Just finished reading Katie Brown's memoir Unraveled. If you were a rock climber in the 90s when she was a waif-like 14 year old winning the X games and international competitions, you may find this book as fascinating as I did. I had a hard time putting it down. One of this things I found most interesting was the amount of difficult trad climbing she did in her post-competition years. I guess I'd lost track of her by then. I also have a small connection to her because I worked as the editor of her 2008 instructional/inspirational book Girl on the Rocks. At that time, every interaction I had with her left me somewhat mystified. This book explains a lot about what was going on with her mental health at the time. If you're not aware of who she is, here's a link with a bit of info.
running out of time we moved the anchor to this mega classic trad adventure line on the west face of the aiguille. sounds weird to say about single pitch but you have hard face climbing or an easier dihedral to this cave, followed by an exit in this horizontal crack with no feet. you pull the roof and head across this detached flake to this baggy finger crack that gets wider and wider.
Nice looking rock. Your photos made me look up the Aiguille on Mountain Project.
08-18-2023, 05:39 PM
ex-powderbroker
It's a really nice place. Mostly single pitch trad on anorthosite (basically granite). Some very hard face climbing and some of the only 5.14 trad in the east.
In other news, "International Climbing Day" tomorrow, free gym for me in the rain (free gym on a rainy day).
started to rain so while we were waiting under the massive roofs of mont king we found some other climbs. this thing led to an anchor where i top roped “gangrene” and obscure late 70’s chosspile i can’t imagine leading on gear. people are nuts.
here's a nice TRS i like to climb when i'm feeling saucy!
the crux is traversing under the roof and engaging the exit crack
i actually remembered my camera!
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if you're passing through the idaho panhandle, be aware that the crags at Q'emiln (AKA Post Falls) are closed for the season.
an 80 acre fire burned through this summer and the closure is for hazard reduction/vegetation recovery.
another story i heard is that the fire burned close to one of the minor crags and there is concern that the glue-in bolts were compromised, so, the city closed all climbing
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got a nice campsite by a small crag in nowheresville with some friends. we left some top ropes up on cracks and hit them after dinner for some laps by headlamp.
tried to do a link up on top rope solo for some cool pitches but my head was really screwed up today. people and dogs at the summit asking me if i was really going down there yadda yadda ruined my vibe plus i think i need to quit social media news and anything that isn’t family, tgr, climbing, or pornography.
ended up running into a buddy and even though sunset was in an hour he told me about a newly bolted 3pitch 7.
we hurried over and it saved the day.
i cruised it linking the last two pitches with a 70. i was pretty sure two seventies would get us down but we needed another 10-12m, the sun set and hilarity ensued.
stupid rain and wind this week so basically only the tamaracks are still waiting to go, they’re just getting started. Attachment 472998
Got 3 trad leads down on lost horizon, then rain skunked the rest of the weekend plans. Anyhow, fun times.
Appropriately named "stealing candy from a baby"
I just returned from 3 solid days at Red Rock with my old alpine partner. Man, or was fun! We just did easy stuff, but a bunch of it. 12 ish pitches per day and solid approaches from 159 to the canyons, and I'm ready for a rest day.Attachment 474635Attachment 474636Attachment 474637Attachment 474638