After getting a rain delay on my weekend and our usual Monday night climbing, Gary and I decided to take advantage of the improving weather on Tuesday. This time he picked the Rincon Wall.
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Gary wanted to dive right into the climbing so he took the sharp end to lead the first pitch of Over the Hill (5.10b). I could tell it was spicy and in the heat his shoes weren’t smearing well near the crux. Gary stopped a little short of completing the full first pitch since he was exhausted between the heat and the climbing.
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I followed and had my feet slip out at the crux as well, I’m definitely not a solid 5.10 climber. At the belay Gary thought we should traverse left to the finishes of “Emerald City” and “Over and Out”. I led the very short traverse then belayed Gary across and he continued up the 5.6/5.7 climbing to the large belay ledge. It was my turn to lead again, and I had the option of finishing with the last pitch of “Over and Out” (5.8+) or the more classic last pitch of “Over the Hill” (5.9). I took on Over the Hill, and tried to place as much protection as possible (a whole lot of nuts) since this was my first 5.9 trad lead outside of Indian Creek’s splitter cracks.
The climbing followed a finger crack with several hard moves on very marginal feet. I could have used some cooler temperatures (climbing shoes stick better in cool temps) and really fought through the crux (especially since I had a horrible nut placement below me and figured it wouldn’t hold a fall). Eventually, I struggled to the top and in a beaten down state struggled to find a descent anchor. Gary followed and we scrambled off the formation and eagerly descended on the water in our packs.
A few clouds were starting to cool things off, but Gary needed to be home by 8pm, and I was pretty much shot, so we hiked out and headed home, both pretty satisfied with the pitches we’d led.
The Journey Is Home 