[TR] Index - Various 9/23/2007

[olyclimber]

One February day I remember hemming and hawing for a half hour at that spot on Princely where you have to cast off from the big flake and head out right on that sequence of polished nubbins. My poor belayer probably froze. I think of that spot as quite heady. The fall would probably be inconsequential(out into space) but the hollow thunks you get when banging on the big flake your pro is behind does not ease the mind.

 

Godzilla's not very heady if you jam the "lieback" flake. Just jam that shit and sew it up!

 

The bottom moves are a bit heady but much easier than 9. Probably best to wait for a day/time when that part is dry. Did the tree removal alleviate the slime problem down there?

 

Hahaha....AlpineDave and Pax got to watch me spend a good long time on the moves to right off the flake on Princely...the rest of it seemed easy after those moves. That flake just seems like its gonna come off, but it hasn't yet. How long has it been like that?

[Sherri]

Some relevant info of the history of P.A. from Clint Cummins on a supertopo thread :

 

"When Fred Beckey's "Darrington & Index Rock Climbing Guide" came out in 1976, it had an overlay photo which showed the Snow White and Frog Pond aid routes, but nothing in between. I did the first pitch of Snow White on aid, noticed the free climbable upper crack, plus the big moss- and block-choked flake down and right, and started thinking about doing a first ascent - it looked like something I might be able to free climb. The first thing I did was in August 1976 - a new direct finish for p1 of Snow White, so that it stayed left and hopefully people would not nail the moderate upper section which could be used by the new route.

 

Then in June 1977, I scrambled around the left end of the Lower Wall and got above both pitches for a long session of cleaning on rappel. After pitching off flakes, digging out dirt and blackberry vines, the climb was uncovered. It was a typical rainy day, and all the dirt made my rope muddy and wore some deep grooves into my carabiner brake rappel!

 

After some cleansing rains, I came back in July with Jeremy Metz and led it at 5.8. The crux at that time was an undercling/lieback on a giant detached flake (12' x 12' x 6"), halfway up the first pitch. I checked it on rappel, but it didn't budge. Some years later this came off and it became 5.9.

 

The name I wrote in my guidebook at the time was "Prince", to go with Snow White and Frog Pond (and I wrote "Dwarf" for the direct finish to Snow White). Although when I reported it to the guidebook author, I embellished it to "Princely Ambitions" to recall the mega cleaning session involved to uncover a moderate free climb. It's cool that it's popular; I was just in the right place at the right time to uncover it.

 

By the way, dated FA info for Index is at:

 

http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/index/itwfa.htm "