Saturday, June 10

5am...Bruce shot straight up out of his bag in a brash display of motivation and started getting ready. This began by heating water for coffee? We all drank and ate all we could until we were bursting and then started up the approach ramps to the start of Steck-Salathe, leaving our bivy gear for the downhill trip after the climb. Bruce handed me two Mountain Dews (my coffee substitute - this guy really thought of everything!), but my guts were churning with the previous night's beers and a night of aprehensive, restless sleep, thinking about the route, so I stashed them in my pack for after the descent. The ramps for the approach are kind of a wake-up call to sleepy climbers. Some dicey areas really got our attention on the way up. By the time we got to the base of the route, I was really sorry I'd worn the polypro top, and had taken it off. By 6am we stood at the bottom of the first pitch. The Mighty Brutus was ready to go! A caged tiger poised to spring. Very little preperation required, he stepped up to the first pitch at 6:15a and I put him on belay.

Bruce cruised up the easy section at the bottom, took a look at the flared 5.8 grunt above with the chockstone wedged in the middle and then casually fired it off, passing on up to a steep lieback leading to the belay. I followed, making it over the chockstone only by the use of brute force with no technique involved. It was pretty burly. The rock was weird for me this trip to the valley. Not enough granite climbing recently, I suppose. I got up into the lieback and finally collapsed at the belay, dripping with sweat and feeling generally trashed. Not a very good start, considering we had 14 pitches to go! Gnar-Gnar fired up the pitch with no problem and reracked for her lead on the second pitch. Based on my poor performance of the first pitch, I abdicated my lead of the third to Brutus. Speed was one of the essentials for this thing if we were to see the top that night. We didn't need Mr. 5.7+ up there leading slow pitches, so I prepared to be towed to the top.

The next couple of pitches went quickly. The short 5.8 section of the second pitch slowed her down a minute, but she soon found the sequence and scooted right up to easier climbing above. A short traverse to the left and she belayed at another small stance. Bruce did the third pitch to the bottom of the Wilson Overhang. The third consisted of some really nice jamming up a hand crack past a tree, then onto a loose section in the middle. The last part was some 5.7 offwidth (boy, that would be the theme for the day!) up to a large wedged flake below the Overhang. This third pitch was fairly strenuous as well, but I was beginning to feel better. We all were on top of the third pitch by 8:45a, so we were in pretty good shape so far. We hoped to average slightly under an hour per pitch for the three of us to try to make it off by daylight. This would prove to be interesting.

While I was belaying Inez up the third pitch, Brutus was doing some bouldering up the start of the fourth pitch, hooked to the belay by a long sling. He even placed a piece or two before downclimbing to wait for a real belay. When Inez arrived, I put him on and he moved up into the nasty-looking flared slot above. There used to be a flake that you could yard on to fire this pitch off in 5.8 or so. You could still see where the flake USED to be, and the pitch has taken on a nastier tone as a result of the loss. In fact,his section is now into the 5.10b/c range and has a fair bit of stretch between possible pro placements getting up into the Overhang. Brutus, as would be the case all day, simply muscled up into the flare, placed a #4 Friend and shot out the left side into the "knee jumar" chimney above. Good jams put him at the belay in no time. I was able to do some body stemming and felt fairly decent on this section, moving off into the chimney above and to the belay. Gnar-baby cruised it.