Ascents as Tick by Bonnie

the most in over my head i've been. had (mostly) mentally prepared for the approach, adventurous/old-school style, steepness, offwidth, but not the squeeze chimneys, nor the exposed bottomless #5/#6 crux. led about the first half of p3; was a terrified gumby; Owen was a total champ.

back at cars 2:45am. brought and placed both #5s; a #6 may have been useful if not completely necessary, but neither of us have one anymore for the exact same reason :p

mega fun adventure, worth the crowds. tests your ability to climb everything: splitters, boulder sequences, steep jug haul, chimney (p5, p8), committing to balancy mantle above a first bolt/ledge (p4). pitch breakdown was arbitrary but worked out well: I somehow got the bouldery pitches (p3, p7) and not the reachy ones (p1, p6)

I did read the supertopo description of p2 but was stoked to get out and climb so applied a healthy amount of cognitive dissonance and figured I could 'just sit'. nowhere near enough gear with doubles up to #2 then singles up to #4. all four hexes got placed. fought valiantly for the onsight until about halfway then was completely flash pumped. top piece of gear was always placed on lead until the final offwidth. not the first time i've been completely shut down by '5.9' but afaicr the first time i've had to pause part way through pulling up rope to dry heave into a bush.

proper adventure for my first day in the valley, including a long guidebookless approach and spectacular summit. led p1+p3 clean; briefly pulled on gear seconding 5.9++ p2 variant. fully committed to v-groove on p3 well above gear, somehow stayed on more due to stubbornness than actual friction (or maybe because i was going for a substantial ride on a #0.4 whether or not I gave up, or because I thought I was on 5.7)

fun afternoon ramble, did as one pitch but needed two raps to get off with a 60

to exit; hard with full packs. I ditched mine to get to the last bolt of p1. Aid tactics through parts of p2 even without the pack - maybe it'd be slightly less nails in the shade

to the top - the walk off wasn't too bad

forgot the bolt plates

tried to lead, placed the merlin but bailed when the chimney turned into an offwidth and i didn't really know how to proceed. brutal.

went up the flake for p1

lovely line. tough first pitch made more spooky by lichen. the carrot at knee height at p2 anchor was odd

very pleasant end of day ramble

casual approach shoe afternoon ramble

really nice; had to fire on all cylinders in the last 10m to race Andre on the next route to the anchors (won by about 5s)

nice to come back and finish this! can't really do burl at the moment, so shortened p4. wiiiindy.

great fun, nice and close to the water. rock quality was questionable but not as bad as i was expecting, but then again i didn't lead it

fell off tufas trying to get a knee bar to stick

first pitch was mediocre choss. also felt on the verge of fainting all of this day.

another lap to clean - happy to still get it clean!

tried to solo but head said no

terrifying but so worth it. 4 pitches to top of pinnacle, 9 hours car to car. so much of the first two pitches was offwidth for me, which was definitely character-building.

wow. feels like the most physical thing I've done, ever, and that was on second. heaps of fun after the fact. on the plus side I now know how to fist jam...

awesome

super cool rock - highly recommend

happy to get it clean on second - maybe it's just that my headspace on slab is super shaky

was not up to leading this: had to aid through slick/reachy move out of corner on p1 but got the rest clean. cool improbably traverse on p2

awesome slabbing. thanks Dane for leading it (although are you really leading a pitch if the first piece of gear you place is the anchor??)

felt much better than in 2012, even with three months off to get an ankle put back together

contrived