The Key

Packing for the wall. Photo by Tom Evans.

Hauling the bags up to the top of pitch 5, on our way to getting them up to pitch 8.

This route is BLANK. There are 2 ledges on the entire route. TWO. One on top of pitch 5 and one on top of pitch 17. Otherwise, it's totally sheer. Thank god for our portaledge!!

Tomorrow we are headed up for the next 4 days to explore the last 4 unclimbed pitches on the route. Tommy has aided through this section before, but its never seen a free climb attempt. We are expecting some serious difficulty with the Molar Traverse pitch, which is basically like the Great Roof on The Nose, but reversed. It looks much longer, harder, and involved. With 4 days, we will really be able to spend some serious time on each pitch, which is key. What we're learning is that it's going to take an intimate knowledge of each pitch, top to bottom, to climb this thing. It's so consistently difficult, that every pitch must be climbed with no wasted energy. I love this work because it's just like working a highball in a way. We rehearse the pitches, find the absolute best sequence, make it super efficient, and then fire it. The only difference is that the climbs are 150 feet long, not 40, and there are 30 some odd in a row. Hmmmm. Well, maybe its not like highball bouldering at all. Oh well. I'm loving it anyway. I'll try to update from the wall on our progress if we get the solar charger for our phones to work. A big storm is coming in on Tuesday, so we should be down by Monday night. More soon.