Inez reported on reaching the belay that she fully recalled the next pitch from their previous ascent and that it was a living bitch. Unperturbed, Bruce reracked and headed up. The pitch was a full 165 feet of nasty. We could hear Bruce breathing hard and periodically grunting above somewhere. That, we figured, was a bad sign. We'd brought 200' ropes as a margin of safety and to run pitches together if we could, so the long pitches were comfortably done without having to stretch the ropes to reach the belays. I went up after Brutus and found an enduro pitch that never let up all the way to the belay. Steep jams, no jams, arm bars, knee jams and everything else in the arsenal of climbing techniques were required on the pitch. And just to make you real happy, at the top was a 5" crack with bare walls on either side. Brutus called this "5.8+ strenuous." I thought it was solid nasty. With a tight belay from above, and once stopping for a rest hang, I finally made the belay, huffing and sweating. Trashed yet again! Bruce told me how they had bivied on this ledge the year before. I checked out the sparse accomodations and decided that must have been a helluva night. The ledge was just big enough to be comfortable sitting with some really rocky spots where one could maybe stretch out. The only comfortable lie-down spot was right along the edge of the ledge, overlooking a lot of air. Evidently, this was the spot where Allen had snored all night the year before. We watched the swallows making amazing aerial maneuvers right up against the walls beside the belay. The best of which was a backwards barrel-roll just before crashing into the granite. Gnar-Gnar joined us at the belay. I'd swear there was smoke coming out of her ears from the effort. Nasty pitch. One more to the top of the Flying Buttress.

Brutus offered the lead of the next pitch to me. Before climbing the 6th pitch, I was just about ready to do some leading. After that, I was feeling too wasted to be fast and deferred to the master. Time was the enemy here, and I didn't want to slow us down any. He fired the 7th pitch off quickly, moving up along a loose-looking set of flakes up and right of the belay to an old sleeve-style bolt. A burly exit put him on a dirt ledge with a fair sized tree just below the top of the Buttress. I followed and belayed Inez while Bruce headed across the 3rd class traverse behind the Flying Buttress. The rappel anchors (previously slings around loose blocks) down to the start of the free variation to the route (bypassing the headwall aid pitch) had been replaced by Bruce with two 3/8" bolts and rap chains. Once Inez was up, he belayed us over to the anchors and rapped down to a 2-bolt anchor at the bottom of the gnarly looking 5.9 OW crack to the left of the Flying Buttress (we counted the traverse as a pitch and the rappel as a pitch).

The 9th pitch looked grim. The wall is very steep on the left side of the Flying Buttress. This was one thing I recalled from doing the Sentinel before. The dang thing is way vertical! Some tricky face climbing was possible next to the wide crack to make progress. Bruce moved powerfully up to what appeared to be the main difficulties, a right-turning kink in the 4" crack. This was the only time all day he said, "Watch me!" but he moved right into the wide section above, stopping once to comment that the crack was wet. Oh goody! I did slightly better on this one, and Inez enjoyed it as well. I really thought this was one of the better pitches on the route, with varied and difficult climbing that made you think. The belay was in a small corner below the sole face-climbing pitch on the route.

Gnar-Gnar was feeling froggy by this time and wanted to leap on the 10th pitch. She'd tried to lead this pitch the year before and gotten off-route before having to back off. Payback time! She led off strong, reaching the first bolt that comes about thirty feet out. A left-traverse leads to a second bolt by a hole, and she steadily moved up the pitch. Discontinuous cracks lead up and left to the belay spot, with a couple of pins and one more bolt where a really dicey step left puts you on the last section to the top of the pitch. I found this to be one of the most exciting and scariest on the route for me (I ain't no face climber). Inez had done it confidently and with very little hesitation. A very nice lead! We joined her at the small belay stance below a flaring chimney torture chamber. Bruce grabbed the stuff and headed up.

This pitch (12) was one of the most physical on the route. The first few moves led to a squeaky clean offwidth section that was a real grunt. A small ledge was reached and then the really hard part came in. I guess back in the old days, Royal Robbins had led this pitch via a 5.4 variation in the back of this chimney, which exited above on the small ledge at the bottom of the Narrows. This pitch has been closed off due to rock fall, so you have to do the hard work now, instead of the easier detour. The pitch even had Brutus grunting (again, a bad sign), but as usual, he just continued right on up to the belay. I made it after lots of struggling and weird body contortions. When Inez came up, the real fun started. I think she had a lot harder time because of shorter legs and arms, and had to really work to make the belay. We were getting tired (except for hardman Brutus) and it was starting to show. The belay was a nice little shelf just below the Narrows in the bowels of the north face. While belaying Inez up, we discussed if I could get my rotund butt up the inside of the Narrows, or whether we should get a rope down for me to climb the outside.

In the end, I decided to go with the guaranteed way and do the outside of the Narrows. If I got stuck, we would be hosed and lose lots of time. This was something we were running out of very quickly. When Inez got to the belay, we straightened up the stuff and Bruce led off up the squeeze. A four-foot chimney gets reduced to a 12-inch slot by a ceiling on the left wall. The trick, once you shove your head and shoulders up into the slot, is to get your legs and knees up in there to push off of. This pitch took Bruce a total of about 10 minutes to lead. He stopped at the chockstone above, took part of the trail rope and put some cams and nuts on it. A few swings later, we had the other end, down the outside of the chockstone and were back in business. Gnar-Gnar headed up, taking one small slip while getting into the slot, most definitely due to simple fatigue and the fact that her legs could barely reach the other side of the wider chimney. The second time, not problem and she squirmed up the slot. She checked to make sure the trail rope was o.k. and continued to the belay. I checked my watch when I. got to the belay and it was 6:57p. We had four pitches to the top, and about an hour and 45 minutes to do them...

When my turn came, I swallowed and began chimney out to the outside face. The chimneying was very solid on the way out there. The exposure of exiting this slot near the top of the north face was pretty huge. I continued chimneying out and was able to brace off an unseen offset shelf on the outside of the slot, which made things actually doable. I got up a little higher and then turned around in the slot and started chicken-wings, stemming and knee-slots to get up the wide crack (5.9+). Considering the nature of the climbing, it went surprisingly well. Lots of little footholds on the outside wall helped, as I wiggled my way past the four historical bolts, placed during the first ascent by John Salathe. I got past the chockstone and was soon at the belay.