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Infinite Bliss Mt Garfield speed ascent 7/28/7


David Yount

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July 28, 2007

Infinite Bliss on Mt Garfield

5.10 IV 23 pitches

 

4:53am at car, begin hike

5:20am at base of climb

5:28am begin climb

6:13am top of pitch 8 (45 min to top of pitch 8 the water runnel, or half-pipe)

7:18am top of pitch 15 (1:50 hours to top of pitch 15, where it's time to free solo the long 4th class section)

9:16am summit, begin rappel

11:37am end of rappel, base of climb

11:43am begin hike down

11:57am back at car

 

27 min hike up

8 min transition at base of climb

3:48 hour climb

0 min transition at summit

2:21 hour rappel

6 min transition at base of climb

14 min hike down

 

7:04 hour car to car

 

We pitched it out, no simulclimbing. 12 quickdraws, 3 full length runners and 3 double length runners. I brought 3 pints of water, 2 shot blocks, 4 bars. I drank 1 pint and one shot block. He brought 6 pints water, 2 shot blocks, 3 bars. He drank 3 pints, both shot blocks and 1 bar.

 

It was nice to climb in the shade, the sun didn’t find us until we summitted. However, we were both completely soaked with sweat thoughout the hike and climb, due to the sustained effort. Mosquitos bothered us the entire climb, except maybe the top 3 pitches. The quantity of skeeters was low, but I recommend some (low strength) repellant. The hike began with headlamps and they were necessary all the way. There were many many trees blown down. This time there was not a party asleep in the parking pullout when we drove in.

 

A party of 2 arrived when we were on pitch 19? They had a new pair of lines, bright orange and bright green. We rappeled past them on pitch 6. Taylor was on lead, in the middle of the vertical headwall with the 2 large sweet finger pockets. This pitch signals the end of the granite sidewalk on Mt Garfield.

 

Fletcher, belaying, had a visual to me at the anchors for pitch 6 and asked if the solution was direct between Taylor's position and my own. It was and he did. They were gunning for pitch 10 as their highpoint for the day.

 

-

 

Before our July 1, 2007 ascent we talked about efficiency. We were curious how many ways we could creatively diminish waste time. One thing we decided early on was to forego simulclimbing.

Adequate food, water, clothing and a fairly complete first aid kit were requirements also.We pared weight where we could, believing that less total weight would decrease fatigue as well as enhance our tempo.

 

Most of our conversation was about how to handle the typical sequence of events present during a multipitch climb. Some ideas / solutions were esoteric and trivial, others were pregnant with potential to carve excess time from the process and flow.

 

On July 1 we implemented our ideas. As we ascended, pitch by pitch, some of our ideas evolved, new ideas sprang forth. We paid attention to the sequence, the flow, and efficiency. Besides a 10 minute penalty for 1 stuck rope while rappeling, we had an overall fortunate day.

 

Then we looked at the accomplishment, 9:31 hours car to car. We considered each leg of the adventure and further asked how we could diminish waste time. The devil is in the details! With conservative estimates implementing many little ideas, we figured we could bring that down to 7:38 car to car. But..... only if we were blessed with the same fortune as the first attempt, and no new challenges appeared.

 

July 28, 2007 we attempted again and things went well. We did not have any stuck ropes, but we did have two occassions where the 2 ropes tangled together, requiring some patient de-snarling. We carved 2:27 hours from our first attempt, which was far better than we estimated we could likely attain, clocking 7:04 car to car.

 

Of course we both would have enjoyed a time in the 6 hour range...... and it's easy to look back and find those extra 5 minutes......

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Way cool dude :tup: :tup:great time... you the man Dave,I think that a speed accent of IB is way cooler than a speed accent of Rainer, that only takes a runner, IB actually has to be climbed, eventually the best time will be a solo.

YO!!arm chair mountaineers,monday night quarterbacks,spraygeeks

It's bad ju ju to dis a climb you haven't done!!

It's look'n like IB is on it's way to becomeing a NW CLASSIC!!

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That's a great time, dude that's a lot of climbing in 7:04 and you pitched it out. Some friends find it hard to believe, I assured them how honest you are. It might be easier to convince them if you give up the beta of your Ideaguy speed tricks. Come on!! give up the beta Air Dave!!

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That's a great time, dude that's a lot of climbing in 7:04 and you pitched it out. Some friends find it hard to believe, I assured them how honest you are. It might be easier to convince them if you give up the beta of your Ideaguy speed tricks. Come on!! give up the beta Air Dave!!

 

Since the pace is fast and we'll be sweating for sure we want to have the coolest temps, which means to begin just as night breaks into day. Climbing before the night breaks would slow down the pace due to lack of adequate illumination. This means hiking in the dark, but we don't think we're slower hiking by headlamp.

 

Get sleep 3 days in advance and 2 days in advance 'cuz we gotta get up 1:30am for the drive.....

 

Eat and hydrate significantly the day prior; both are important. That way don't need to haul much weight (water and food) up the wall. And, eating any sort of meal between 1:30am and 5:00am is just gonna spew out your mouth when the hiking gets steep......

 

A fast hiking time is partly minimizing all weight and mostly solid training at high intensity (from decades back....... highschool and college). Use shoes not boots and don't take any food nor water beside what you'll carry up the route. We used a 8.6mm half rope for our single line. He carried a 7.6mm twin rope for the second rappel line. No camera nor anything else extra.

 

A fast tansition time came from pre-rigging systems. Hiking _with_ harness on could be a pain 'cuz there's so many downed trees and branches to snag on, so a superlight pack was used to bundle the ropes, draws and harness, etc. Dump the pack, and the rope was at the bottom so now it's at the top and it's flaked to go. Harness is already tied into the top end of rope, and slings and draws are clipped to harness loops. Bottom of rope has Figure-8 knot just where he likes it. Second line is already custom tied in backpacker's coil to fit him personally. I take off climbing and he gets me on belay before I make the first clip. He waits to tie-in after I'm at the first anchors.

 

During each lead I climb as quick as comfort and grace allow. His priority is to keep sufficient slack so that I never get short roped. If I see an easy section coming up I'll yell, "Rope!" so that he knows to toss out extra line to allow my speedier movement.

 

During each follow he climbs like a man possessed, often emulating Dan Osman during his speed ascent of Bears Reach at Lovers Leap. Some draws may remain on the rope at his harness, him choosing to keep his movement tempo rather than stop to deal with racking the draw on his harness loop.

 

As I belay, trying to keep up with his movement, I study the next pitch, visualizing, planning.

 

He arrives at the belay, totally anaerobic breathing like a Slaystak from Land of the Lost, clips in, and racks the slings and draws on my harness while I flip the stack and ready to cast off. On some belays it is more timely to untie and swap ends of the rope, as flipping the stack in cramped confines can sometimes FUBAR the flake.

 

For rappelling, I take the 7.6mm line with a carabiner brake added up-line from my BD Guide, he simul-rappels on the 8.6mm, we both use the BD Guide rigged in horizontal super friction mode. We each toss the middle of our respective line, then we each toss the end, both tosses taking care to "never cross the lines" (ghostbusters).

 

We don't descend too quickly, just consistently, and always keeping care to unravel any snags in our lines that might build into a bird nest.

 

At the next belay one of us pulls down while the other pulls up the same line until the end can be fed through the chains. As the first continues to pull down, the other keeps up by pulling the slack through the anchors. When the second rope comes falling down the joining knot is already seated against the chains. Gather up the middle of each line and toss, make some hanks at the end and toss.

 

The guy on the opposite side of the anchors as the joining knot is free to begin rappeling after he's rigged; he can help to sort out the other's rope in advance.

 

We lost about 6 minutes during rappeling due to minor knot issues, which we feel very lucky in 22 rappels.

 

We lost about 4 minutes during climbing when either I or he was not ready to begin the next pitch.

 

The only way I see for us to decrease our time would be for both of us to climb a bit faster, not easy. Since we're not going to increase our speed of rappeling, the only significant chunk of time is the climbing. I might be able to shave 6 minutes; I got "lost" many times as I pushed upward while watching my feet......, he might be able to shave 10 minutes with increased cardio strength.

 

During the easier parts of many pitches the limiting factor to climbing is your aerobic training. The slabs can be so easy that you're standing upright and nearly jogging.

 

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  • 1 month later...

My partner Shane and I climbed the route last year in 2:01 then walked off the back side. I think the descent took us literally 8 hours and was horrible! We took a 80' gym rope 25 draws and did the entire thing in two pitches. We talked about trying to get the time under an hour but there is no way I am ever walking off that thing again. I think the beta is to have friends climb the route above you (which is kinda scary on that route) and then rap with them and try to get the route in under an hour. I am sure it is possible but definetly not if you are doing a car to car ascent.

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Thanks for the info Jesse. It is funny how your 2 hour ascent has become a sub one hour ascent in other posts. It sounds like your car to car was something like 10+ hours then.

 

I totally believe you cranked it out in just over 2 hours as it took us 3 hours and 20 minutes and we weren't even hauling donkey and belayed quite a few pitches.

 

Good work but I am sorry to hear about your crappy descent - I'm sure we'll run at it again.

 

So did you guys just simul-solo the route unroped or did you leap each other at any old point or did you stop at a given belay and swap out or ??? I am curious to know your tactics. What do you mean you did it in 2 pitches? You only belayed two pitches?

 

Cheers

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By doing it in two pitches we simul climbed until we were out of draws which just happened to allow us to only meet up once on the route. Lots of times we only had clipped only one or two bolts on the lower half of the route then like every third up high. We just belayed each other with our body weight and never really used standard belays. That felt actually safe with the rope we had since it was only like 90 feet long. I remember thinking that two really good climbers (like timmy and dean), who were in great aerobic shape, could knock that thing out in under an hour. Id love to hear if someone has done it?

 

When we hiked off the back side, we totally got cliffed out, which was unexpected and had BARLEY enough rope to get off, with fixing our line. After we fixed it, we ran into another cliffed out section that made the descent herendous. We traversed 60° slide alder just above a cliffband forever before we found a weakness dropping us into the final drainage and onto the road. We were up there for at least 8 hours on the descent alone. There is no way I am walking down the back side of that thing ever again.

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  • 2 years later...
Sorry to break the bad news but here are our times for today...

 

------------------512Dude---Idea_Guy

Car to Car----------6:11-----7:05

Base to Base------5:11------6:09

Base to Summit---3:20-----3:48 [we pitched it out]

Summit to Base---1:51-----2:21

Total hiking time -1:00----0:41

 

Let the games begin!

 

 

I see where we could obviously save time by skipping some bolts and especially save time by doing some simul-climbing. But I wanted to establish something of an "Everyman's Speed" time. Something that "husband / fathers" could tinker with.

 

Wow! I'd love to hear about your rappelling. I thought we had our systems dialed, and you blew our rappelling time away. I can't imagine how to do 22 rappels faster?

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