Echo Lake Crags

Trail Hover, Oozing and I joined 'just' Tom Bielicki at the Echo Lake Crags in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire to try out some trad climbing. This was a break from our sport routes at Rumney, and the chance to climb on smooth rock was a blessing to our fingertips.
Having seen Tom in action before, we trusted his ability completely, the others, well their ability is, let's say, somewhat less than spactular. None-the-less, we managed to have a successful fun-filled day without serious pain.
Our fist climb was on th 5.5 Cow's Mouth. It was a good warm up the 75' dirty buttress to the grey face. Tom brought the sharp end of the rope up, and belayed me next. While I belayed Oozing next, Tom then led the 5.7 Shield, with Hoover holding the rope.
I was next up, and chose to lead this one. It was a bit more challenging than I had thought as the top crux had an overhang and necessitated pulling up a small crack.
When we finished these, we stopped for lunch and then we did the Bee Line. This is a 5.6 that really seemed much harder, at least from the start. It was our first really thin crack that could only be had by laying back and stepping off a thin flake a couple feet off the floor. I managed to fall a few times getting off the ground",Tom belayed me, and from there on, for most of the day, I donated blood to the rock face and Hoover's gummy bears...more on that later.
All but Hoover made the top, possibly for fear of catching something from the blood smears everywhere. Then we went over to the 5.7 Cooler Sacrifice. This was a twin crack start to a pine tree at 60'. Good climbing all around, but the gummy's weren't happy. I reached in for some carbs while waiting my turn at the face, and Hoover was next and found blood smeared inside the baggie. "Wipe if off you Wanker", she said, and I did, but it wasn't pretty. She at them anyway.