The forecast showed rain, but we headed up on Saturday anyway. The rock and the ground was pretty wet on Saturday, we climbed Airy Aria (5.8/5.9) which was supposed to be still dry even in rain. This was true for the first pitch, and the second pitch wasn't too bad. What a great climb! Afterwards we went over to Ant's Line (5.9) which was completely soaked... every inch of it. The crack in the corner was filled with a nasty paste of the old chalk that made things quite slippery and interesting - combined with the dozens of millipedes that were crawling out of the cracks (one of which made me scream like a little girl when it came out when I least expected it). If it doesn't sound like it, yes, we had a lot of fun. We were packing up our gear and then it started pouring rain heavily - our dilemma of whether to do another climb or not was solved, we were off to our motel to clean up and dry our gear.

We slept in on Sunday, since we needed sleep and figured the rock would be wet. Interestingly, a lot of things had dried out overnight, much to our surprise. There were 5 times more climbers than on Saturday, and all of the classic routes seemed taken, with a line of people waiting on some! To our surprise, Bonnie's Roof (5.8+ 1p, 5.9+ 2p) was open. In fact someone had bailed from before the crux and left a piece of gear, apparently due to the wetness. We weren't scared of water based on our experience on Saturday so I headed up. The only wet section was around the crux, and it only made it more exciting. My attempts to chalk up while staring at the intimidating roof were futile: instead, I had a stream of water running down my forearm when I stuffed my hand in a jam. I almost thought about pulling on some gear, but after wiping my hands on my shirt I decided to go for it in the end, and the memories of desperately pulling around the roof with wet hands will stick with me for a while. After that, the climb eases off significantly and I belayed Chris on the ledge under the large roof. For the second pitch, there is an option of either traversing left onto the face, or going up and right over some wild-looking roofs for the direct finish (5.9+). We opted for the latter as it looked like a lot more fun, and it proved to be full value. A couple of hard moves over the first roof were followed by a huge jug and another roof to the belay ledge at the top: very exciting, with lots of exposure.

Afterwards we climbed Directissima (5.9) to the GT ledge and finished on the classic High Exposure - great climbs.

With that, the weekend was over and we drove back to Manhattan. Now a few more days of work and checking out the city, and I'm excited to go back to California!

	Millipedes were everywhere and tried to eat me. (photo by Chris)	$15 per person, per day. Ouch!!!	Lots of green

		Bonnie's Roof (5.8+)	The start of Airy Aria

	Starting the 2nd pitch of Airy Aria	Looking down at the belay from the 2nd pitch of Airy Aria

	Airy Aria, second pitch	Airy Aria, second pitch

	Starting up Ant's Line, crazy good 5.9 corner (that was a waterfall full of millipedes)	Resting before negotiating a smaller roof after the crux roof	Consistently overhanging (I had a handjam and asked Chris for a photo while trying to control my pump)

	Looking down at Ant's Line	Chris starting up Ant's Line

	Guard of the aliens	Bonnie's Roof (should be plural)	Mr Evans

	Me on Bonnie's Roof	Above the crux on Bonnie's (which was wet)

	Posing	Psyching myself for the Bonnie's Roof Direct 2nd pitch (5.9+)	Posing before starting

	A girl on a route at the Gunks	Look closer to see the climber

	The view from the Trapps at the Gunks		Chris starting up the wild Bonnie's direct finish

	Kirk just past the crux roof on Bonnie's Direct finish (but more to come)	Kirk on Bonnie's Direct finish	Kirk on the final moves

	Kirk finishing Bonnie's Direct finish	Belay on Directissima

	Cool-looking climbs on the hike out		Manhattan view from the Empire State Building

	Manhattan view from the Empire State Building	Manhattan view from the Empire State Building	Manhattan view from the Empire State Building

	Manhattan view from the Empire State Building	Manhattan view from the Empire State Building