Tried to beat the heat on Sunday by climbing in the shade of Machete Ridge in the morning. My friend wanted a tour up part of Machete, so we figured up to the meadow just below the headwall where some of the aid routes begin would be a good way to spend the day.
Starting out on Lucky 13, someone added a hanger to the lowest bolt stud on the wall. I'm not sure what good a bolt 6 feet off the ground does for you. I also vaguely remember the first bolt being higher up, did more get put in?
I took the first (attempted) lead of the route, but got a quick ride back to the ground when my handhold broke off while clipping the 2nd (3rd??) bolt. Just enough rope out to make it wall the way back down without getting a wedgie.
At least I got the draw clipped
I tried falling my way up the route after that, but didn't make much more headway once the adrenaline wore off. My friend took over the lead and we were up to Alias Bandit Bench in no time. He continued the lead over the traverse to the base of the Badman Mezzanine chimney (this was the first time he's ever done a traverse and was stoked!).
I took the lead up Full Throttle, which was way more fun than I thought it would be! My 60M probably only had 5ft of slack to spare by the time I made the anchors. Sitting up on the ledge and meadow is probably one of my favorite places in the park
We (somewhat) reversed West Face and traversed climbers right to the meadow for a short break.
Did I mention my friend is a snake charmer in his spare time?
The sun was pretty much full on us by this point and it was too hot to hang out much longer, so we rapped down to the ledge over Dos Equis, down-climbed to collect our things, and escaped to the shade at the Flumes for a little bit.
I must say that I love the colors on the wall just to the right of our descent! So cool looking!
Part of me wishes we could have topped out on Machete, but it was WAY too hot to be messing with aid climbing. I think a return trip to the top will have to wait until next fall.
