Climbing: Skyline Buttress

I figured I ought to write about a recent outing just to show you that not all my adventures end up in disaster. Last week Craig and I made an attempt to climb Skyline Buttress, a rock climb in Gallatin Canyon south of Bozeman.

The climb is rated 5.6 - not very hard, but we're still novices and this was our first major multi-pitch climb. Just getting to the base of the climb was a bit of an adventure, especially since Craig called the ol' "You go that way, I'll go this way" move, splitting us up... and then decided he'd go my way, but I was looking for him above me...

Ah, well. We made it to the base of the climb eventually.

And I don't really have much in the way of trauma and drama to report (if you want that, see below). The day was beautiful, the climbing was easy, and neither of us fell. We placed protection the way it's supposed to be placed, we learned a few things about setting directionals (using slings so the rope stays straight) and tying into anchors from others on the rock, and we watched people doing way crazier things than what we were doing. The climb was great fun, especially the chimney section and the tunnel section, which required us to pop out of a small hole in the top of the rock. We decided a better name for the climb would be "Santa's Revenge."

I suppose the end got a little spooky, when it started to sprinkle a little and I climbed a pinnacle that I decided really wasn't part of the climb. I ended up downclimbing it, with its wobbly rock, in the rain.

But other than that all was well. We made it back to our packs for sandwiches and pudding, and watched the climbers on Sparerib. Possible future climb? We'll see.