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General Climbing Discussion

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What's the scariest lead that you've ever done? 12-Apr-2009 At 8:52:11 PM mankrambler

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you're spot on about the Wolgan being a good place to get scared and get in over your head. We did the secret swinger route to get to Excalibur, the 5 pitch classic above. All pitches are right at the grade and they have to be climbed efficiently. I conked out with dehydration on p4 of Excalubur (mind you it was raining at one point--should have collected some), and took two falls trying to get past the extended crux sequence (full-on at the grade and it was near my limit!), with cramping forearms (I was pushing my hands against the wall to uncurl my fingers at one point). It was getting dark as I did my first ever aid moves to get through this, and the scary part was the next pitch, rushing to get up in the failing light climbing very run out on those dinner plates typical of upper old baldy. A bit freaked but releaved to top out, we then just had a 3 h decent in the dark and in climbing shoes through steep leafy terrain. memorable!
All time scariest, was probably The Fear, north head. not the exposure so much, but I only took a single rope (v. bad idea) and the drag I set up on the top pich provided the crux. As I was trying to top out, thinking about the huge fall onto my cam in the sandy horizontal a few meters below, I was tittering on the edge of balance; it felt like the rope was actively pulling me downwards. After about 5 min or so of eye-bulging grovelling (using chin, and grasping at lumps of grass or whatever), managed to bs my way over. Reminds me of the belly flop topout on p1 Euydice.