Firespire

[This post is backdated and from memory. Apologies.]

So my buddy Quest is really big into fire poi / fire dancing. If you haven't heard of it, basically you light things on fire and swing them around doing tricks while dancing. He's actually pretty damn good at it, and he taught me a couple of new tricks.

Anyway Quest found out that there was some kind of online contest where they wanted photos of "Extreme Poi", doing poi in crazy awesome places. So he decided that the ULTIMATE place to do some poi would be on top of one of the spires at El Potrero Chico.

Imagine doing fire poi on top of this guy.

So, we made a plan. We decided to wait until the full moon, climb the downhill spire slightly before dark, and have another team of climbers climb the other spire and take photos of Quest on the top, doing fire poi. Unfortunately, we started climbing a little bit late, so it was getting kinda dark when Quest led the first 5.7 pitch of Crack Test Dummies, and by the time I started the 5.9+ pitch it was seriously dark. Fortunately, I had a headlamp, but I couldn't figure out how to attach it to my headlamp, so I wore it around my neck, used it to check for bolts, and mostly climbed in the dark. I could barely see the holds in front of me. Plus the climb is super scary and a bit run-out so I was pretty freaked out. But I made it, and Quest followed. I think Quest was even more scared than I was, haha.

Anyway, soon after we got up there, the moon came out, and I belayed Quest as he climbed the last 10 feet from the second anchor to the very tip top of the spire. It's kinda small and sketchy up there, so Quest was pretty scared, but he hugged the spire and did some fire poi while sitting down. Here are some photos:

Quest had to clip these sketchy pitons on the way up.

Quest getting set up under the full moon.

Sick!

This one's my favorite.