Sky Pilot North Face (A trilogy)

Sky Pilot E face

On Thursday March 14 I set out to try and ski the North Face of Sky Pilot in the Bitterroots. My ski partner that day, Kaleb, and I left town at 4am and planned to be walking up the trail at around 5. When we got to the normal trailhead better known as the lower gash trail head, there was not a lot of snow on the road, so I did an extremely dumb thing and decided that we should try and drive a Subaru outback to the upper trailhead to avoid the extra mile walk. This is something that I just never seem to learn from, after two stuck car incidents last season in the Missions that cost a lot of time I, for some reason, still took the chance. Sure enough within the first 10 minutes I realized we would not make it to the upper trailhead, and began reversing back down the snowy dark forest service road. I obviously got the car stuck, which required us to dig and move some snow. After figuring out the car debacle and getting back to the lower trailhead we started walking at around 6:15 am.

An incredibly blurry morning photo of the trail

 

Another blurry iphone pic 

Kaleb and I had discussed taking the direct trail to Gash Point to avoid the tedious traverse from Gash knob to save time. But in the dark we walked past the trail that veers off to Gash proper and instead figured we could cut over later which was not the case. We kept on moving towards Gash knob and once we got there began the traverse to Gash Point. This is something I had done before, on our previous attempt to ski SP north face several weeks earlier. After that attempt, we determined that traverse was most likely a waste of time. The traverse requires one to side hill and navigate around big rock gendarmes for about a mile, and both times I have done it, it took a decent amount of time. On our way to Gash point we were looking for instabilities in the snow, and did not notice anything major. Our plan at that time was to descend into bear lake basin but stay high on the slope, and then to tour towards SP north face, and dig a pit to check out what the snow was doing. When we got to Gash Point, we did just that. We ripped skins and made the long descent into the basin. 

The previous night a few new inches of snow had fallen, and in the sun was beginning to cook everything it touched. I had noticed on our way  down how warm things were starting to get, and started to feel slightly concerned about the tour back out. The entire descent into bear basin is on a south facing slope, and by the time we were leaving it would have been getting direct sunlight for hours. Once at the end of our descent we transitioned and began moving up towards a pinch on the north face. The touring was slow and hard, and I was really getting tired setting a trail up towards the face. After a hot slog, we made it to a spot near some trees right below the choke on the north face. We refueled with water and food and dug a pit to check out what the snow was looking like. We conducted an ECT test and found that there was no propagation in the deeper layers of the snowpack. We did find that the upper snow layers, mostly the new snow, was breaking under pressure, but we decided to work with that, and keep moving up the mountain. While Kaleb navigated, and set a trail up around the choke, I moved to an area that wasn't exposed to the slope he was on and watched him work his way up. When he made it above the choke and to the shoulder on the ridge I followed his track up. Going up I really felt how steep this slope was, and felt quite exposed. My legs were starting to feel pretty tired, but I tried my best to keep blasting towards the top.

Looking down from the shoulder towards Peak 8800 and Gash

I made it to the shoulder that Kaleb was on and we kept moving up the face. However towards the top, most of the upper section looked heavily windloaded, and we began to notice a change in the snow conditions. Kaleb stated that he wanted to bail, and said it was too risky to go into the upper portion of the mountain. This was extremely hard for me, the summit was 400 or so feet away, and we had put in so much work to get there. It is moments like these that reveal my weaknesses in the mountains, especially on bigger objectives like this. In little moments like this I feel anger, and frustration, and find that I overlook obvious hazards and take dumb risks. Triggering a wind slab 1000 feet up a steep blank face is a serious deal, and something that should not be overlooked, especially when you can physically see the problem in front of you. Kaleb saw no issue in turning his skis around and pointing them back towards the car, even when we could see the summit in front of us. I on the other hand stood in my tracks for several minutes looking at the top, and then looking at Kaleb behind me. Eventually I decided that I would not be skiing from the top alone, and so along with my partner I pointed my skis back towards the car.

Before we transitioned I said “you know this means we’re going to have to come back right?” Kaleb just smiled and said “Yea dude, Monday”

Kaleb and I turning around near the summit 

Looking back at our tracks on sky pilot n face

On our way out we noticed that a wet slide, big enough to bury a person, had slid and taken out a part of our skin trail that we set on the way in. This was, to me, a sign that we needed to leave, and was a good example of what was going to happen over the next couple of days. 

Kalebs tracks over the wet slide that took out our initial skin trail

While I was at work for the next three days, high temps and beautiful weather led to dangerous conditions, and it seemed everything the sun touched was coming down. Observations posted to Missoula Avalanche showed large wet slides happening all over the place, and it seemed that going out again would be a bad idea. When Sunday morning rolled around I sent a text to Kaleb asking how he felt about going out the following day. He said that If we hit it early he figured we could beat the warm temps and make it out of there before the south facing exit route got too hot. He followed that text up with “So we would need to start really really early.” 

 

We talked on the phone Sunday evening, and I was a little apprehensive about it all, yet Kaleb managed to convince me that we should still try to make it happen, and that we should leave town at 2am. 

“Uhhhhhhhhh, maaaaaannnnn,  pffffffshhhhh……..yeah…………yeah I'm down” 

“Sweet.” 

My alarm was going off far too soon that morning, and with probably 3 hours sleep in me, I put my ski socks on at 1:32 am. We loaded our skis in my car, and I offered Kaleb a cup of coffee, something I learned he doesn't drink very often. On the drive there I drank probably half a french press worth of coffee and was still quite tired, Kaleb on the other hand drank a small cup and seemed to be ready to go. We took off from the lower trailhead around 3:15am and began blasting up the trail.

Two seriously epic photos I took of us charging up the trail 

 We took the skin trail that would lead us directly to Gash Point this time, and as the lights from the town below got further away, so did Kalebs light in front of me. He was moving very fast, and I started to feel gassed. As I kept moving I began to feel so gassed to the point that I was planning on telling him I couldn't continue after Gash Point. He must've been waiting there for 10 minutes or more before I arrived, not feeling ideal. I couldn't manage to tell him that I wanted to go back because I was sleepy and my legs were tired. That seemed like a bad reason to leave. “I feel fucked” was all I managed to say. Somehow his positive attitude managed to convince me that all I needed was some water and food. So I had a fig bar and several sour patch kids to boost morale, and we continued on that windy ridge, guided by headlamps towards a mountain that was waiting in the darkness of the early morning.

The descent down into bear basin was quite the adventure as we were being guided by our headlamp tunnels. All I could see was the trees illuminated by our lights and nothing else, so where we were on that face was a guess at the time. Eventually we intersected with our tracks from four days prior and followed those until we weren't riding gravity down anymore. I transitioned at this point, and braced myself to start going uphill again. At this time, early morning light was allowing us to vaguely see the mountain that lay in front of us. As we toured closer the beauty of the mountain really struck me. It looked bigger and greater than ever, and it felt as if we caught it in its perfect moment. It stood silently like a sleeping beast and I felt a complete sense of solitude in that basin. At that moment in time it was just us and the mountain, and I was very grateful that we had been able to return to this place for a third time to get to experience the elements and challenges it had to throw at us.

Sky Pilot looming 

Getting closer...

We reached the shoulder of the NE ridge, the place we turned around last time just in time to watch the sun rise over the mountains in the distance, and it was quite a nice change to see the sun. As the sun rose, and shined its light on us, I started to forget about the darkness, and struggles of the early morning. We figured that the snow would be a little better if we waited for it to warm up, so we took in the views and re-fueled while the sun did its work. 

Sun rising over Gash

 

Early Bitterroot light 

Kaleb taking it all in 

Sunlight at last!

Morning light on the upper slope of Sky pilot N face 

Once we felt it was time, we embarked into the unknown upper slope of the North Face, and made it to the summit around 8:50 am. We had done it. Three long, and difficult trips later, we topped out, and were rewarded with skiing the 1200, or so, foot north face. Kaleb waited patiently while I took photos and looked at things in the distance with binoculars, and after I had my fill, we skied. 

    

Kaleb Approaching the top 

The upper slopes were a little packed in, but still made for fun skiing, and since we had already skied the lower main section of the north face, we decided to ski the right chute instead. In this chute we found really good snow, and rode it out to the final bottom slope, where we found nice powder behind a shaded wind lip. It was awesome. 

Kaleb tearing it up on the the N face 

Kaleb skiing down the right chute 

We skied back to the skin trail, very happy about our success, and psyched on the quality of the skiing. At the bottom I tried to mentally prepare for the never ending sidehill out of bear lake basin. Kaleb had mentioned earlier that we should try to ski the south facing stuff that was above the skin trail out, and since it was still early figured it would be decent to ski. We toured a little ways up the trail, and then threw our skis on our packs to boot up the south face of peak 8800.

Bidding farewell to Sky Pilot 

Quickly it was decided that booting up was going to be more work than we were willing to do because of sugary snow, so we ended up taking off our packs and sitting down in front of the dreamy east face of SP. Right as we sat down it seemed like the mountains came alive. Thunder-like sounds produced by wet slides on the east facing slopes across from us started to roar through the basin, and rock fall on the east face of SP began to happen as well. For what felt like 20 minutes we sat in silence, listening and watching the show happening across from us. Once we decided we had seen enough, we strapped our skis on, and began to move. The exit out of Bear lake basin was hard for me, and I felt very happy when we got to ski off of gash point and make the final push out of there. I felt very relieved to get back to the car, and to have officially ended the SP trilogy. (For this season)

I feel very happy with the overall effort we put into skiing this line, we basically skied the mountain twice in 5 days, which accumulated to about 14k vert and almost 30 miles. I also feel happy with the decisions we made. Through this effort I got the privilege of logging hours and miles in, in  an incredible place and on top of all that I got to share memories with some cool people in the mountains! 

Shoshone Spire (south face)

Shoshone South Face, Blodgett Canyon MT 

October 13 2023

 This is a climb that had been on my mind for a long time, and one that I had been quite anxious about doing. After a summer of not climbing, I returned to Missoula and tried to get back into the rock climbing groove. I climbed a route at Lost Horse and got the chance to place some gear, and then went to Mill creek shortly after and climbed a route called Chicken and Doughnuts 5.9 R. I lead both pitches of this route, and was feeling quite confident afterwards. The next week I went down to Salt Lake city and wanted to climb a route called Crescent Crack 5.7 which I would  guide my girlfriend, and my buddy up. However on the second pitch of this climb I got into the off width section and got absolutely worked. I placed a really shitty cam, and asked my partner to take, and as soon as I put all my weight on the cam it ripped out of the crack, and I fell straight to my ass onto the belay ledge. I got too confident. 

Shoshone spire in between Flathead Buttress and Nez Perce spire 

After this experience I did not climb much, as my weekends were occupied. But finally, the stars aligned and my partner Brendan and I were able to make a day to go and climb Shoshone, which we had planned on doing for several weeks at this point. We met at my house at 7am and made way towards Blodgett canyon. I was feeling weird about the day when I woke up, and was having some doubts about my placement skills after Utah. 

We arrived at the trailhead around 8 something and started grabbing the gear we would take. I had brought 8 of my own alpine draws, and Brendan had several others. Im not sure if Brendan counted them out or not when we were grabbing gear, and I know that I sure didn't. He told me to leave some of the draws behind, so I threw them back on the car seat. We had a good variety of cams 2 sets of stoppers for some reason,  and a 70m rope. After sorting our gear we set off down the trail, and made quite a good pace. The Blodgett trail is pretty flat, so you can really move down that trail. As we walked on below massive walls, Shoshone started to become visible. When you look at pictures of Shoshone spire it looks quite large, however when you see it in person setting between Flathead Buttress and Nez Perce Spire, it looks quite small. I would not be thinking that later on.

                                               Brendan approaching the scree 

We marched through the forest, then cut off the trail and across the creek and made up towards the base of the route. It was decided earlier that day that Brendan would lead pitched 1, 3 and 5, so he had the first lead. As he was climbing up I didn't think that the moves looked too hard to get around, and was caught off guard when I started climbing. It felt quite hard, and I was felt very insecure because it seemed like the chimney crack feature towards the end of the pitch was overhung. After topping out, I racked up and began up the second pitch, which was basically a scramble with a move of 5.7 in it. I place one piece going up it. I got to a tree just below lunch ledge and built an anchor to relieve myself of the rope drag. Once I belayed Brendan up, I coiled the rope and we scrambled up to the base of the third pitch. The sun was out and it  had been a beautiful day so far. Brendan racked up, and began leading up the headwall of the spire. At this point I was starting to feel pretty good, and felt a little more confident in my climbing abilities. Brendan made his way up the short but steep pitch, and then called for me to climb on up. This was another pitch that was deceiving to me. As I watched him go up the moves didn't look to hard, and it did not seem as overhung as it felt. When I began climbing and got to the final little chimney I once again felt unease and insecure. The moves seemed hard and overhung, and felt like I was climbing sloppy and loose. I topped out and got to the anchor, and told him that was a nice lead. He said thanks, and then told me that this pitch I had to lead was the money pitch. From the anchor it looked pretty fun too, it seemed like it was a sea of crack systems that all lead to a roof feature. I was anticipating that to be the crux of my pitch. 

Brendan working up the first pitch

Brendan working up the third pitch after lunch ledge 

Topping out of p3

I racked up and set off onto my pitch. The climbing was quite wild, and the style was none that Ive climbed before. All the crack systems I saw were more like flaring cracks that just seemed to end, and they were not that deep either, so good hand or fist jams were hard to find. The foot jams however were excellent. I found that I was pinching the rock, and foot jamming to move up. The climbing was crazy and the gear was slim. It was hard to find good placements as the cracks were shallow and flaring. Right off the bat on this pitch I dropped a nut, which I probably could have used later on. I managed to place a decent amount of gear for how thin the pitch was, and once I got to my anticipated crux I realized that I only had three draws left, and a plethora of gear on my waist. I needed one of the draws to build my anchor, and wasn't too sure how much more of the pitch I had left. I placed a pretty good piece protecting the crux and began to move through it. Once again I felt insecure and uneasy. Although the rock was decent with a few loose exceptions,  I felt scared moving through the roof. With some very high hand jams, and high feet I pulled myself through and kept moving. Somewhere in there I placed another piece and was down to just one draw plus the one I needed for the anchor, so when I placed another cam I just clipped the cam. This made the rope drag pretty epic. I shouted to Brendan and asked where I needed to go, and he told me I needed to traverse left to this big notch in the arete. I regretted placing that cam. I moved through the traverse and slung a horn with Brendans cordeltte he used as a third hand. I made it to the notch, built a 4 piece anchor and proceeded to belay Brendan up. 

Me making my way up p4

It was time for the 5th pitch, and the spire did not seem small anymore. I was feeling not very confident after my pitch, and was honestly excited to be done with the climb after this pitch. Brendan asked me if I wanted to lead it, and I say no. He then racked up and proceeded into battle. I watched him cilmb up and around the corner of the notch, where it looked like he was just hanging above space. He worked his way out of sight, and to see him I had to step back and lean off the edge to get a glance. The rope was moving steadily, and I assumed that everything was going smooth, then the rope stopped. And it didn't move for a long time until I heard him shout "Take!" I took in his slack and shouted back "Gotcha!" He asked to be lowered, and then he took again, then asked to be lowered, and the whole time I had no idea what was going on. I figured he didn't have enough draws, and was down climbing to collect gear that he had placed. I would occasionally yell up to him and ask how things were going and he said that were fine. In my mind I was thinking that he was going to build an anchor and that we would pitch out the last pitch, which I really did not want to do because I figured if he was having troubles getting past this pitch I would get crushed by it. But he gave a good victory yell and the rope began moving once more. 

Brendan Working on the final pitch 

Brendan after rounding the first corner out of the belay 

Finally it was my turn to climb. I cleaned the anchor and began up the final pitch which was immediately quite spooky. I rounded the corner of the notch and all the exposure hit me. There I was thinking I was some sort of hard Bitterroot climber, and I was scared on top rope. I climbed up the great splitter cracks, and pulled gear out as I went, until I got to a red number 2 cam which seemed out of the way. I had sort of climbed above it to try and get to a good spot to get it as well, so I was not set up right for it. "how the fuck did he put this in?" I said out loud to my self. I down climbed, and reached my hand in the crack to try and get the piece.  I don't know if it was the angle I initially tried to get it from, but it was extremely hard to push the trigger on the cam without pushing it deeper. I battled with the thing for a few minutes and just could not get it out. So I took the biner off of it and carried on. Sorry Brendan. I kept on climbing the pitch, and got to yet another chimney that was slightly overhung, and challenging to get past. I was stemmed out, with my back and feet against the walls and tossed and turned my way up that thing with extremely poor style. 

I got passed the chimney and made it to the anchor totally cooked. "If I lead that it would have broke me" I told Brendan. He laughed and then we both agreed it was time to go, as it was starting to get sort of late. We coiled our rope, packed up and began making our way down the walk off portion of the climb. We walked down the steep terrain until we found the Bonsai tree marker with the rap bolts near it. We made the standard two raps off and landed next to the un-frozen Blodgett falls. 

Overall this was a great climb with tons of unique features and good pitches. I need to go back and climb it again in better style, and with a better attitude. But till next summer, bring on the winter! 

West Ridge of Sheepshead

 West ridge of the Sheepshead, (AKA West McDonald Peak) Mission Mountains, Montana

3/17/23 

On March 17 I set out to climb the west ridge of the Sheepshead in the Mission Mountains. A moderate alpine route known to some Missoula climbers that is graded to be WI2-3. There was a great weather window that day and I saw it as the perfect opportunity to take all the skills I had gained over the climbing season and put them to the test. 

I woke up at 3 am and left Missoula at 3:30. At 4:30 I arrived at the frozen bog, and could drive no further, so I parked and began suiting up. This was the part of my day I was most worried about, walking through the forest in the dark, alone. I was nervous that grizzly bears were rising from hibernation, and scared that they were hungry. Since the area is known to have a larger population of grizzly bears I think my fears were rational. I toured with an ice tool clipped to my harness (because I would totally fight off a hungry bear with a Nomic) and a can of bear spray as well. I think that my fear of running into some sort of creature was beneficial to my pace, because I was moving quickly through those woods, trying to get out of there as fast as I could. 

I toured up the road for a little over two miles to get to the “trailhead” and at this point dawn was starting to show. I kept on gaining elevation, and was lucky enough to be out of the trees to see the sunrise over the mountains. 

Sun rising over the Mission Mountains (Sheepshead far left hidden behind tree) 

Glad to be somewhat out of grizzly territory I kept on moving, and was eventually able to see my objective. It looked quite far and my legs were already beginning to cramp, which was a bad sign, so I got to a good spot and re-fueled. At this point my ipod died, and the portable charger I was supposed to bring was plugged into my wall at home. It was around 9:30-10 and I was racing the sun, managing to stay out of its light until I got to the point where I was going to start the route. 

West Ridge of the Sheepshead 

Looking down the north side  of the lower ridge 

 Approaching the Route

At around 10:30 I got to a step on the ridge which I thought was a good place to ditch the skis, and transition into climb mode. I took one last drink of water and caffeinated mio squeeze, and racked up. I had a 40 meter 6 mil rope, belay device, 4 nuts, 3 alpine draws, 2 ice screws, and 20 something feet of cord, as well as a few carabiners. 

At 10:40 I started the climb and right out of the gate was basically swimming through snow, which made me concerned about wet slides as the day went on. I moved over the rock/snow gendarmes, careful about the cornice just to my left that offered a guaranteed ride down the north face of the sheeps head. The snow was slowing me down quite a bit, and was rather tiring. I had to then cross over two pretty exposed areas of steep snow that looked like they had potential to slide in the right conditions. I made a mental note of that, and kept on moving. 

Moving under giant snow mushrooms, I made my way towards the meat of the route. I found an obvious chimney that would lead me to the upper pitches of the ridge, and to my expectation there was very little ice in it. Occasionally I would find areas of alpine ice buried under the several inches of snow, but for the most part it was mixed climbing. 

 I began climbing up the mix of rock and loose snow, and found actually great mixed climbing! There were nice pick sized crack systems shooting up the sides of chimney which allowed me to wedge my pick in there and move my way up.

Looking down the first chimney

 (M2/AI2) This is the rating of the conditions I experienced

After this pitch I was feeling pretty good, and moved on to the next chimney, which at first glance appeared to be more mellow than the first one. As I climbed up the steep snow to get to the mouth of it, I looked around for something to rap off on my way down. I spotted a dead tree above the first chimney which looked like a good option that would save me leaving gear behind… 

I got to the mouth of the second chimney, and began making my way up. I found harder conditions this time. The rock was quite smooth, so finding holds was a challenge. I did find one area on my left side about half way up that had some actual alpine ice buried under the snow, which offered a good rest spot for a second, but the ice ran out quickly, and it was back to smooth rock buried under snow. Once I made it to the final step of the chimney, I found one solid placement for my right tool, however I couldn't find anything for my left tool. So for what felt like 5 minutes, I held on by basically just my right tool and my foot placements which I would learn soon that I didn't pay enough attention to. 

Swinging and digging through the snow, I searched for a good placement and found an edge somewhere under the snow that I decided to trust. So I pulled with my left tool, and began to crawl over the final step when suddenly my tool and crampons popped all at once causing me to fall probably 2 feet or so before being caught by my right tool. All of a sudden everything was real. I didnt think about what just happened, I instead began frantically figuring out a solution. I got my feet back in good spots, and wedged myself by pushing my back against the snow wall, and feet against the rock down low. With my right tool still hanging on that hidden jug, I switched my strategy and started swinging my other tool further left. After several hero swings straight to rock I finally found a somewhat trustworthy hold up high so I rolled with it. I managed to crawl my way over the final step of that chimney, and got to a good flat spot looking down on the two chimneys. 

Looking up at the top of the second chimney

(M3/AI2 were the conditions I experienced) 

I stood on the little platform I was on and thought about what just happened, and what I was doing. I checked my phone, and it was 12:30. I told myself that turn around time was 2pm, no questions asked and when I looked at the rest of the ridge I had left, It seemed like I was so close. There were no more mixed pitches to get over, just steep snow and big snow mushrooms to get around. I could see what looked like the summit from where I was but I couldn't make a decision on whether to go on or not. I was pretty spooked after what had just happened, and a little worried about the descent and warming snow. I decided  that I would build a rappelle station. 

I dug through the snow around this massive rock next to me, and was able to finagle the long piece of cordelette I had with me around it. Once I had my rap station set up I checked the time, and I had a little less than an hour till my turnaround time. I observed what I had left to climb and noticed that the rest of the route was just moving up steep snow, and over snow mushrooms to the summit, and there didn’t appear to be anymore mixed pitches, or ice left.  I decided that I would try and push for the summit. I moved through the steep snow, and got onto what ended up being the false summit. At this point I was sick of wading through the snow, and was getting more aware of  the snow heating up around me. I had 200 something yards left to the summit proper, but I took my earlier fall scare as a sign from the mountain, and I turned around. 

The summit from where I was standing Looking down on the ridge from where I turned around

 

My GPS location of where I turned around 

I carefully made my way back down from my high point, until I reached my first rap station. I began setting up my rap system and was able to rap 20 meters all the way down the second chimney to the area in between the first and second chimneys. I looked for something to rap off from this area, and found a small sapling poking its tip out of the snow. I really hoped that it was bigger than it looked, and when I began digging it up I learned it was not. I took out the shovel I had with me and started moving snow more effectively down to the base of the sapling. Luckly the sapling was cold and stiff, and I was able to fit the rope under the lowest branch, and between a rock so that it was less likely to blow off when I put my weight on it. 

The sapling that was crucial to my descent

You learn how short 20 meters really is when you are relying on it to get you to the bottom of a pitch. I landed about halfway down the first chimney when I hit both the stopper knots at the very end of the rope. Not trusting the sapling I was hanging off of I quickly started digging through the snow searching for a crack system or rock, or anything I could clip myself to. I used my tool to start clearing snow from my left side, and found a decent crack big enough for a number 10 nut. I wedged it in there and clipped myself to it. I then jammed a number 8 nut up a little higher from it, pulled my rope and set it up for the next rap. I felt good about this rap station, although I was a little bummed that I had to leave gear behind. 

The third rap station about halfway up the first chimney 

My third rappel took me to the bottom of the first chimney, and from there I pulled my rope, and carefully walked back down the ridge. I moved quickly across the exposed areas of snow I had to cross again, and in a couple places I had to down climb the rock which I came up. At around 3:15 I was back to where I left my skis. 

The route from where I started

I was feeling pretty wiped, so I drank some water and ate some food before putting my skis on and making the descent back to the car. The skiing up high was really good, and I was stoked to put some good turns in before reaching the tight trees. Skiing back down the ridge to the trailhead was hard, but once I made it to the road I toured up I was surprised how easy it was. The road was basically downhill the whole way, and I made it back to my car at 5:30, which was  a lot quicker than I thought it would take. 

The turns I made from the point I started climbing from

Looking back at the Sheepshead

The Sheepshead from the bog

Overall I had a great experience, and am excited to have wrapped up my winter climbing season on this climb. Thanks to those who let me borrow gear for this one!