Infinite Bliss

Yesterday Esteban, Micah, James and I climbed Infinite Bliss up Mt. Garfield, the longest sport climb in North America, it weighs in at 23 long pitches of 10c or less (mostly sub 5.9), 2,600 ft of climbing. I'm still tired and sore from climbing the route, too tired to really write the full blog post it deserves. It was a great experience but one that I am unlikely to do again. I loved the long granite sport pitches, but the 300 ft solo across a sea of choss was one of the scariest things I've had to do, and the fun climbing does not outweigh that fear I had doing it. All in all the 4 of us took 8 hours to climb it from base to summit. 17 hours from car to car, we started out pretty fast and simul-climbed up the first 10 pitches in good time. I was skipping a lot of the unnecessary bolts to save time and to be able to simul climb several pitches at a time. I found the bolting peculiar. Anything that was slightly hard was really well (over?) bolted to the point where I could have z-clipped on several occasions, but the easy pitches had very few if any bolts, I would have done it differently. What took the most time was rappelling back down, even though it was a Wednesday it was crowded with 10 people on the route, at one point we had 7 people at one anchor station. We had a couple of snafu's with caught ropes which slowed us down, but we made it back down eventually, even if we did have to bust out the headlamps. We were the first up and down, I don't envy the other climbers who were only half way down well after dark. Overall it was a good experience, but I look forward to some single pitch action this week. I whipped out my camera a few times during the climb, here are a few shots. Once again check Micah's blog for a much more in depth report.

James and Micah starting out pitch 1



We unroped and soloed this part since there were no bolts



Esteban keeps his cool while soloing

James seconds up the really fun crux 10c pitch

The view from the top of pitch 18. There are 7 climbers visible in this photo, can you spot them all?

James celebrates reaching the summit

Now time for 20 or so rappels to get back down

Micah and Esteban trying to dodge falling rock on the rap back down

Rappelling side by side was a big time saver

Shangri-La

I check out a new area at Exit 38 called Shangri-La with James yesterday. There's some information here and here about this new crag. I had heard tales of this rock being amongst the best quality at 38 and comparable to Index, with long routes and even some trad. So we went with high expectations, and we were not disappointed. The routes are long and very involving, and you need your full bag of tricks for them.

James at Shangri-La. Its hard to get a good photo of the crag.

We warmed up on a 10cish climb called Crouching Tiger, it was a really fun technical route on grippy slopers. Next up was History Book a 10a corner crack. I had to do a bit of gardening on my way up (its much cleaner now), but it was still pretty enjoyable, despite my at times questionable gear placements. My favorite route on this wall was Hidden Dragon, a long and devious 11c or so. I had to use every inch of my 5'8" +1 reach on a couple of spots. It was so much fun to be climbing pure onsight, with not a dab of chalk on the route, figuring out moves and improvising beta on the fly. The most challenging route I did was Hypertension, which starts up a V4ish boulder problem start that involves a painful pinky jam, that I finally figured out after using an excessive amount of tape. Its not over there though, it makes you think all the way to the chains, where I opted to reach out left manteling bad slopers to lunge for a thank god jug, I normally climb quietly and efficiently but this route required a couple of power screams, I'm glad I didn't blow it at the end. This route gets 5.11+, but it'd be one of my hardest ever 5.11's. I think 12a may be more appropriate.

James follows up Small Arms Fire

We checked out the rest of the routes there, some of which look very good, some of which need a lot more cleaning, there is potential for even more routes there. We finished up on a fun 10b Small Arms Fire, which is a rap in-climb out, route, a great way to finish off the day.