Earlier in the week I was depressed due to lack of outside time as work, school, temple sessions, and dinner parties with friends were requiring more sit down time than I prefer. Luckily thursday-saturday provided some quality time in the great outdoors.
New
Wednesday I got to run all over Sugarhouse Park with my dad while we chased Caroline in her State Cross country meet. She did pretty well, taking 8th overall, despite pulling a Spence and getting passed in the final stretch. Congrats to her on a terrific 4 year high school career, and the beginning(i hope) of a lifetime of long distance running(if I can convince her 3 miles is just a warmup).
Thursday Court and I got out up little cottonwood to put some business to rest up the Green A gully.
Old
Wheels on Fire 10a, Stormy Resurrection 11b, Looney Tunes 11b
New
Finally Redpointing Mother of Pearl 11c
Court managed to onsight/flash/whatever Looney Tunes with me yelling beta at him while he climbed. I found this impressive and it just confirmed the fact that this kid can climb hard when he tries.(which is less often than I'd like to see). I pulled through the tough lieback moves of Mother of Pearl and didn't whip on my poor .4 camalot for the 5th time and finally sent what I think is one of the tougher .11's in the canyon. 4 star route mega route.
Friday I did a really fun loop inspired by Court.
Old
West slabs and summiting Olympus
New
Linking the North and South summits via lots of 5th class scrambling and looping back via the new bonneville shoreline trail
Starting from the standard west slab approach, send the slabs and take the ridge to the North Summit. Pull on your routefinding goggles and make your way to the South Summit without cliffing out(I was not successful in this). From the S. Summit, down the standard Oly trail, then 10 min past the stream, take the brand spanking new BST back to your car! This loop has no doubt been done in the past but always required road running on Wasatch. NO LONGER! 100% trail. The time is wrong on Strava, it took me 2:45 total.
Saturday Annie and I hiked up Bells do to the super classic Arm and Hammer, 10a A0.
Old
Arm and Hammer
New
Rappelling 5th class dirt
Arm and Hammer is 2nd only to Vertical Overhangs as the best multipitch I've done in the Wasatch. The climbing is fun, wild, safe, and makes you either slab climb .11 or hone your pendulum aid technique. We had some camera malfunctions and only started to get pics on pitch 4. Bummer.
Pitch 1 is a 5.7 squeeze chimney which are always somewhat insecure. I missed clipping the crux bolt as I was so tightly jammed in the chimney I couldn't reach it behind me as I thrutched up the crack.(Annie easily liebacked it with toprope courage)
Pitch 2 requires some running swinging to snag some tat on a bolt and then pull some .10 moves into a corner. This is likely the closest I'll get to the King Swing.
Pitch 3 is the mega classic Zion Curtain, 100 feet of a thin hands paper flake on a 80 degree wall after another running swing to reach the flake.
Pitch 4 is a superb finger to hand crack with a final roof traverse.
Pitch 5 is the chossiest slab pitch you'll ever climb, but who cares, the other 4 were great!
The descent off Middle Bell is about as fun as other Wasatch gully freak shows, always a treat, lots of 5th class choss downclimbing and we actually rappelled down some 5.6SD(steep dirt) off some ratty tat on a shrub. Highly recommend it.
New
Wednesday I got to run all over Sugarhouse Park with my dad while we chased Caroline in her State Cross country meet. She did pretty well, taking 8th overall, despite pulling a Spence and getting passed in the final stretch. Congrats to her on a terrific 4 year high school career, and the beginning(i hope) of a lifetime of long distance running(if I can convince her 3 miles is just a warmup).
 |
| Nice Knee highs! Her first mile time was as fast as I can run a mile on my best day |
Thursday Court and I got out up little cottonwood to put some business to rest up the Green A gully.
Old
Wheels on Fire 10a, Stormy Resurrection 11b, Looney Tunes 11b
New
Finally Redpointing Mother of Pearl 11c
Court managed to onsight/flash/whatever Looney Tunes with me yelling beta at him while he climbed. I found this impressive and it just confirmed the fact that this kid can climb hard when he tries.(which is less often than I'd like to see). I pulled through the tough lieback moves of Mother of Pearl and didn't whip on my poor .4 camalot for the 5th time and finally sent what I think is one of the tougher .11's in the canyon. 4 star route mega route.
 |
| Great finger crack of Stormy |
 |
| Upper dihedral of Mother of Pearl is sun/shade line |
Friday I did a really fun loop inspired by Court.
Old
West slabs and summiting Olympus
New
Linking the North and South summits via lots of 5th class scrambling and looping back via the new bonneville shoreline trail
Starting from the standard west slab approach, send the slabs and take the ridge to the North Summit. Pull on your routefinding goggles and make your way to the South Summit without cliffing out(I was not successful in this). From the S. Summit, down the standard Oly trail, then 10 min past the stream, take the brand spanking new BST back to your car! This loop has no doubt been done in the past but always required road running on Wasatch. NO LONGER! 100% trail. The time is wrong on Strava, it took me 2:45 total.
 |
| Slabs are always a treat. Got an extra 50 feet due to lack of snow. |
 |
| North Summit looking west |
 |
| South Summit headwall |
 |
| It was dark, but I was still able to find the new BST! |
Saturday Annie and I hiked up Bells do to the super classic Arm and Hammer, 10a A0.
Old
Arm and Hammer
New
Rappelling 5th class dirt
Arm and Hammer is 2nd only to Vertical Overhangs as the best multipitch I've done in the Wasatch. The climbing is fun, wild, safe, and makes you either slab climb .11 or hone your pendulum aid technique. We had some camera malfunctions and only started to get pics on pitch 4. Bummer.
Pitch 1 is a 5.7 squeeze chimney which are always somewhat insecure. I missed clipping the crux bolt as I was so tightly jammed in the chimney I couldn't reach it behind me as I thrutched up the crack.(Annie easily liebacked it with toprope courage)
Pitch 2 requires some running swinging to snag some tat on a bolt and then pull some .10 moves into a corner. This is likely the closest I'll get to the King Swing.
Pitch 3 is the mega classic Zion Curtain, 100 feet of a thin hands paper flake on a 80 degree wall after another running swing to reach the flake.
Pitch 4 is a superb finger to hand crack with a final roof traverse.
Pitch 5 is the chossiest slab pitch you'll ever climb, but who cares, the other 4 were great!
The descent off Middle Bell is about as fun as other Wasatch gully freak shows, always a treat, lots of 5th class choss downclimbing and we actually rappelled down some 5.6SD(steep dirt) off some ratty tat on a shrub. Highly recommend it.
 |
| Middle Bell Tower |
 |
| Pitch 4 handcrack |
 |
| Pitch 4 roof |
 |
| Annie pulling over roof on Pitch 4 |
 |
| Descent. Nice steep dirt |
You and Annie need to do the real King Swing now. Can't wait to see you guys!
ReplyDelete