Well, I came into the summer looking to get a lot of things done, from big stuff to little stuff. One thing I hoped to do was establish a barely attainable goal in the form a hard, single pitch of trad. It appears I’ve found my unicorn: The Wasp in Rocky Mountain National Park. Arnasty and I went up to the Park last Thursday to do a little climbing, and after some fun moderates, I fixed my gaze upon that beautiful line and couldn’t look away. Needless to say, she did not disappoint. I led through to bottom section with little trouble, and took a while to figure out the crux – which entailed multiple 25 foot falls onto a green alien cam. No biggee. I lowered off, and after a good rest got through the crux. As I’d anticipated, there was a great rest after the crux; unfortunately, the bomber gear placements I’d thought would accompany this stance were missing. I managed to blindly shove a .5 camalot into a hole at my feet. Then a few more strenuous moves and I placed a black alien (the smallest they make) and took a quick hang. As I was pulling it off my rack I dropped my extra green alien, with the sickening feeling I would be needing it soon. I was right, as about ten feet later the only placement I could find was a perfect green alien slot – I forced a yellow alien partways in, knowing it was in no way sound.
At this point my only viable was to push on and get to the anchors (or the fixed pin five feet below them). I made it to the pin, barely, which was in the middle of another crux. As my left hand popped off I thought to myself, “Well, I was wondering if the last cam was any good.” It was not. Here’s a summary of my thought process:
Falling, rope starts to come taught on yellow alien, it pops out.
“Oh well, I was expecting that.”
Falling more, rope begins to tighten on black alien, it pops.
“Well crap, I thought that was good.”
Rope comes to on the .5 camalot, and it also pulls out.
“Sonofabitch!”
Nonetheless, that little green guy I’d been lobbing on before held fast, arresting me about 20 feet from the ground, mostly unharmed: I scraped up my arm a bit, got some rope burn, and tweaked my ankle. Feeling good now and ready to get back up there.
She will be mine, oh yes, she will be mine.
