Wallface: P-Town Approach

Our goal was to climb "hang ten (5.10)", a free variation of an aid route called Gourmet, at Wallface, in the Dacks.  We knew it'd be cold, but it'd be good preparation for our coming trip to Patagonia.

The Mellor "guidebible" acknowledges that the first few pitches are somewhat unknown, so we proceeded to find our own route to the prominent "Gourmet" dihedral.

It took us the whole first day, after completing the 5 mile approach, to do those first few pitches.

Dave started us out with a short pitch around a bulge in his mountaineering boots. I followed, wearing the entirely overkill 70L Naos pack (to see how climbing in it felt...it didn't feel good), which put us under a blank, overhanging bulge.

Following a crumbly horizontal crack, I led left under the bulge, looking for a weakness. 100' feet later, with killer rope drag and sketchy microcams for pro, I found a hanging belay below a promising crack, which broke through the bulge.

Dave took the thin crack to a short head wall below a ledge, pulling committing ~5.9 moves on PG13 gear with a shit-eating grin on his face the whole time.

It appeared that it was a simple low angle, scrambly pitch that separated us from the massive ledge at the base of the "hang ten" dihedral. I set off, executing a hard boulder move to link blocky sections, then continued on a mossy, wet and dirty, low angle section on wishful pro. A brief slip on wet moss, twenty feet up from a muddy cam, had my heart leap from my chest. Slinging a demoralized clump of brush, I got my heart under control and finished the pitch.

By the time Dave joined me on the ledge, it was dark. Bundled up in our belay jackets, we fixed our two ropes and rapped by headlamp.

Pasta, sausage and a bit of whiskey warmed us up back at the cave, and we got a good night sleep, with only a couple interruptions from the mice sharing our camp.

The morning sun warmed us, as well as the clifftop ice, which would periodically break off, whiz through the air like incoming artillery and explode off rocks around us as we jugged our fixed lines.

I picked up where we left off and headed up the impressive, overhanging dihedral that is the "hang ten" pitch. Dirty hand jams and crumbly face holds for feet got me up the first half, and also through my larger cams. Thinking I would need them for the rest of the way, I built an anchor and back-cleaned.

It turns out that "hang ten" follows a thin seam out to left, from my mid-way anchor, which would have used smaller gear that I had plenty of... (Apparently the last moves of this exit have you hanging by all ten fingers, with no feet...hence, "hang ten.")

Anyhow, at the time, I wasn't sure that the left exit was the way to go. Having retrieved my #2 and #3s and my #4, I went to work on the dirty, licheny, offwidthy, jammy continuation of the crack I had been following thus far. I thrutched up into the crux of the off-route off-width to find myself hanging on a solid, but nauseatingly stressful arm jam. Plugging a tenuous #4, I had myself a little rest on the rope, then finished the last few moves.

I was glad to be at the top, but felt unsatisfied by my inefficiency and hang on the pitch.

Dave came up, then led through a short low angle section with one very hard boulder move to gain a ledge. I followed, employing a stout bush to pull through the crux.

Route finding uncertainty necessitated a short rap and traverse to the beginning the final dihedral/face.

Dave started up just as it was getting dark. The moves were thin and it was eating up gear, with no good prospects for a belay stance.

Finally, route uncertainty, complete darkness and freezing temperatures compelled us to bail.

We rapped through the night and returned to our cave around 1030pm.

A closer look at the guide book revealed that the first ascent party for "hang ten" tried to free that last section, but were turned back by rain (explaining the fixed hex we found).

The next morning we lazed around in our sleeping bags as it snowed for a few hours. Then packed up and hiked out in glorious sunlight.

All in all we thought the trip was quite a success. We climbed at our limits on poor gear with difficult route finding, in freezing temps and in the dark. We can't wait to return.

Epilogue:
-Dave and I corresponded with the authors of the new Dacks guide and our first four pitches are now in the new guide book as "P-Town Approach 5.10b PG-13 350'." Much thanks to Jim Lawyer and Jeremy Haas for the opportunity to contribute. We're ecstatic to have our first first ascent.

Wallface: An epic delivered

Both of us needing an adventure, a buddy and I made an attempt on the Diagonal (III 5.8...7 pitches) on Wallface in the Adirondacks this past weekend. The plan was this: 

Dave and I would drive the nine hours from DC to the trailhead Friday night and bivy by the car. The next morning we'd hike the 5 mile approach, setup camp, start the route, and fix the first two pitches on rappel. Sun morning we'd jumar the lines, finish the route, then hike and drive back. 

We drove up Friday night (stopping by a bar in New Paltz where the guys from Rock and Snow left us a guide book and topo), hiked in Sat morning, setup camp in a sweet little cave and set out through the talus slope. We heard that there was better climbing further to the left of the standard route, which you could link up (somewhere), so we spotted a nice line off to the left and started climbing. 

There was some good and dirty 5.7ish climbing in a corner for a full rope length, which got my hands good and cut up. Water ran down the rock in some areas, and every once in a while the wind would carry the spray from water falling overhead. The second pitch, from a hanging belay, moved out into some face climbing for around half a rope length onto the top of a small triangular ledge. 

We couldn't see how the line would link up with our intended route, but there looked like there was some good climbing and we were optimistic. At this point it was getting cold and the light was starting to go...we needed to get down. Should we fix the lines and continue from there the next day? Or should we rap and start from the standard route? Dave said he was interested in trying to continue our line and I was excited by the prospect of our own link-up. We fixed our ropes, tied end to end, and rapped on the single strand. 

The next morning I jugged the line, which was...interesting--a new technique that probably shouldn't have been tried for the first time in the Adirondack backcountry--but I was getting the hang of it and starting to have some fun, despite the ice particles that would periodically rain down on me. 

About halfway up (~150' up), just after a free hanging section of the ascent, I decided to tie the line below me off to a cam, just in case the anchor blew above me, or the rope cut or something (psychological pro)... As I continued up and as I unweighted more and more of the rope, the rope-stretch relaxed and the line pulled tight on the cam, so I was ascending a tight line. I was disconcerted, but it didn't shut me down. 

Once I got to the top, the falling ice was no longer in particle form. Larger, walnut sized chunks cut through the air near me. I looked up. Where water was falling about 300' above me the day prior, there was now a ledge of ice and a row of icicles. I watched a shoe-box sized chunk break off, fall and explode into safer sized chunks after bouncing off a rock about a 200' above. Each chunk that hit my head made me glad for my helmet, yet, overall, I was recoiling at the idea that the next wave could take me out. 

I thought about bailing, but I couldn't rappel because the section of rope above the cam was tight. I could have used the ascenders to reverse ascend, but that was complicated and I didn't want to leave my cams and the rope in the anchor up there. 

I radioed to Dave to free the rope from the cam so I could setup a rappel. He was already on his way up, but the rope below him got snagged, so he had to rap down, free the rope, then continue ascending. I just had to wait it out. 

I curled up on my little diving board, 300' up, trying to become the smallest target possible. I heard the ice breaking off above me, but I didn't want to look up for fear of a piece catching me in the face. 

All of a sudden the entire valley filled with a thunderous sound. A couple hundred feet over a boulder the size of a desk tumbled down the cliff, exploded off another rock and slowed to a stop. 

Disaster scenarios overwhelmed my thoughts. 

Finally Dave got to the cam. "Dude, the rope is worn thru to the core." "Shit...so it's trashed?" "Yeah." We knew that rope damage was a concern when jugging a dynamic line, so we had been really careful not to let the line run over any sharp edges, however, when the line relaxed tight on the cam, the knot was forced against the rock. When Dave jugged after me it sawed right through the sheath. 

Dave then rapped down to a tree and anchored in. I broke down the cam anchor I was on and replaced it with a single nut, backed up by a sling threaded around where two boulders touched, hooked up the single line and rapped--passed the knot where the damage was and continued to the tree. We cut off the remaining 30' of the damaged rope and rapped down our good one. We hiked back to our camp and enjoyed a quiet lunch--our minds having plenty to process--hiked and drove back. Quite an adventure. I can't wait to go back.