http://widefetish.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=809.new#new
From April 28th
500' of Wyde iAd!
I am hammered!!
500' of wide in A day yesterday
Inspired in part by Alex's recent write up of a Zion triple link, it occurred to me that I had the opportunity for a triple of my own, in my own idiom, available to me just a few miles down the road in long canyon, at an area known appropriately enough as offwidth city.. Safer too!
I've had a mini trax lines on both the Mayor, 12a and on Done Lubbin', for some time. I've been doing weekly or more often, laps in an effort to maintain Wyde conditioning. if I added Sidewinder, 5.11++ squeeze/sidewinder technique I would have a trifecta and cover significant vertical footage. My original plan was to do 1000' of Wyde in a day...... But that would change.
I'd led all these climbs before so, lacking a partner, this was going to be more of a training / workout day than one of adventure.
This morning I'm sorer than the day after Astroman.
I started late, to put them all in the shade. Unfortunately this still meant full sun for the hike (1000' vertical gain) to the top of sidewinder. 69° in the full sun = f*#king hot!
A slow pace; rope, pack, had me having second thoughts about this venture about 500' into the approach climb. But seeing at long last, sidewinder slipping into the shade, it my mojo was regrooved.....
Scrambling up the 4th plus summit approach with my ponderous loads ( separate rope bag was a mistake for this action) was a chore. A nap was in order. Middle aged nude sunbathing shots were not taken!
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Sidewinder is a long route! half of a 70 meter rope gets you to the flat spot fifty feet into the pitch. Ug. It didn't help that I left my minitrax on the summit, but I had a grigri... Which I dropped, fortunately it lodged in a crack, and soon I was off. Tr-ing with a grigri is a pain in the butt, as the auto feed just doesn't work right, and you have to pull the rope through every few few feet ( with a minitrax if slides through and keeps a running belay) even with that though, the pitch seemed easier than I remembered, for the first hundred feet or so. When I go to the sidewinder part, it started to feel like a lot of work, and like I'd been on the pitch a long time. The grigri technique was especially cumbersome in the narrow squeeze. The sidewinder technique dictates the body being mostly horizontal, sometimes with an upper chicken wing and a lower, pushing armbar. So, taking the lower arm out of the system to feed rope didn't help at all! Holding on extra long with the upper chicken wing is probably why my right arm is so sore today.
But, after half an hour or so I was up! The original 1000' plan called for two more laps on this followed by two laps each on the mayor and DL... I took another siesta... And dropped down the crag armed this time with the minitrax!
This time it went much more smoothly. But fifty feet up it was obvious that the first lap was taking it's toll! By halfway up the pitch I was revising the objective.
500' of Wyde in a day would be enough for this first foray!!
At long last I sprawled over the top. After a brief rest, I gathered my stuff and hiked the 2.5 miles and thousand foot drop, to my car a mile or so below Maverick buttress.
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On, to off width city.
I had recently left ropes on these climbs, so after a dusty drive to metro odub city parking I only had to carry a light pack, with shoes harness, jeans, shirts bandages, etc, the half mile to the crag.
D/l is after an initial awkward section, a straight fwd wide cruise of one hundred plus feet, lower 5.11 for someone of my dimension;5.10 145lbs, plus four ape index.
Danny Parker on D/L spring '13
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...it felt like hell! That route goes for ever, especially after three hundred feet of 5.11 squeeze and five and a half miles of hiking in the sun! But I made it.
On to Da Mair, fortunately in my wisdom, and fifty years of climbing experience I'd wisely saved the hardest ( by a long shot) for last!!
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Brutal! And I have this thing, brutally wired. It was a fight the whole way, cramping muscles, joints out of wack, torn flesh, the works!!
But again I made it, and rappelled, long before dark. I was even able to bathe in the ankle deep Colorado river. ain't life grand!
Sleep was fitfull, and today I'm more sore than after astroman, or runing the Grand Canyon rim to rim to rim ( though that was getting close) it's most similar to a fifty mile run aftermath I once experienced.
500+' of sustained OW 5.11 and 5.12
No hangs or takes
Six miles of walking.
Now to work up to 1000' and to work on the objectives this training is for, hopefully before I start drawing social security!
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