Sun Ribbon Arete - 5.9

With John Fischer. A long hard day...

Got hailed on for a solid 10 minutes, fun. 9 hours on route, 12 hours camp to camp. Let crux, a whole 6 feet of .10a. Fun route, lots of loose shit up high.

Long, exposed and fun! Did the right 5.10 variation at the lower crux, and 5.9 wide at the top - great pitch!

Winter ascent, Jan. 19th 2008. Full winter conditions, aprox. 0 degrees F w/ windchill. 18.5 hrs tent to tent. Aided the hard stuff, french freed the not-so-hard-but-not-easy stuff, and freeclimbed what we could...all in boots and gloves. water froze after about 9hrs. Climbed the whole route to the summit talus field, but elected to go down from here as we were tired, the moon was almost gone, and we've been there before anyway. Kinda regret that, but oh well! Climbed the second half of the route and the descent in the dark, but under an ass-saving almost full moon. Did I mention it was cold?

In a word . . . epic. Started at the trailhead at 3:50 AM, started climb around 9. With party of 3, we summited at 10 PM. Too dark to find the tricky descent, we had to bivy on the mountain. This climb is fucking sick. The tyrolean traverse in nuts. Every pitch amazing. All three of us agreed the crux was actually the "5.8" 3" crack. I led this pitch with no #3 cams and therefore it was pretty much unprotected except a yellow alien I sneaked in at the bottom. Climbed with Josh & Nathan. Lots of simul, but probably not enough. Long day, amazing climb.