Drop Zone

Over the years, I've put up a fair number of routes, and many of them have stunk. Unless you're A) a really good climber or B) have a lot of free time, it's damn hard to find good new routes and climb them. About a decade ago, I had A) lots of free time (between jobs), and B) a really good climber with me, in the person of Chris McNamara. We had never met, but we agreed over the phone to try a new line I had spotted in Zion. We climbed 11 pitches over four or five days at Thanksgiving (new aid routes are slow going) and called it Drop Zone. I thought it was pretty darn good.

So, I was psyched to see the route get repeated this fall (maybe the second ascent) and written up in a very funny and well-illustrated trip report at Supertopo. I was even more tickled to learn that "Yo," the author of this report, was actually Ryan Frost, son of the great Yosemite pioneer Tom Frost.

More sappy sentimentality here.