Golden Grief 5.8
Angela and I first climbed Golden Grief in 2001. Though the line wanders a bit, it provides great variety of climbing style, from tricky slab, to dwindling crack, to roof with a hand crack, to low angle scrambling, to easy offwidth crack. This climb has a little bit of everything.
Our first trip up this route definitely had it's moments! Angela really wanted to lead the first pitch, but the tough start had her stumped. It was one of those moves where you just get little help from your feet--there's nothing to really stand on. After trying everything she could think of, she gave me the rope and let me have a go at it. With great effort, I managed to muscle myself over that first bouldery move. From there the climb diagonals up across and ever steepening slab--at the time, not my specialty at all. I finally made it past the slab, but not with out taking a couple of "lead slides" in the process!
The next section of the climb follows a hand crack that gets thinner and more
shallow as you ascend it. Finally it just peters out all together leaving
you with a couple of difficult moves left before reaching what the guidebook
describes as the first belay. This had to be one of the most awkward,
cramped, and tenuous belay ledges
we've ever been on. Getting my own butt to stay put was bad enough, when
Angela arrived it made things real interesting! I would definitely not
recommend belaying here. You
can easily stretch the first pitch out to a much more comfortable belay
position--just be sure to bring a couple of large pieces to construct the
anchor.
Beyond the guidebook's "belay ledge" there is one more difficult move as you
traverse up and over a small roof which hosts a wide hand crack. You
really have to sink the jams here and just paste your feet on the rock as high
as possible to make
them
stick. It's quite exhilarating on lead! Angela also found out that
it's quite exhilarating to have your feet slip and end up hanging from a single
jam!! She was amazed to find her arm still in one piece after this little
ordeal!
The last pitch is a short, wide crack--typical Vedauwoo
5.6. The
angle is less than vertical but it is true offwidth. The only thing that
really fits the crack is your thigh! Though Angela really wanted to lead
this pitch, she was just having an off day mentally. She backed down after
climbing part way up and left the rest of the grunting and groveling to me.
Though both of us struggled with parts of this climb, we really enjoyed the
thing. We kept it in the back of our minds
and
planned on returning to some day to see if we would improve. Finally, in
September 2004, we decided to go for it again. Though the climb was still
not a "give me," we both climbed it in much better style than previously.
As I
mentioned earlier, we bypassed the horrible recommended first belay.
This made the climb seem like I lot less work! Angela
pulled through the roof with no problem where she had nearly fallen last time!
And on the final pitch, I learned to stack hands--which made that wide crack not
just doable but enjoyable! Can't wait to go back and follow Angela up this
route sometime!!
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