[TR] Index cragging- Iron Horse and Arachnid Arch solo aid 4/19/2006

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Climb: Index cragging-Iron Horse and Arachnid Arch solo aid

 

Date of Climb: 4/19/2006

 

Trip Report:

Just a mini TR, but I'm bored and working from home. Index was relatively hopping yesterday with the nice sunny weather. I decided it would be a lot more fun to take the day off and play than stay inside and work. I've been meaning to do some aid, but I was too lazy to find a partner and didn't want to spend half the day belaying anyways. I wanted to climb instead! Thus I figured it was about time to start my solo aid career and figure out how to use that clunky gri-gri for something other than it's silly intended use.

 

I decided Iron Horse looked like a nice line since my bag was heavy with way more gear than anyone but a solo gumby would want to carry. I lassoed a big boulder at the base for my anchor since the flake at the base looked ok, but not ideal and I wanted a good anchor figuring I'd be worried about other stuff. The pitch was really pretty straight forward once I got off the ground and got into a pattern feeding the gri-gri and working with my backup knots. The only slightly tricky move was the transition between crack systems below and left of the first anchors on Sagitarius. I found a decent ballnut placement to get me up. I went up the anchors just above the "ringing flake", rapped, and then ascended to clean. The whole pitch went well with my only minor snafu being shoving my ascender up again the anchor on accident with a little fiddling to get it loose.

 

After I got down I had a nice hot lunch to field test my pepsi can alcohol stove. My tasty bites and cup of tea made it all seem quite luxurius, even if it was sunny and 60.

 

After lunch I figured I ought to do something else since I had all that gear, but I was too lazy to move far so I did the Arachnid Arch variation of Sagitarius to practice a little traversing under a roof. The start was a little grunty in the flaring bit (there's a 0.5 camalot fixed there by someone if anyone wants to try and rescue it, I couldn't), and the crack inder the roof ate my small cams like candy. I found a super bomber hook a couple moves below the first anchor that you could hang yo mama from too. I stopped at the first anchor due to time and a lack of motivation to grunt in the chimney on solo lead. Cleaning the traverse was "good practice" too, at least I was smart enough not to back clean.

 

All in all a fun day in the sun, and two good easy (C2?) routes to practice solo without too much commitment. I felt pretty good on my first solo leads, maybe I'll do Green Dragon or something next.

 

Gear Notes:

Aid rack, used offset aliens and ballnutz, but didn't really need them, plenty of room for standard gear. One hook move (cliffhanger) on the arch.

 

Approach Notes:

Hike five mins from the parking lot and you've probably already passed it.

[Chad_A]

Very cool, man. I thought about ya when I was at Smith the last two days.

 

You mean that Pepsi can stove didn't blow up on you? Heheheheh.....