Gary and I had been trying to arrange a climbing “date” for the last two weeks. A snowboarding incident (injured ribs) and the weather had complicated the scheduling but other than being windy, Wednesday finally looked good.
I was surprised to run into Jenn and Jeremy at the parking lot, where we got the skinny on winds and crowds (bad and not bad respectively). Wind Tower didn’t look too crowded, but Gary wished to avoid pulling any overhangs, so we continued on to the West Ridge. The two pitch climb, Verschneidung Dihedral (5.7) was our goal. Gary took the first pitch, kindly letting me have the classic second pitch containing the dihedral.
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Lots of good hand jams and a couple convenient face holds got me through the dihedral and then out to easier climbing leading to the anchors. Gary followed, while trying to modify his technique a bit to compensate for the hurting ribs.
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Two rappels and a bit of scrambling got us back down to the ground were we fought a few ticks for our packs.
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Ticks destroyed, we headed home for an early evening.
