On Saturday, we spent the day up in Big Bear near Big Bear Lake. Christian had decided to put the kids on a program for their climbing and after reviewing some of the things they have done, he found some holes in their experiences and we went out to Big Bear to fill in some of those spaces.
First, we headed over to find Alpine Rock. It was a little difficult to find initially, but we finally found it. First on the agenda is a 5.0 climb called Sunflower. Christian goes up all the climbs first to make sure that it is rated properly and that there are no hazards (i.e. loose rock, snakes, etc.) Both of the girls practiced lead climbing on this route. I did not get a chance to climb it.
Afterwards, it was Christian's turn for something he wanted to work on which is sport climbing a 5.8 route called Queenie's Dish which is just to the left of Sunflower. He did a couple of laps on it. Emily and I top roped the climb.
We then moved onto Greenhouse Rock which is left of Alpine Rock. We all climbed a route called Pop's Day (5.5). Emily sport led this route which was pretty brave since there was only one bolt and the anchors. It was pretty run out but she didn't have too much trouble with it.
We had lunch and then headed back over to Tanglewood Slab for a 5.2 climb called Hi Def. After Christian went up, Emily led the route. Caitlyn sport led the route and I cleaned and walked down the side.
We were still doing pretty good on time so we went in search of Motherlode Rock-East Face. Motherlode Rock is pretty crowded. It was just crawling with rock climbers on all sides. Luckily, we were able to squeeze in so that Caitlyn could lead a route called Cap Gun (5.1). Emily got some practice belaying her sister. Christian can basically free solo most of Caitlyn's routes without too much trouble which is good since sometimes he has to go up to help her or give her instructions. Emily led the route afterwards.
By the time they were done with that, the sun was starting to get low on the horizon and it was starting to get chilly. The people next to us had finished, so we wanted to jump on that route. It was called Blasting Cap which was a fun 5.3 sport route. Christian, Emily, and I sport led the route while Caitlyn top roped it.
It was not dark yet, so Christian also went up the sport route to the right of Blasting Cap called Wildrose (5.6) to get back up to the top to clean up all our gear at the anchors. We had quite a long day of climbing and got a lot done so hopefully we will soon get the girls up to speed on their program...especially Caitlyn who has a difficult time sometimes because of her size and because she started off fairly slowly because of her fear of heights but she seems to do pretty well these days as long as we don't push her too much and have her stick to the program Christian has set up for the kids.
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