Wet Denim Daydream snippets

Wet Denim Daydream snippets

Turning the roof was a grunting, awkward flailfest. Not technically hard placement-wise, but with my feet spinning like a boat propellor, it was not something I was used to. Now that I think about it, it felt similar to Kor Roof but not as easy. Once you were able to get your toes against the rock it was cruiser with fixed pins every now and then and camhooks in between.

Best advice I can give for upward progress when your feet have NOTHING to gain purchase on is to walk up your aiders by putting your heel through the front of the ladder over the toe of the foot below it – this is similar to how you get up those skinny wire caving ladders which we use to service the ropes course at my summer camp.

The move onto Dano ledge was sketchy to me because my blast piece was a fixed blade and if I blew the mantel then I’d fall a distance which freaked me out. I ended up placing a strait-up offset cam and tensioned that to a hand placed beak a bit further back and did the mantel which was chill – but all the same, my head was just frazzled by then. I doubt anyone else would feel the need for protection on the move.

oddly, I’ve been on top of this ledge, and the crack puts you right there on the ledge.

There’s still about 20′ of climbing once you turn the roof to get to the ledge. Probably about 5-6 points of aid or man-the-f-up and easily free climbed. (i don’t free climb much when soloing. [and by “much” I mean “at all unless I have to” {and by “I have to” I mean “it’s still early in the climb”]})

The freeclimbing from Awhanee Ledge was very frightening while soloing with an unmodified grigri. If I was being belayed I think it would have been a walk in the park. There’s plenty of places to coax protection and probably no more than 70% of those placements would blow out the loose rock and bring it raining down upon you if you fell.

Other than that short section, there is nowhere else that can’t be aided around.