Nice Climbers: Chris Gibson

So, while we were at Tuolumne, we spent one of the days at Cathedral. The bugs were, as I mentioned in my trip report, UNBELIEVABLY bad. The bugs were bad all over Tuolumne, but at Cathedral they were literally attacking in swarms. It was the one day I didn't bring bug spray, and while we waited to get on the route, I lamented the fact that the one day we really needed some deet, I hadn't packed it in.

To the rescue came a neighboring party... one of the climbers handed over a precious bottle of bug spray, and we thanked him profusely. Unlike me to not introduce myself, but the climber and his partner set off on their route, and all day I thought about how nice it was for them to share their DEET with us, and about how I bump into the nicest people while climbing.

Turns out, the nice climber is Chris Gibson. Chris snapped a shot of Shawn on lead on his "variation" to bypass the chimney on the 4th pitch of Regular Route at Cathedral... see here for the pic. Notice the runout. There were murmurs of admiration / disapproval of the variation among neighboring climbing partners... Vic followed Shawn, and I followed Alex on the same variation. It was runout. But, it was within the guys' leading ability despite the runout, and it was fun.

So, Chris - thank you, very much, for the bug spray, and for sending the pic!