It's 4:30am, the alarm goes off, we race to make coffee and drive from Lee Vining to Bridgeport. The drive is a blur. Forty minutes into the 2.5 hour approach, my stomach is upset. The antibiotics I have been taking for the past few days aren't doing me any favors, leaving me somewhat weak. Nevertheless, we keep hiking.

We are at the base, and the wind is howling. The only other party on the wall is a duo of German's dressed in warm Alpine down suits. They are bailing off. "Positive Vibrations, too windy!" one utters.

The first pitch is 5.10, the next 4 5.11. I blast off on lead, trying to climb fast and stay warm. It's cold, but I still manage to weld pieces. I feel like I am drowning: is it the strong winds, the fast pace, the elevation, the drugs? My partner pulls a huge block off one of the pitches.

We are finally at first crux. 12c Mystery Stemming according to Croft, a brilliant, bolted pure stem box with no crack in the back. I start off, the pitch feels easy. I am a sport climber at heart. Next pitch is 5.13, more stemming. The start feels easy, I break a crimp 15 feet up, take a big fall, gash my index finger, I am bleeding everywhere. We never bring tape, but for some unknown reason, this time we have it. A roll later, I am climbing again and get through the pitch. The final crux is 12c stem to world class finger splitter. I forget half the gear at the belay, maybe that's why I feel so light on the pitch.

We don't do the final 5.10 pitch as gaining the ridge is a chancy proposition due to the hurricane around us. We rappel, get to the ground.


Next morning, we run into Peter Croft, the FFA of the route in Lee Vining. I don't know what to say to him: "Great route!", "What a choss pile!", "Look at my finger!" So I don't say anything, and we drive to climb 5.9 in Tuolumne.