First and foremost, I hope y'all appreciate the use of the emoticon in the title. And maybe another... :)
So yeah, anyways, did some climbing at Silver Lake. 'Twas very much fun indeed. Here's how it all went down.
Per usual, I had Wednesday and Thursday off from the mountain. The weather was completely blue bird on Wednesday and very warm and it wasn't half bad on Thursday either. Unfortunately for me I didn't have a climbing partner for the first day, so I went snowboarding instead. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it was just too dang nice to be at the mountain, and I hiked out to Silver Lake to look for new lines. And I found one.
On the hike in I kept saying to Rich, "I have no idea what to expect with this one, we may be free climbing, we may be aiding." Needless to say, our packs were quite heavy.
Since I had gone out and scouted a little, we were able to walk right up to the thing and get started. One of the perks of the line too was that it was really clean. We hardly scrubbed anything. And it looked like it would go on all gear, following a series of disjointed cracks. That was the hope at lease.
So we get up to the base of this thing, get all geared up, and I try to pull off the ground on some would-be-jugs. They weren't jugs though -- heinous slopers. Yum. So I put in an alien, stood up on it, and was still a ways from the start of the crack -- A long ways. And then I busted out a hook.
I've never used hooks before, but boy, let me tell you, they are fun. And so is aid climbing. (There. I said it.) So yeah, after a hook move, and some more small gear, I made it up to the crack. And that start was pretty indicative of the whole climb. Lots of small small gear, a hook move here and there, and barely any free moves (yet).
I ended up climbing a 55 foot pitch with a solid A2 rating. And Rich climbed a 45 foot solid A2 pitch as well. We didn't make it to the top yet, but we will very soon.
The climb starts under a crack. Then it follows the crack up to a small overhang. Then it traverses right to the base of another crack. Climb this until it slabs out. The second pitch climbs the crack in the slab, up to a horizontal break and a steep headwall. Climb the crack in the headwall, up to the next overhang.
And now a few photos...
The start.
2 comments:
if you can get small gear, you can probably free it. fact.
We've actually been back to that spot already to try to get to the top. We added another pitch but haven't reached the top yet.
And we did top rope the initial crack. The first 20-25 feet go somewhere near 5.11b. It was actually a bit easier than I thought, which is encouraging for the rest of the line. But yeah, slopers are fun.
Post a Comment