How were the upper 2?
Here's a more detailed description of the whole climb:
- The first pitch is routine for Pinns, one stout section of 5.9, 50 feet to a ledge, some good pro, some not so good (including a nice, tied off tree branch). It has a ten foot long, scary, very loose, traversing finish. Take a set of cams from 1/2 to four inches.
- The second pitch starts with the 50 foot, overhanging bolt ladder. This still has enough un-replaced bolts to add a little spice. From the end of the bolt ladder move up and right to an obvious (and fractured) lodestone. From the top of this lodestone clip a bolt. Move up and left to an unlikely slot that takes a good #3 Camalot. Continue up a slight right facing corner, placing two more one inch cams in slots. Belay from two fixed pins and two good cams (1 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch). The pitch is 120 feet long. The mandatory free climbing on this pitch looks very hard, and virtually everything that sticks out from the face seems loose (I used mostly things that went into the rock, slight scoops, for my feet and just pulled very, very gently on the stuff I had to use for my hands).
- Pitch three requires good loose-rock free climbing skills and really, really heads up Pinnacles (note: Pinnacles, not granite) aid climbing ability. It is 100 feet from the second pitch belay to the bolt at the top of the aid portion of this pitch. Loose 5.6 (or so) climbing then leads up and left eight feet to a large scoop (Sons of the West rejoins Icarus here). There is one bolt about eight feet above this scoop. Note, continuing with the upper part of this pitch may not be wise. This third pitch is 190 feet long as it is shown in the '07 guidebook, and that may be too much without a really serious use of runners below (Kevin set up a belay from this one bolt backed up by a rivet ten feet higher and cams ten feet above that; I jugged on this anchor. Glen and Gary certainly belayed here from one, yes one, Star Dryvin bolt). Kevin used a pink Tri-Cam, stoppers, cams to two inches, about a dozen pins (mostly thin to small angles), and a "Pika" hook (multiple uses of this hook on the pitch).
- The upper part of pitch three (call it pitch four) is the "V" slot. This protects fairly well with a few large stoppers and cams from 1/2 inch to 4 1/2 inches. When I led it I thought it was very physical, that it had one distinct crux at a desperate-looking overhanging spot, and that it was otherwise fairly straightforward. Kevin led it on this climb, and I think he would agree with my assessment (I heard some grunting from him, at least).
- The fifth pitch is about 170 feet long and is protected with bolts only. The first 135 feet are sustained 5.8, with several 20 foot runs between bolts. The climbing then gets easy to a two-bolt anchor.
- The last pitch is 60 feet of very easy fifth class to the top.
I think the funniest moment of our ascent was when I said to Kevin "I think the FA was in 1976." A long pause was followed by his response: "That was three years before I was born." That's a long gap between ascents.
