STUNG...Again...Again...And Again!

As I had mentioned the flying critters that sting and bite had a banner year in 2014.

I was over due to be stung and bitten have avoided both conditions for more than five years in a row.

Really, it started to be dangerously ridiculous when the ground wasps; Yellow Jackets, were swarming all over the top of Raven’s Crest.

I have a routine that I follow, that always includes a check of the top-out area.

Many times I have found some thing that needs attending to, crap in the final holds, or, like this time, Yellow Jackets.

The first clue was that one or two of the little flying warships were buzzing inches off the ground at shoe or ankle height.

My goal on this the last day of July was to gather more photos of the approach trail. With big yellow paint blazes and a yellow painted triangle at the apogee of the trail. It was here at the top of the trail where the fun began.

I had been looking through the viewfinder to frame the yellow painted block when I sat back amongst some boulders and started to get stung. The nasty things got me and kept at me as I started to run… surfing, stumbling across the steeply pitched scree.

My place, at the top of the trail where it goes down to the upper wall routes or up and around to the terminus of the Ives Gully was as far from safety and a roped retreat as I could be.

I had, in fact, left a rope up and one stashed in a hiding spot.

The worst stings were to my face, second were the painful zaps to the back of my legs, ankles and knees. I was stung more than thirty times but only fell once in my swatting, hopping retreat down the loose scree field.

As a scary aside Brian Delaney a humble but pioneering climber of the last forty years took an unexplained, fatal fall at Cathedral ledge in New Hampshire.

I knew Brian from way back, he was very cautious and the rope solo, a top rope that he had already completed, was an easy climb that he had done many times.

It is my theory that he was unlucky and stirred up a ground nest, like the one I disturbed, that was ferocious and led to his fall.

The next few days I suffered from the itchy hives and a swollen face.

Then in a comedy of the TV rerun type; I went bouldering in a spot not far from route 84 and got swarmed again. This time I had parked my car at some Condo parking lot and was forced to strip off my shirt, stop, drop, and roll in the flowerbeds to try to fend off the stinging attack.

This time I was in some real medical distress. Not anaphylaxis the near fatal allergic response to stings where breathing and respiration can be compromised but some kind of delirium. My wife feared for my mental state as I was slurring my words and making far less sense than usual. She watched me and did not let me out of her sight or reach. This was because I kept having focus issues and the slurring made me appear drunk or stoned - not stung all to shit.

THE BROTHER AND SISTER BOULDERS.

Sixteen lines go up this one chunk of rock!

Three of them are 5.12; six more are almost as hard!

The block has brothers and a sister boulder. She is full of fun and easy climbs but the landings are not!

Pads and spotters will make this a safer spot to boulder; use a top rope when first working out the moves.

The Brothers and Sisters boulders (Near Stews View). Are located twenty feet from Federal road in Danbury off exit 7/11 of route 84. The best parking is in the Merchants parking lot that is an up - ramp driveway, just past the Wendy’s restaurant