For years marc and I had talked about doing this old time classic. Joe even offered to solo it with me (ewe).
So it was finnally to be...
We racked up with some runners, a set of nuts and a few cams. The holy guide said only 8 runners...for a chimney climb? Surely the author was off his rocker. We left everthing above #3 camalot in the car.
We're going up that? (Hint....it's the wide thingy that looks like a lobe)


Looking out from the 1st pitch...

In the chasm, looking at the 2nd pitch (I linked 1 & 2 as 1)

It got much narrower and the bird poop increased. Squiddo doing some wide work

Now this is when it gets interesting. We look up and 20-30 ft up is a manky bolt. Squiddo acends into the light.

Yet, the 2nd bolt was 20 or so feet up from the 1st. This was OLD School Bridging..like we do much of that these days. So Squiddo wasn't up for a 20ft run on a manky old bolt whose nail was sticking 1/2" out. Why not it's only 5.6?
So I launch up the chasm. Big hold to a big hold. I quickly pass the bolt and keep going. I get '6ft from the 2nd bolt and have to commit to bridging. Alas, I see a placement for a #2 camalot. I get 2 lobes in..good right. The moves are okay and I get to the 2nd bolt. From there you start face climbing on the left face.

That brought us to the technical crux of the climb...a 5.8 wide chute..

Squiddo cruzed the chute. Oddly, the topo said bolts with no hangers...yah, no hangers OR studs (wtf?). But terrain was cake.
After that there are a short pitch with 2 bolts that took us to a nice meadow.

To be cont......