same rock wall. I felt there's still a lot for me to learn and much practice before reaching such level.


More pictures here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8dPS_LBwxeLfmd5Vi1iZXlhMlowWHlIQzk4TGNRa3hZV0pCSlpMcU85dGNqeS1USjJJaTA&authuser=0