Years go by, and you do little. A whole life can go by in the blink of an eye, without a single glorious moment. Even when you do climb well, most times, it’s just filling in the dots, and dashes.
The last new route I did, is different from the ordinary, it’s very fine, interstellar, galactic, cosmic even. Why so?
It’s a 70 meter pitch,
It overhangs 20 meters
It is on wires and friends on loose rock
It finishes with 15 meters of ice
Yet you do two thirds in rock shoes
It’s hardish
For me an it’s an amalgam of everything that best in wild rock and ice
It sparkles
I am proud of this little gem, happy that I made the considerable effort to do it, happy I did it ground up, and took many falls.
It’s called Cannibis, and there must be other routes to do like this.
I very rarely do anything significant, but this is a masterpiece. If all our days were this productive, it would be more joyful for sure.
Question, Is it a mixed route? Ans, Yes
In future we might get a crampon that will be fixable with one hand more easily, and very complex hybrid climbing might be easier. At the moment boots and crampons take a bit of time to fit. On this route I was lucky to have a ledge to change, otherwise this route would have had to have been, dry tooled, and aided , or 1 point of aid to change shoes. Also this route may have been too hard for me to climb ground up with the additional burden of a pair of axes, and a pair of crampons, additional 2 kgs + rack of friends, draws, etc. This additional wieght is getting too much of a charge for a route over 8a. Well for me, it is! However on easier routes many things should be possible. Climbing is still evolving, eh?
Viva la revolution.
