Goaded

Saturday I went climbing at the Ruins with Ryan, Mike, Joe, and everybody else in Tucson who was trying to stay low on the mountain where it was warm. When gearing up at the car I asked Ryan if I needed to bring my rope. He said no because both he and Joe had a rope. When we got to the parking area we decided to only bring one rope because Mike was going to be coming soon, and Mike always brings his rope (and complete rack including hexes). We made the thirty plus minute approach up the steep mountain side to the crag and started climbing. Mike showed up a little while later, and guess what. That's right. He showed up with a harness and shoes. One rope four climbers. We would have spent all day and everyone would have gotten to do two routes. I said "I'll just run back to the car and grab Joe's rope. It will only take fifteen or twenty minutes." I added the 15-20 minutes part so no one would feel bad about me having to run the errand. Everyone protested a little, but then I just said I was going. As soon as I started to leave Joe said "who has a watch? I want to see if he can really make it back that fast." Now it was on. I had been challenged, and I knew it would be more than twenty minutes. The Catalinas are steep, and climbers build trails straight up with very few switchbacks. I was screwed and knew it, but I had opened my big mouth. I ended up not being able to run all the way back up the hill with Joe's old school 12mm rope. It was heavy, and the grade was steep. I ended up doing the round trip in twenty nine minutes and change. At least my legs are really sore though.