My final route of the day involved relatively straightforward climbing up some vertical columns and some chimney work to get onto a ledge about halfway up. I went up the line followed by the right-hand strand of rope in the photograph. Above the ledge, it got hard, at least for an old guy who was already a bit tired out.
The name of the route comes from the curved crack, shown below, in which you have to make several big-fist moves. There weren't many available toe-holds (at least not obvious ones to a beginner) and you feel pretty exposed (about 40 feet up). Setting my right arm into that crack, making a fist, then pushing out with my feet to lever myself up was probably the scariest thing I did all day, followed by doing the same with my left fist and releasing my right. At that point you are close enough to an arete on the left, that you can stabilize yourself and get your left foot on some good holds. Above that, there is a flake running diagonally up and right, and you work your way along that, bringing feet up to provide stability. Then it is a small chimney, which I did by fisting into cracks either side of a small block at the back. It felt good to slap those bolts! I must have sounded like a steam train as I went through the crux, and it gives me shivers to imagine leading it.
Then Matt lowered me off, I sat gasping for a few minutes, and we packed up to leave. I was toasted, and Matt didn't want to climb anything at his level since he had climbed hard each of the preceding three days. It was a fantastic day (for me) and Matt at least acted as though he'd had a good time...
When I arrived home in mid-afternoon I discovered that Sally and the kids had been doing scientific experiments. One had gone badly wrong, and now Ewan was transformed into a zombie. See what rock-climbing can lead to?
