Black Cat Bone!

Two days ago, Erik and I got up "early" and did Black Cat Bone, a very fun and varied 9-pitch route on the Jungle Wall.

Whoa, that's tall.

We started climbing at 10am, which is really only early for a guy like me. The first pitch was a short and easy 5.8 so I went ahead and led it. In fact it was so short, I wasn't sure the pitch was over.

The next pitches were 5.10b and 5.6, so Erik linked both of them. The first wasn't really too hard actually, except for a few balancy moves, and I don't really remember the 5.6 but it was surely big jugs and easy moves.

The fourth pitch was not really a pitch - it was a 3rd class "hike" with a fixed rope for balance / safety. I pulled myself up on it to get up to the next face, which was an easy 5.9 that I led.

Check out the holes in the roof from rock fall.

Next came the crux pitch, 5.10d, which Erik led. It's a long face-climb which gets really thin and cruxy right before the overhanging roof which you have to clamber over. The roof was really difficult to get to, and I was surprised I could even climb it on toprope, let alone leading, sadly. It's really balancy and technical and pumpy. Fortunately, once you get to the roof there are some sweet jugs you can rest on before committing to pulling through the overhang, which required some fancy footwork and committing to feeling for holds. But once you find them, it's not too hard to top out. Very fun pitch.

Omg the crux.

I wasn't really in much of a leading mood, so Erik led the 7th pitch, a short 5.10b. It was fairly interesting, involving some stemming and cool moves.

Short but fun.

The last two pitches were 5.10b and 5.9, so Erik linked them and I followed. The 5.10b was going up this crazy dihedral, so I had to do some stemming and chimneying, but it felt like I climbed it super awkwardly. The 5.9 was pretty trivial, mostly jugs all the way up, but I was amazed by how run-out it is. Easy sections are often run-out here, but sheesh.

Anyway, we finally made it to the summit, and I checked my watch, and it was 2pm. So we climbed 9 pitches in 4 hours, not bad! The view from this summit is really excellent, much better than Space Boyz in fact. There's almost a 180-degree view of the front side and the valley. There was a logbook in a box up there, which I signed, and one entry was by Alex Honnold (whom I consider my "climbing hero"), who said he soloed it in the dark on his last day in Mexico. What a crazy kid.

Look ma, I climbed something!

After enjoying the view, we started the mostly repetitive process of simul-rapping back down to earth. We reached the ground by 3:30pm, so I guess it took just over an hour to rap down. Overall, the route was really fun and I can't recommend it enough, especially if you can get through the 5.10d crux =)