One More Weekend at Black

Drew, Kody, Itai and I met up Saturday morning to start off a weekend at Black. Our first day was filled with exploration - hiking, scoping, cleaning, and some climbing.

We began by looking at a left start/entrance to a great moderate that our friend Isaac had put up a few years ago called “The Last Survivors of the Pleistocene Epoch”. The new line follows a blunt arete and joins the same finish jugs. By the end of the session the whole team managed to send! We suspect that these were the 1st through 4th ascents, but we’re still waiting on confirmation.

After that we went searching for another line in the area (Christmas Nights in Tokyo). It’s tall and difficult, but the team did a solid job of figuring out the bottom moves. It should go next time when we have just a few more pads.

We did some more exploring as the sun set, and even snuck in a night session before heading to bed. It was a long day!

The next day we drove to an outer area of Black Mountain appropriately dubbed “Deep Black”. We hopped on a few of the classics and even explored some more. Highlights of the day included Ghost Dog (V7) and Beowulf (V11) - which Itai impressively flashed! But by mid day we felt exhausted and our skin could take no more, so we packed up and headed home.

Itai (flashing) the mega-classic Beowulf (V11)

This may be our last trip out for a little, since it’s getting hotter and midterms are approaching - but who knows! See you out there!

- Eden