viticeps's Logbook (19 ascents)

Everyone that climbed this while I was there said it was a 5.7 but I believe they're confusing it with the variation to the right. Even so, 5.8 seems just a little stiff as the pockets are pretty small despite the slabby finish between the third and fourth bolt. The crux seems to be just before the second clip as well as part of getting to the third. Mostly a headgame challenge... to which Michelle said her head houses a much larger stadium.

Tricky moves. Lots of crimpers in the second half. I was completely sketched out after the second bolt because of a runout that would guarantee a deck if I fell by the time I got to the third bolt. The bolt itself required a traverse and I barely managed to reach it. I used a long sling here. Then the real face climbing begins. Tons of mantling, hand/foot matches, with a bit of elvis leg at the 10 foot runout mark before yet another off-to-the-right bolt (that belongs to the neighboring .12a). I was certain the route was an .11 something until I top-roped it afterwards to pull the anchor, and realized it's about right; possibly a .10d though.

Team effort between Michael, Anthony, Khanh, and myself. Anthony and I were the only two to be able to make clip progress.
Basically feels like three bouldering problems linked together, which includes a traverse start, two heelhooks, a toehook, then balanced face climbing with very strong core moves.
I clipped the first two, Anthony got the next two, then I finished the route on my third attempt. Altogether a pretty ugly sight, but intense and great fun all around.

My last climb at Smith, right after Heresy. Rebecca and Leann set up the route (Leann led?). Quite sustained and some delicate balance required. I took once near the top. Boo.

Topped out onto the summit and hung out for a couple hours with Robby, ran out of water, chewed tobacco, and did a double rope rappel down some other long route. Robby gashed the shit out of his hand tugging the chains.

Memorial Day weekend, my first climb on the trip. Fun fun route, pumpy at the finish! Met two climbers from Seattle that resembled female versions of Robby and myself. haha. They were actually camped next to us too, in a beat up Vanagon. Shared a cup of tea Sunday morning.

My first vertical trad climb. Fun route with plenty of rests and foot positioning, being a dihedral route. Did the first pitch up to the chains.

My first climb placing trad gear. Robby's been building up his rack and we played around on a lazy Sunday afternoon for a couple hours here. Robby cleaned the pro and had pretty nice things to say overall. :) We both really enjoyed it, and it's something I think we'll both be getting into more often.

I was the second leader in a 4-person party. The first led and set all the pro, second cleaned the rope, I led and reclipped into pro, the last cleaned all the gear. Beautiful view, but four people is just way too time consuming for this type of trad.

My first and preferably only solo freeclimb. Roughly 160 feet to the summit?