Big Rock Lake Perris Climb

On Thursday I got the chance to go climb outside and my mom decided that she would like to go to Lake Perris where we had gone once before. I was eager to test my new Mad Rock Phoenix climbing shoes and this would be a good place for that.

Big Rock is a large wall of granite that is a couple degrees off vertical. It is all slab climbing and you pretty much just rely on friction to keep you on the rock.

So I got there and threw my shoes on. I was so happy with how sticky they were. It almost felt like I was spiderman. Just traversing to where I thought was a good place to climb was fun and I wanted to get on the rock.

One thing about this sport climbing is that the easier routes are super run out and the harder routes have bolts on each side of really hard parts. Well I decided to go up this one route that seemed pretty easy; a pure on-sight attempt. This route had a couple of bolts in the first 30ft, 10 meters, so I thought it would be a good idea.

I started up the route and quickly get up to the first bolt about 15ft, 5 meters, up the route and I was feeling okay. But right after that bolt the next couple meters to the second bolt was vertical and smooth. I had no hand placements and just friction as my friend.

Each step was crazy and I should have gone faster thinking back but my friend friction let me down. My feet separated from the rock and there was no recovering from it. Everything slowly sped up until I finally processed that I was falling. I watched the first bolt go by hoping that I would stop soon. What seemed like a minute later I finally stopped as I saw my mom right by my feet with the rope locked off.

I had fallen nearly 26 ft. And was a meter above the deck when I came to rest. Unfortunately I landed badly on my right ankle and tweaked it; later that day I was barely able to walk on it. I wasn't in a shape to climb the rest of the day so I went over to a couple boulders and messed around before leaving the crag.

Before I left, I figured out the problem that had occurred from the start. The original line that I wanted to climb was to the right of the one that I did climb. They both had two bolts low on the climb but one was easier.

So the moral of this story is to make sure that you climb the route you plan on climbing. I didm't think and started up what was in front of me.