Monica stacking the rope back at the feet of the Penguins. This was a tough climb. There was a really hard off-width (wider than fists but too small to fit the whole body) and I managed to get my knee stuck for a good 10 minutes or so. Boy would my face have been red if I really got stuck.
Comments
Yikes, that would be a non-fun afternoon getting yourself free. How'd you get stuck / how'd you get out?
— Catherine Hovell
Hmm... A little hard to describe but I'll try. When a crack is maybe 5-6 inches wide depending on your knee/thigh size you can get your entire leg into the crack while straight. Then if you bend your knee your thigh gets bigger when the muscles contract and this expansion locks your leg in place. However at the narrow end of the range if you're not careful you can sometimes get your leg in but then realize you can't get it out. Since the crack isn't perfectly parallel sometimes there are little constrictions or wide spots that made it possible to get your leg in but non-obvious how to get it back out. Especially if you end up letting your leg slide downward a bit after its in. I think this is what happened to me and so I had to stick a cam in over my head and yard on it to try to unweight my leg / move up in the crack to get it free again.
— John Hovell
Sounds like a solid way to get some serious bruises.
— Catherine Hovell