Bastille Routes w/Derek

Today was my birthday and I wanted to climb with Derek in Eldo, so that's what I did. We wanted to climb Blind Faith, but apparently the other climbers either didn't know it was my birthday or didn't care.

We hiked up to Blind Faith and found a couple of chicks on it. One was halfway up the first pitch. We didn't want to wait (this turned out to be the right decision) and headed further up the hill to Out to Lunge (5.9). I led this as one very long pitch, up to the walk off ledge. Derek followed and he paused quite awhile at one point. When he got to the ledge I found out why. He couldn't get out a yellow Alien and had to leave it. I then rappelled down the route with my nut tool and was able to dig it out. Derek should have been carrying the nut tool. My bad.

We hiked back down to Blind Faith and found two guys sitting at the base, waiting to get on the route. The second chick was now halfway up the first pitch, hanging at the crux. Oh well, it wasn't meant to be. Instead we did Breakfast in Bed (5.8). We both had some trouble figuring out the first overhang. I'd climbed it before and I didn't remember what to do there until I finally spied the hidden crack over the bulge. Until you see this, it appears to be much harder than 5.8.

That was it, for I had a full birthday schedule to keep!