Left: Getting above the slabby pitches. In the heat of summer the well worn slabs felt a lot harder than I expected. Right: Leading now on more featured terrain.We were running out of water faster than planned when we came across two full jugs on this ledge! They a had a note from people that bailed and figured another party could use ’em. Well they were right! They even left their number on the note so Mike called them (turns out they were still in the Valley) and thanked them big time for the water 🙂 Also, as I later learned from my wife, we had the whole route to ourselves from this point forward.Little did we know, my family was in the valley below watching us do this pitch and taking pictures.I remember there being a fat BD cam stuck in this crack. I usually never leave gear like that behind but we had to keep a good pace.Left: Full size picture taken by my wife down in the valley. Right: Zoomed into that same picture you can see Mike belaying on the ledge and me about midway up the crack/flake.
Getting high and steep! Humping the pig was a lot less effort at this point.I had heard that this would be one of the smelliest sections of the climb because everybody takes a shit down the large gap behind the pedestal, but I guess climbing in the middle of July has it’s benefits. There was certainly shit back there, but it was too dried up to make a strong odour.Well it took a day longer than planned, but we bagged it!
