Another Rock Goddess in the Making

There’s nothing like a good student! Karen Nenno turned in a stellar performance on her Rock Climbing School post-graduation trip with the Explorer’s Club of Pittsburgh. I was particularly pleased with her attention to the climb and her commitment to our team, because I think these qualities will serve her very well not only in her climbing career, but also as a future graduate student in Pitt’s School of Pharmacy.

Day 1

Our trip to Seneca Rocks began on June 12. Shane Shinn and I shared a pleasant drive together from Pittsburgh, full of conversation about the climbs to come, and the evening’s Penguin’s game against the Detroit Red Wings. T’was the night of the 7th and last game in the 2009 Stanley Cup finals…

We arrived just as the game was about to start. I dropped Shane in the camp ground and went to check on the TV channels in my room at Yokkum’s, only to discover that NBC wasn’t among them. Tom Cecil came to our rescue. Seneca Rocks Mountaineering Guides kindly stayed open late for the Pittsburgh crowd, and we were able to watch the Penguin’s win. What a perfect beginning to a phenomenal weekend!



With more leaders, experienced seconds, and students still arriving, or not, team assignments continued to change. I was happy to learn that Debbie Stango, who is an accomplished rock climber, had agreed to be my second. We heard that Karen was to be our student, and made plans to meet at 8 am to start climbing before the rain, forecast to arrive around noon, would possibly prevent us from summiting.

The women’s team left the parking lot at 9 am. Our plan was ambitious. Climb all four pitches of “Young Ladies”, summit, do a double rope rappel to “Broadway Ledge”, climb “East Face to Gunsight Notch” for another good view of the valley, rappel off “Banana” to reach the start of “Old Man’s”, then do three pitches and rappel off “Front C” and “Le Gourmet” back to “Luncheon Ledge”. This would give us 8 pitches, all easy, and a circumnavigation of the south peak. Plus, if Karen was to run out of stamina, or the weather was to turn on us, we had several options to discontinue the project and get back to the ground.

We made excellent time on the first two pitches of “Young Ladies”. Things were going well and the team was in excellent form. Karen climbed well, had no trouble with the exposure at the end of pitch 1, or with her “piggy-in-the-middle job” of swapping the orange rope, tied to me, for the purple rope, tied to Debbie. We contemplated if Debbie should take pitch 3 as her lead. She was hesitant because she had never climbed the route before, and instead, contemplated to lead the first pitch of “Old Man’s”, which she had seconded on a previous trip, later in the day. While we were discussing this, it started to sprinkle. So it was quickly decided that I should continue to lead the route before the rain would make it slippery. The rain stopped when we got up on the “Summit Ledge”. That was relief, because we could continue with our plan to summit and then climb some more. Our team made the summit around 12:30 pm.



It is often crowded at Seneca Rocks on weekends, and so it was no surprise that we ran into other climbers on the summit. Jennifer Nottage and Stas Edel, part of Indy’s CCC group, had come up on “Gunsight to South Peak”.
Our teams exchanged cameras to take respective group pictures on the summit. We also tried in vain to reach Phil, who was taking everyone’s picture with a telescope from the parking lot, on the walkie talkie – we figured he might have gone on lunch break. We were later told that while we were able to hear conversations on channel 5.8, the ECP’s channel for the day, our radios, set to channel 5, probably did not transmit on the subchannel. Oh well.
I belayed Debbie and Karen down from the summit. I must confess I still dread the downclimb from the summit without a rope above me, which was to be my job as the leader. But Stas shared that he has no problem with the downclimb and offered me and Jennifer a belay on his rope if he could use my anchor. That seemed like a good plan to me, and we put it in action.



Debbie, Karen, and I then set up the double-rope rappel off the “Young Ladies” rappel tree. All went very well on the rappel, and the team continued to be in good sprits, ready to push on for the Gunsight Notch.

The crowd we ran into there was unbelievable! Three teams of three were lined up to climb “Gunsight to South Peak”. My usual anchor spot was taken and I had to build an anchor somewhere else. Plus our team had to cross through the path of the other teams to reach the rappel tree. After some chatting and climbing over each other and sorting out crossed legs, arms and ropes, our team was on the tree ready to descend. Only to discover that another team of two was trying to climb up to the Notch right under our tree. Because their leader had already started up, we waited, and then Debbie and Karen descended. I waited again, to let the second of said team climb up, then rappelled to join our team.

We scrambled over to the start of “Old Man’s”, and Debbie geared up to do her first lead at Seneca. The wall above us was very crowded, with numerous teams rappelling on “West Pole”, “Conn’s West”, and “Old Man’s”. And there were other climbers at the start of “Old Man’s”; fortunately, they did not want to climb “our” route. We took our second serious delay here. Plus, it was late afternoon, we were in the sunshine now, and Karen and I both drank our last water. Debbie still had a half bottle of drink left, which we left with her pack at the bottom of the route to be consumed later.

Debbie led us up the first pitch with confidence and grace. Congratulations on your first Seneca lead, Deb! Once I joined her and Karen at the belay, I noticed how exhausted I was becoming. I requested of both my team mates to make extra sure that we were all going to double-check each other for the rest of our climb, impressing on them that I did not want any mistakes to happen because I was feeling tired. Since the ropes were stacked for me to take the next lead, I set off. As soon as I went up, there was a possible epic developing with another, rappelling team, and Debbie, who was belaying me, got involved helping them figure out as to where the end of their rope was – not on the ledge where it needed to be. Possibly owing to my tiredness, or because all of the rappelling conversations were getting to me – two teams were descending right next to me on “Conn’s West” now, I tried to place my large gold cam in a place where it didn’t belong. Strangely, two of the lobes engaged in what seemed like a split second, before I could draw it back out of the crack I’d inserted it in. The cam was seriously overcammed! I tried to remove it for a while, but, having to use my left hand, which I had injured just days before in the climbing gym, I couldn’t get it out. I told Debbie that I had parked the piece and was hoping she’d try to get it out when she was on the pitch. Indeed, Debbie, having just learned from Ron Edwards how to use her nut tool to get out a stuck cam, successfully got my piece out. Great job, cleaning lady extraordinaire!!!

We once again encountered other climbers on the “Old Man’s” ledge. Stas, whom we had met on the summit, had picked up a new partner and they were getting on a route off the ledge that looked quite difficult. Knowing about the potential for congestion in this area of the rock, our team had planned not to do the last pitches of “Old Man’s”, thus avoiding what is usually a traffic jam on the rappel that goes by that very name. We’d do the “Front C” rappel instead. Because I was feeling very tired now, Debbie decided she would take the sharp end and lead us over to the “Front C” rappel tree. I thought it was less than 90 feet to the tree, and suggested we pack up the second rope. After Debbie had reached the tree, she began to belay Karen over, but…Karen could not quite get to Debbie with the amount of rope she had. Given that this portion of the climb is a traverse on a big ledge, I proposed that I would start to simul-climb until Karen reached Debbie. I traversed for only a short distance when Karen reached the anchor. Debbie then belayed me over the rest of the way. Glad that worked out!

We rappelled from the “Front C” tree to the “Le Gourmet” anchors. Karen had continued to be very alert and made it a point to check me at every turn just as I had requested. She still had energy left, because when it was time to set up the rappel on the “Le Gourmet” anchors, she requested she be allowed to do it for practice. I asked that she talk out loud about what she was doing so that Debbie and I would know her thought processes. She set up the rappel like the confident and take charge kind of person I learned that day that she is!

Debbie went first, and gave a fireman’s belay to Karen. I suggested that Karen should give me a fireman’s on this last rappel, while Debbie would go to retrieve her backpack with the remaining drink in it. I was seriously thirsty… This also gave me another “teachable moment” with Karen, since I asked her to arrest me on the fireman’s close to the bottom of the rappel. See, it really does work! But Karen had probably already learned that in Rock School.

Karen and I were pulling the rope when a distraught Debbie came back with her backpack. She told us her pack had been open and all the contents strewn about. Could it have been an animal? The real mystery was that a biner and a cordelette that were not hers had been clipped to her pack… Thankfully whoever was in her stuff did not drink those precious last sips from her bottle. Newly refreshed, we started to head down the “stairmaster”. We arrived in the parking lot at 7 pm. This made it exactly 10 hours since we had started our Seneca expedition.

Another highlight was yet to come: a dip in the swimming hole! What a blast. We made it to the Front Porch restaurant just in time to get some pizza. Food tastes so good when you are really hungry!

After dinner I swung by the CCC, who was mostly already asleep. But Indy was still up and about and had the telescope trained on Saturn. I got to look, and to talk off his ear as I decompressed about my day’s adventures and talked about my options for Sunday’s climbs to him.

The ECP’s campsite was still very lively when I stopped there later that night. We talked about the Penguins and climbing, and smoked some victory cigarillos. What a super great day!

Day 2

Sunday got off to a slightly slower start. After another nice breakfast at the “Ground Up” with Cappuccino and climbing talk served up by Tony Barnes, I headed over to the ECP’s campsite to try and figure out the plan for the day. After lots of chatting, and swapping climbing partners around, our team for the day would consist of Shane Shinn, Debbie Stango, and I. We ended up climbing Rox Salt (Shane’s lead). Here, Debbie again showed us her superior ability to clean when I couldn’t get one of the nuts out as I followed Shane. We also did Really Flakey (Shane’s lead) and then toproped an unnamed climb in between the two. After my ascent of that climb, I traversed over to the “Unrelenting Verticality” anchors and put our rope on it. Debbie toproped it, and Shane toproped it also, as well as a variation to the right. I did not, since it seemed it was going to be too hard of a climb on my left hand. After that, we headed over to “Lichen or Leave It”. Our thought of toproping that climb if the team ahead of us would put our rope up on it was shut down when the second of that team was stung by a wasp and reported there were many wasps in the crack. Indeed, a wasp was buzzing around the bottom of the climb also and crawled into my rope coil. We ended up doing “Roux” (my very pleasant lead); and Shane also led “Bear’s Delight” as the second pitch.

A Technical Lesson Learned

My story would not be complete if I did not include that we had a long discussion with Tom Cecil about the anchor Shane set up on “Really Flakey”. This was an anchor that Shane and I discussed, and agreed on. Atop of “Really Flakey” are two bolts. When Shane got there, he whipped out his cordelette. I suggested that he could just use two quick draws, since he carries some on his rack. But Shane said he would build a normal trad anchor. That was fine with me, too.

Then Tom’s team arrived and they started to climb on “Rox Salt”. When Tom got up the climb and saw our anchor, he immediately requested our attention. Having had decades of climbing experience, and experience as a mountain guide and expert accident witness, Tom had this to say. He judged that Shane’s cordelette was not 7 mm thick. He explained 7 mm is the new industry standard for anchor cordelettes. Shane was quite surprised, having just bought said cordelette brand new from a well know climbing store in Fayetteville. There, he was told that the cordelette he had purchased was 6 mm thick and was good to use for a trad anchor. Tom disagreed, pointing to the need for a 7 mm, instead of a 6 mm, cordelette. He also thought the cordelette Shane was using looked not even 6 mm in thickness. He urged us to measure the cordelette’s thickness ourselves. Our team concluded that we should go to our Pittsburgh climbing store, Exkursion, for that, and to ask them to help identify what brand and make of cordelette Shane had acquired. This will hopefully settle issue number one.

The second issue Tom took with our anchor was that we had used only one locking carabiner. We ended up having a very long discussion about that with him. My thinking was yes, when we toprope we always use two lockers in the anchor. But when we trad lead, we always only use one locker. At least that is how I was taught, and what I have also read in the literature. How, then, does the difference come about? I had never really thought about it. Tom explained that the difference was in the supervision of the biner. When you belay someone off your trad anchor, you are right there and you can see what the biner is doing, hence one biner is OK in this situation. When you toprope, you cannot see the biner. It may be hitting the rocks in some funny way as the climber ascends the rope, thereby unscrewing itself, potentially placing the climber at great risk.

Live and learn – or better put, learn and live to climb another day. To sum up this conversation and the lesson learned here – unsupervised anchor, MUST use two biners.

Leadership Reflections

Before we can aspire to lead others, we must be able to manage ourselves. Peter Drucker wrote about this topic in his 1999 article for Harvard Business Review: “Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves – their strengths, their values, and how they best perform”. I believe this to be true. I have worked through managing myself many times as a family member, a friend, an astrophysicist, professor, higher-education administrator, and as leader of climbing teams. Karen taught me the importance of self-management once again on this trip.

The risks involved in multi-pitch, traditional climbing put great responsibility on all members of a rope team. Many a novice climber approaches climbing quite casually, as a fun and thrilling recreational outdoor activity. And it is certainly all that. But there are risks. It is implicitly understood that the leader and the experienced second bear the responsibly for the climb; they manage the risk. Students get to enjoy and experience what it is like, the exposure of being high up on the rock, the physical and technical and emotional issues that come up on a project that is bigger and more committing than anything they have experienced in their previous climbing outings. Beyond acting exactly as instructed, they are not expected to share in the responsibility of the climb.

Karen not only carried on as instructed, she paid deliberate attention to what Debbie and I were doing. She was always alert and focused on the climb. She actively participated in the many decisions we had to make during the day, and was willing to articulate her understanding and viewpoints, despite the fact that she was the junior member of our team. This allowed us to have real team discussions of our decision processes. I very much enjoyed climbing with a student who is committed, courageous, caring, and most importantly to me, serious about and with the brain engaged in what she is doing.

Karen managed herself outstandingly. And in doing so, she helped our team complete the most pitches of all ECP teams climbing that day at Seneca Rocks!


And Phil got a summit shot of us after all!



Photo credit of Seneca pictures: Jennifer Nottage, Phil Breidenbach. Sid Crosby’s picture grabbed off the web.