The Shmart End

The North Peak from the South Peak summit

photo by Chris

Day 3



When I got up and crawled from my tent ,little ice drops fell off the rain fly. It was freezing. It didn't bother me. I stayed warmer than the night before. I believe I did better at staying on the Thermarest and I stuffed a jacket in the bottom of the sleeping bag to wrap my feet in. It's a good trick I will remember. We went to the Climber School coffee shop and had some really good coffee, hung out on the deck and talked with the guides. We tried the gear store a couple times. Still not open. Seems the season had just begun and the locals weren't in full gear yet. There had only been 2 or 3 other teams on the rock the day before. I wanted to replace some missing nuts and get some new slings. The Gendarme is one of the few gear shops that always has anything you might need. Someone assured me they would open for the weekend. We went up the road a bit and had a mediocre breakfast at a local diner. The biscuits were terrible and the gravy barely passable. The atmosphere was nice anyway. It was late morning when we hit the trail to the rock with way to much gear again. My plan was to get Chris to the South peak summit. I had done Ecstasy Jr. with Dwayne years before and knew where to start and remembered a cool bulge but not much else about the route other than it would get us to lunch ledge. We swung leads this time and the first 2 pitches went real quick. I got the one with the bulge and the cool moves. It ended on a nice ledge with another team on a route close so I had someone to talk to. He had left his atc on the ground and was belaying his second with a munter knot. We have all done that at some point. Chris came up and started up the third pitch. It was a nice looking crack and he was out of sight in a bit. Then the rope stopped moving. I radoied and asked if he was building an anchor, thinking he was on lunch ledge. He says back "no I'm in a sort of pod." that's a crack just big enough for one person to climb into. It's usually a good rest place. A while went by and still no rope went out. I had another smoke. My company had descended. The view was sweet. The fork in the road,the tiny town. I could even see our campground. Then the rope started moving again.

Chris radioed "Off Belay and On Belay". I pulled the anchor and started up a wonderfull crack. I just didn't recall climbing this pitch before. I found the pod and debated how to get above it. I found a good hand jam and swung out on the left face. It was harder than I expected but a fun thing. Lots of knoblike formations for hands and feet up to the ledge.

We had lunch and I scrambled around a bit to the top of Ecstasy to get Chris's sunglasses. I put them on and was tempted to not hand them over. We had lunch and some water, sorted gear and rope and hiked up the ramp to the base of the Cockscomb. We ran into 3 guys we met earlier who were camped across the campground from us. They were from New York and I hung out with them a bit the 3 days we were there. They always had a nice fire in the evening.

It was my lead so I did the first pitch of Old Ladies route. It ends in a windy notch that takes you to the east side. It's a great spot right btween the comb and Humphrey's head. A team of simul climbers (both climbers moving with a few pieces of gear between) went by me on the east side. They were moving fast. When Chris got to me I took a couple nice pictures of the side of Humphrey. I was seriously tempted to do a route on the Comb or Humphrey but the goal was the South Peak. So Chris got the second pitch of Old Ladies. It descends a bit from the notch with a couple weird moves and tricky pro, then crosses an easy ledge system barely wide enough for a person. When I got to his belay I grabbed the gear and kept going. A bit of routefinding and I lead up a nice sloping chimney system that I had forgotten doing before wth Dwayne. By the time I got to a big ledge system the rope drag was bad so I brought Chris up and we hiked toward the top. More route finding and Chris started up another chimney. He radioed from the top."This is wierd,there's some blocks ahead." I came up. It wasn't the South peak. I lowered and Chris downclimbed it. Then we met the Solo Guy. We hit him up for beta.(information) At the base of the final pitch I knew we needed to be quick or it would get dark on us. Chris wanted to solo up the easy slab but I suggested we do it on gear. He summited and walked the knife edge a bit untill he found the summit register and took the picture above. It's one of the coolest spots on earth that I have been to and I would like to have gone up with him but I have been there from the Gunsight Notch. I knew we needed to go down. A bit of beta from Solo Guy and we found the rapell anchors. They were about 20 feet down the west face. We discussed soloing down but its a 3oo foot drop. I downlead it ,hooked up and then the rope wouldn't pull. I got a bit aggravated and I was in a hurry because I was watching the sun sink below the mountain. We were still a thousand feet above the car. Chris was doing the best he could with a tangled rope. When it was free he downclimbed and I had one end of the rope feeding through the anchor already. The 3 raps to lunch ledge went smooth and fast thankfully.

A hike down the boulderfield to the packs, a fast pack up job and we made it to Roy gap road before total darkness. I had a headlamp and everthing was peachy in Ynot world again. Thinking about it later, Chris got all the tough pitches, most of the downleading, did a fine job on the sharp end, his gear was good, and I climbed on the Shmart end most of the day. Swinging leads speeded things up alot but we still had too much gear and the gear sling was irritating my sunburned neck most of the day. The rock was drier and the weather perfect. Not crowded but enough teams around to get beta. Seneca is easy crack climbing paradise. We added it up and climbed 7 pitches. We downclimbed 2 more. 4 pitches is my usual. I was pretty tired and happy.

We also cheated the epic again.




The prominent building in the foreground is the national park visitor center. Our camp was right center and the town left center .The river is really noisy so the need for radios.
click to enlarge