"Gunksfest 2002" Disclaimer: boring and poorly-written trip report written by sleep-deprived climer follows. Executive Summary: "Baby sometimes love don't feel like it should. You make it hurt so good" or "Yes sir may I please have another!" I groaned this morning when the alarm went off at 5:45. I hadn't slept well due to a mattress with a coil count of four, sub-zero temperatures in my frugal parents' house, and a sense of futility from watching the snow pile up ever higher along the Eastern seaboard the night before. All the same, it was Gunksfest day, and I groaned out of bed. Three hours later, slipping and sliding my way through New Paltz, I met Dawn and Marc outside the Bakery as they waited for it to open. A bit later, we were lazing about, waiting for people to show up. The hardcore crazies (Marc, Alex) were already there. The other one (John Peterson) was home sick (or so he claims). Dawn and Steven were present (since they invented GunksFest), and poor Todd... well, that's what you get when you're with TradGirl. I somewhat expected the moderately less crazy people (Julie, Mark Heyman, Tom Cikoski) to show up, but their medication must have been working and it was just the five of us. Leaving the warm Bakery was painful, but we dutifully tramped up to the Uberfall through 8 inches of snow. What wasn't blanketed with a frosty layer of powder was absolutely dripping wet. I was hoping that we'd just go back and start drinking, but then Marc found some semi-dry cracks. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking at the time, but I decided that it would be a good idea for me to lead one of them that I mistakenly thought was a 5.6. (group consensus afterward hovered somewhere around 5.8). With a belay from Dawn, I managed not to kill myself, although I valiantly tried to do so twice. At the top, wheezing for breath, I gave up any shred of dignity and swam through a foot of snow as I humped my way over the edge. Any remaining vim and vinegar left in my body drained into the snow, and I was glad to be lowered back to the ground. Steven had set up a toprope on Sonja in the mean time, although I was in no particular hurry to tie back in. Dawn, Marc, and Steven then toproped the route I led, while Todd wisely decided to blow us off and built a snowman instead. After a longish recuperation period, I gave Sonja a shot on toprope. The freezing cold water in the crack was a benefit, as it inured my hands to the giant death pebbles that threatened to rip my tendons out. I fell once or twice, but at that point, I really didn't give a shit. Half-heartedly, I tried to toprope Stupid Crack, and it was a no-go. Thankfully, we were done climbing for the day by then. We defrosted at Bacchus (Tico, -1), and I quaffed two pints of Optimator (Tico, +1). Pleasantly buzzed, we spent a few hours shooting the shit before heading our separate ways. I had a good time in the same sort of sense you get when you're done hitting yourself in the nuts with a bar of soap in a sock. And I'd do it again.