Climbing Aguja Poincenot via Judgement Day скачать в хорошем качестве

Climbing Aguja Poincenot via Judgement Day

After getting back to Polacos from Saint Exupery, I informed Chris and Billy that the rock fall danger on the approach to Poincenot wasn’t as bad as expected and we were good to go. We racked up in a rush, utilizing the last light, and went to bed with alarms set for 3:40am. We woke and raged our way up the heinous approach gully in under two hours, arriving at the base of the route earlier than expected. We had to wait till first light to attempt to find the start of the route but that didn’t really matter because we started up the wrong way anyway. We eventually merged onto the correct cracks after a few pitches with Chris in the lead. Chris brought us up to the base of the headwall after climbing though many pitches of wet and icy crack. I started out attempting to follow everything free but shorty gave up since the rock was often coated in verglas. I took over the lead at the headwall and climbed five 60 meter pitches of perfectly vertical splitter cracks up to 5.12a. The first pitch contained a perfect hand crack for 50 feet but eventually widened to 4”-5” inches for almost all of the remaining 150 feet. I leapfrogged a single 4 and 5, while looking down with some concern at over 100 feet of rope with nothing clipped. The next pitch contained steep finger and hand crack on perfect rock that I mostly freed at 5.11+. The third pitch was a bit of breather but the angle steepened and rock quality deteriorated in some places on my last 2 pitches. I finished each having placed my entire triple rack, feeling quite worked and bleeding profusely... Perhaps I should have worn crack gloves. Billy took over and quested off on an epic 1.5 hour lead that took us off route to sketchy and difficult terrain. I almost suggested Chris take back over but Billy more than made up for it, rocketing to the end of the steep terrain quickly and leading our 1000 foot simulclimb in 3 blocks to the summit. We celebrated for a brief few minutes before starting our rappels. The terrain above the steep part of our route was complex and wandery, and I was nervous about getting back to a familiar anchor before the sun fully set. I led the rappels off the summit, desperately searching for anchors that were often buried by snow and almost always missing a carabiner. We built a few anchors of our own and managed to get almost all the way down to the steep section before the dark. I was worried we were off route and wasted a bunch of critical time of last light but Chris took over for a few rappels and got us back on track to known terrain. I took back over as we began making full 60 meter rappels down vertical terrain. On the steepest pitch, we managed to get our rope stuck which required a fully overhanging jug to reset the knot below a crack. At 1am, we heard another huge rockfall event below us and I hoped everyone at Polacos was okay. It turned out to be a slightly smaller event but it did put another two holes in my tent which Shira was sleeping in. I led all the remaining rappels back to the base where we finally found the true start to the route, maybe 300 feet to the left. We arrived on the ground at 2:50am and hiked back to our packs hungry and thirsty, having consumed everything we brought up. Chris and I had brought up bivy gear having planned to sleep at the base but Billy, exhausted, opted to delay the hike back to Polacos and just pass out on the ropes in an emergency bivy sack. He didn’t quite make it that far, passing out on top of some rocks with no cover. Chris and I went to melt snow, got Billy a bit more comfortable and then passed out ourselves at 4:30am.