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Friday, March 10, 2006

More Titan Photos


Steve Levin provided more photos from our climb of the Sundevil Chimney in Utah's Fisher Towers in early February. Since we were trading leads, these shots give some different views of the route's seven pitches for those curious about the climb.

The pics above are looking down the first pitch on Day One and jugging the same pitch on the second day. The next photos are looking down the third pitch, which has some difficult aid at the end of the pitch, and then a butt shot at the crux aid of the fourth pitch, followed by the start of the cool mud stemming section.



The last climbing shot is taken from the bivy ledge atop the fifth pitch. From here, it seems clear that you must go up into the obvious chimney. Nope. You're supposed to tension traverse straight left from just above where I'm climbing. I headed right and and up into the chimney. Poorly protected free climbing ensued. You can just see the easy exit crack that gains the summit at the top of the photo.

That's Steve on the right in the sunset summit photo and me on the left, thinking, "Hurry up and take the damned picture so we can get the #%&@! out of here!" By the way, I learned (or relearned) something critical during the descent from the Titan: An LED-only headlamp may be fine for approaches and climbing in bright, reflective snow, but it's not sufficient for technical climbing and descents on rock. Those little lights are tempting because they weigh almost nothing, but I'll never do a big rock climb again without a lamp that has a bright traditional bulb.

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