Utah 2005
Approach to Sister SuperiorSister Superior
Another pre-dawn start was in order to dispatch the two hour approach to Sister Superior. Walking through the wash was easy enough, but the grovel up the 45 degree talus cone brought some sweat to the surface.
We laced up at the bottom of Jah Man, a supposed 5.10+ classic. Conor worked his way up a quick mantle and was graceful enough to leave me the chimney--a massive detatched fin that runs for an entire pitch of fun. In short order we reached the business. Conor set off on the first tecnhical crux of the route, pausing here and there on a thin crack,
Leaving the massive flake of pitch 2and gaining an undercling on holy steepness.
Working left, the cling dies out and, although he's not much of one for drama, I saw and heard a bit of shaking and puffing as he worked out how to gain the arete, well out of reach. Just when I think he's gonna fly, he throws a fucking uber-cool heel hook and pulls across. Geez Louise. How am I suppose to follow that up?
Well, let me tell you.
I set off smoothly on the next pitch, a steep left trending hand crack. I felt so good that I even stopped to pose for a photograph.
Getting ready to Z-clipContinuing along, gear became sparse, and I began to develop somewhat of a pump. I soon found myself at that point where it becomes imperative to move quickly to a good rest or suffer the consequences. I traversed a reasonable distance but gained a stance and settled my nerves as best as possible. After shaking out and placing a nest of cams, I moved up to the actual crux; 20 feet of right leaning thin hands. Having rather large hands and only one piece of appropriate gear for the crack, I resolved to downclimb and rescue some gear from my last rest.
A Z-clip, for those of you who don't know, is when you climb up and down on a route and unwittingly clip the gear out of order; that is, clipping the lower gear after clipping the higher gear. This has the effect of making the rope go up and down and up again, following a high-friction Z shaped path. On top of being quite strenuous to climb against, should you run out of gas and fall, you will fall much further.
Sister Superior summit, the Rectory and Castleton in the backgroundThe net effect of my downclimbing and fetching more gear was this. The Z-clip drag was so heinuous that I was unable to free a hand to place gear anyway, which was rather unfortunate, since I had added roughly 20 feet to my fall. Breathing heavily throughout clenched teeth, I flopped onto a ledge, roughly 30 feet above my last useful piece.
Jah Man turned out to be the route of the trip and should be on the "to do" list of any solid 5.10 trad climber. After a longish approach, there are a couple of 5.8 pitches to warm you up for the business.
Swimming the Colorado, watching out for fresh water crocodiles.The two crux pitches are steep enough to require confidence and some level of competence, but the true cruxes are short and there are rests to be found. Just don't panic and Z-clip yourself like me.
The final pitch is cool; a short, bolted, and balancy arete/face. A nice finish after all that thin jamming and laybacking. We summited around 11:30 am.After some short summit celebrations we ran away to the coolness of the nearby Colorado River. As much as I am afraid to death of murky water, we took the refreshing dip to end all refreshing dips before heading into town for beer.
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