G-spotter Posted April 25, 2006 Posted April 25, 2006 My friend Chris is a keen new climber who's been doing it for about a year. He was pestering me to take him up some route so I decided on the UE not really realizing that although he lead climbs he'd never done a multipitch. We left his place in squamish around 9, walked to the Chief, climbed Bottom Line to Over The Rainbow then up Boomstck to the upper Apron trail. Cut into the gully and over to UE. First four pitches of UE are soaking wet. Sun caught up to us here and it got very hot. We started taking ledge breaks after every pitch to rest our sore feet (neither of us was wearing super comfy shoes). At the very top we wimped out of the regular UE finishes and traversed off on the 5.8 dirty last pitch of Echelon. Summitted around 7 PM and were in the pub drinking beer at 8:45. I think Chris was pretty pleased that his "first multipitch climb" ended up being 21 pitches We forgot the sunscreen too. First sunburn of the year! Quote
catbirdseat Posted April 25, 2006 Posted April 25, 2006 UE is ten pitches. That means it took eleven pitches to get to the upper apron? Quote
G-spotter Posted April 25, 2006 Author Posted April 25, 2006 Almost. Bottom Line = 3, linked two on OTR to make it 5, Boomstick = 2, then we climbed 9 pitches of UE, then 2 pitches of Echelon to finish. 3+5+2+9+2 = 21. Quote
catbirdseat Posted April 25, 2006 Posted April 25, 2006 Wow. Nice full day of climbing. Was your friend maybe a little bit tired? Quote
G-spotter Posted April 25, 2006 Author Posted April 25, 2006 Yeah, he made all the classic mistakes like bringing a big pack. I was tired too cause I led all the pitches. Quote
catbirdseat Posted April 25, 2006 Posted April 25, 2006 Yeah, he made all the classic mistakes like bringing a big pack. I was tired too cause I led all the pitches. That explains why you didn't want to lead the last 5.10b crux pitch. I wouldn't have if I'd just lead 19 pitches. Quote
G-spotter Posted April 25, 2006 Author Posted April 25, 2006 It was more that I didn't want to lead the 10b because it traverses and I figured it would be extra tuff to second with the pack, and I didn't want to lead the dyke pitch because even when you pull on the draws it's steep. Also I remembered the Echelon finish from when fern and I climbed it a few years ago before UE was fully cleaned or bolted. Quote
Off_White Posted April 26, 2006 Posted April 26, 2006 Nothing inspires one to lead all the pitches like a big pack. Still, thats a lot of pitches to be consistently on point. Quote
G-spotter Posted April 26, 2006 Author Posted April 26, 2006 ah if it was trango tower that'd just be one block! Quote
jordop Posted April 26, 2006 Posted April 26, 2006 climbed Bottom Line to Over The Rainbow then up Boomstck to the upper Apron trail Ah, you were the dork climbing that on Sunday. Driving by I remarked, "who the hell ever climbs that p.o.s?" Someone might have asked the same of this humble dork had they driven by yesterday afternoon Quote
layton Posted April 26, 2006 Posted April 26, 2006 was it ultimately everything you imagined? is there still a bolt on that horizontal section? Quote
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