On September 9th, the last day of my 37th year, I was able to make the first free ascent of a new direct direct finish to Gorillas in the Mist on the West Face Wall of Mt Stuart with partner Jon Gleason. While my ascent merely added two pitches onto the Gorillas Direct route that I FA'd in 2010 with Mark Westman and Jens Holsten, this ascent stands as one of the most meaningful in my 15 years of rock and mountain climbing.
The story of King Kong begins back on a stormy July morning in 2009. Jens Holsten, Blake Herrington, and I found ourselves under a splitter hand crack at the base of the unclimbed, imposing, and fabled West Face Wall of Mt. Stuart, which stood in swirling clouds and strengthening winds. Jens started us off for the day scaling the incredible index quality splitter on P1 with his trademark precision and focus. Pitch 3 proved to be the key passage, which had repelled all previous attempts: I can still see the shock in Blake's eyes when Jens ripped off a large block mid-pitch, barely hung on, and started dry heaving. I assured Blake that all was well as moss and rocks rained over our heads and Jens bellowed deep guttural grunts to push through the final traversing fist crack before the belay. It was a proud and heroic effort. I took the lead from there and moved up into a moderate V-slot and a perfect short corner that intersected the major ledge system splitting the wall.
The storm continued to build around us and the salt and pepper granite glistened with moisture. I tried to climb up a steep corner system but my efforts were quickly halted as I slid back down the now soaking-wet and dirty rock. We regrouped at the belay and then traversed the ledge right in search of moderate cracks. High above, the clouds parted just enough for me to see a stunning overhanging skyscraper of rock capping the top of the wall and split with a steep crack. Images of King Kong scaling the Empire State Building flashed through my head. A full rope length traverse led to more moderate cracks out right and Blake pushed on, up wet stone, through three easy, but stunning corner cracks to where we finally topped the steep West Face Wall.
We battled up the West Ridge through rime-covered rock, wind, snow, and rain. Blake and I simul-climbed and Jens free-soloed. We began to unravel high on the angry mountain, losing Jens in the mist and fog for nearly two hours, but finally re-grouped as day turned to night and the temperature plummeted below freezing. It was clearly too unsafe to continue into the night, so we settled down on a tiny wind-swept perch, for what is still, to this day, the coldest un-planned bivy any of us has ever endured. Despite our predicament, the psych was high. We had pushed up a steep alpine wall ground-up and onsight in bad conditions.
Looking back, it was an audacious effort, and remains a highlight into what I consider the golden age of new/re-discovered hard free-climbs in the Stuart Range. It was a special time, full of stoke, brotherhood, adventure, and never-ending possibility.
Overnight the storm settled, the clouds parted, and the wind died. We continued on to the summit at dawn, topped out to the soothing warmth of the sun, and Gorillas in the Mist was born.
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| Jens and I scoping the wall back in '09 |
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| Splitter cracks up perfect stone on P1 |
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| Jens starting up P2 |
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| Looking down the bottomless corners on P2 |
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Jens starting up the Monkey Traverse on P3
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Sol preparing to commit to the overhanging section of the Monkey Traverse
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| Blake moving into the fist crack finish on P3 |
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| Sol in the V-slot of P4 while Blake belays |
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Blake finishing up the picturesque corner high on P4
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| Jens still psyched, socked-in, midway up the wall |
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| Blake pushing on up more moderate ground on P7 |
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| Jens high on the stormy West Face Wall, P8 |
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| Rime covered rock on the West Ridge |
"SHIVERER BIVERING" The FA of Gorillas in the Mist from
Cedar Wright on
Vimeo.
I was thrilled to be on the summit, but knew that back at home the alarms were being sounded. It was my two-year wedding anniversary and my wife Ginnie Jo had woke up to an empty bed, her husband overdue putting up a new route on Mt. Stuart.
We pushed along down past the false summit, front-pointed down the sherpa glacier to the valley floor and briefly rejoiced with ice cold creek-stashed beers before jumping in the rig to rush home. Meanwhile, Ginnie had walked down the block to the neighbor's house and roused Joe Puryear from bed. Joe immediately jumped into action and he and Max Hasson, who had some knowledge of the wall, packed up a kit and headed out for a rescue.
"Dudes, your alright!" Joe hollered from the car window. "Yeah man, we put up a new route but got beat down by a storm high on the mountain," I replied. "Well, we're your rescue party and you've got one worried wife back at home," Joe said with a smirk. A unanimous, "Thank you guys so much!" echoed from our trio. Joe and Max turned around and we all headed back to Leavenworth to hug the wifey and celebrate. On the drive back we discussed that we couldn't have imagined a more competent rescue team and were so deeply thankful those guys were ready to risk their necks for us.
We all celebrated sitting on the grass with beers and sandwiches in the backyard of Ginnie and I's newly purchased fixer-uper in Leavenworth. We recounted the details of our new climb and the bivy to Joe, Max, Ginnie, and Joe's wife Michelle. I got extra squeezes from the wifey on that anniversary day and I still can't thank Joe and Max enough for their selflessness in coming to our aid.
On October 27, 2010 Joe died when a cornice collapsed underneath him attempting a new route on Labuche Kang in Tibet with Dave Gottlieb. It was a tragic loss for all those that knew Joe, and all that were inspired by his character and accomplishments. It hit my wife Ginnie Jo very hard. I can clearly remember sitting her down and telling her the news, watching her explode with grief, the wailing, the tears. Joe and Michelle had been a major part of her life when she moved to Leavenworth alone in 2007 to student teach (I remained in Bellingham finishing up a business degree). Friendless, penniless, and over-worked, Joe and Michelle invited her over for dinner often, becoming instant friends, and making that challenging first winter in a new town away from her new husband as warm and homey as can be.
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| Joe Puryear |
Over the winter of 2010-11 I made the decision to complete the direct finish to Gorillas in the Mist in honor of Joe. Joe had told me about the huge part Mt Stuart had played in his early climbing career having been visible from his family's vineyard in the Yakima Valley. He had cut his teeth on numerous routes up the iconic mountain, most notably an ascent of the celebrated Girth Pillar in 1998 and a solo traverse of the Stuart Range in 2002.
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| Mark Westman high on the Girth Pillar. Photo: Joe Puryear |
I contacted Joe's longtime climbing partner Mark Westman over that spring to discuss my idea and invite him to join me. Mark thought it was a proper tribute to Joe and was eager to join up for the ascent. Fittingly, he would be in town for Joe's wake in August so we made plans to go for the direct that next day. Joe's wake involved that rollercoaster of emotions that one expects from such an affair. Sadness, anger, inspiration, humility, despair. Mark and I briefly slept sometime past midnight on the fertile grounds of Joe's family home, rousing just a couple of hours later to head north. We connected with Jens at the trailhead, packed the kit, and began our hike in.
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| Mark pushing through gale force winds to a socked-in West Face Wall |
It was business as usual as we pushed up the original 4-pitches of the route and Mark was impressed by both the climbing and the positions.
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| Mark and Jens nearing the midway ledge |
From the midway ledge of the wall, I moved left rather than right, over to the base of a striking R-facing corner crack. I battled my way up hideously dirty conditions off the ground with laughable pro, eventually moving up into a beautiful, though filthy, corner with a cool crack/seam out left for opposition. I got to work mining out placements and jams on the go, while clouds of dirt and lichen cascaded down. It was some classic blue-collar cascades ground up exploration, something Jens and I had fine-tuned over the years. Mark, on the other hand, couldn't quite believe that I just kept on pushing forward despite the deplorable conditions. I collapsed in a pile at a spacious belay ledge on top of the crack, my face covered in dirt, my teary eyes bloodshot and scratched from debris.
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| Sol pushing up new ground on P5, 10b. |
Jens and Mark followed and, before long, I began up P6, a deceptively challenging short corner. After taking a fall, I pulled the rope and managed to stem and palm my way up the dirt and moss choked corner to a slab where I moved from right to left with little to no protection and onward to a rampy belay ledge.
Where had the day gone? You could see the incredible headwall crack looming above, but getting there looked tricky. Short on time and light, we decided to move left on more moderate cracks to a major corner system that bordered the headwall pillar. Mark took the lead and fired off a super fun traversing finger crack pitch that went at about 10a. Jens and I later remarked that watching Mark's confidence build as he moved his way up the wall (he was coming off the couch from his annual stint as a climbing ranger on Denali), and witnessing him step up to take the lead and bone-crush this and the next couple of pitch's was clearly the climb's highlight for us. Bad ass Mark! We topped out at sunset with fingers of clouds ripping past us. It was a great day out in the hills and a therapeutic way for Mark and I to process the previous day's headiness. And while I was proud of our newer, straighter line, the memorial climb for Joe was still not completed.
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| The headwall splitter taunts from the rampy belay atop P6. |
And thus began a transitional time in my life as I moved into mid-adulthood. I completed nursing school that next June and began my new career as an acute care RN. My first daughter, Ayla Jo, was born one month later in July. Times had changed, the stoke was as present as ever, but my time in the mountains drastically diminished and my responsibilities exponentially increased. Nonetheless, I kept trying to put up that goddamn direct direct!
Jens and I made an effort late in 2012, foolishly approaching via Stuart Lake and a long gully/couloir only to end up rappelling at that rampy belay near the base of the headwall, having wasted the day on our crappy approach choice. In 2014, I returned with Rafe Maxwell. I did some scrubbing of P5, and P6, and aided about 20ft off that rampy belay up a dirty, spicy seam but eventually I bailed as it faded away into knifeblade territory. I tried again to make it over to the headwall a pitch higher via a dirty slab but reversed back amidst filthy, loose rock (though we did push on to make the 2nd ascent of Gorillas Direct). A few months later my second daughter, Ariana, was born and my time in the hills diminished yet further.
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| Sol scrubbing P6 in August of 2014 |
When Blake Herrington's incredible new tome for the region came out this past winter,
Cascades Rock, I started to get a sense of urgency to rap this project up. In his topo for the wall he labeled the "unclimbed splitter" on the headwall. The previous summer in 2015, the Gorillas Direct saw a third ascent by Seattleites Dave Burdick and Zac West and rumors floated back to me that they too had failed trying to access the headwall splitter.
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| The headwall splitter |
Over the years, I've always been amazed that despite plenty of strong climbers at Little Si, Index, out in the boulder-fields, and coming out of Spokane, Seattle, Portland, Squamish, and Vancouver B.C., the high-end alpine new routing and repeating (i.e. technically hard) in the state gets accomplished by a relatively tight knit circle of friends (and even the less technically hard,
though just as difficult, adventure climbing in the North Cascades likewise gets done by a small group of hardmen: Eric Wherly, Rolf Larsen, Wayne Wallace, Mike Layton, et al). With that being said, the tides may be beginning to change, the young guns are out there and they're strong, psyched, and they've got way more free-time than me. It was time to pick my plum. When my wife announced she was heading to Michigan to visit the Grandparents in late August for 10 days this year it was GAME. FUCKING. ON!
Between exhausting 13 hour nursing shifts, I took three trips up to the West Face Wall in late August and early September. First, with Pacific Northwest legend Cole Allen, who came through in the 11th hour when my other partner bailed. Cole came off the couch to support me, having not really climbed in almost a year since he split open his pelvis when a large wall came down on him in a bad construction job accident. Cole's no rookie when it comes to Mt. Stuart, having made the
2nd winter ascent of the Complete North Ridge with Jens back in 2008 and I was super psyched to get out there with brother Cole. I knew he would throw everything he had at supporting the mission. While I've done lots of camping, cragging, and kicking it with Uncle Cole over the years (my girls nickname for him), I was fully stoker to spend some time showing him this special wall and to bromance the alpine stone together.
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| The psych is high! |
We awoke from our bivy late in the morning, packed up kit, and headed up the West Ridge to the top of the West Face Wall with plans to rap in and prep the headwall and the connector pitch. In my ten years of new routing and projecting in the Cascades, this was my first time going top down. While traditional ground-up ascents are still my preferred style, my string of failed attempts to reach the headwall dictated a change of tactics.
I fixed the rope and teetered over the edge amid a myriad of loose rocks and choss. Carefully, I wove my way down to the top of the headwall using strategic directionals to dodge the hang-fire. While the plan was to make an initial scrub run down the headwall, fix the line, and then tackle the connector pitch while Cole continued to buff out the headwall, I looked down to see the end of our 60m line still at least 30 ft short of making it even to the base of the headwall splitter. I had no idea the headwall was so long. So I got to work solo while Cole chilled on top taking photos, instagraming, facebooking, and texting with 3G coverage from his smartphone (what a weird world we live in nowadays). After five exhausting hours, I had merely been able to make the pitch climbable, let alone buff it out. But I had to ride that fine line of not getting too tired this first day, while still being able to make if freeable. I had encountered hideous conditions, which required me to scrub every single inch of usable rock, and chip and beat out large moss hummocks and chock stones.
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| Get to work son. |
I took a single mini-trax burn up the top 2/3 of the headwall I had cleaned and found the climbing pretty damn hard! Steep hands and fist gave way to powerful laybacking, grovelly offwidthing, and a couple thank-god sinker finger-jams and jug ledges here and there. It was meaty, steep, and sustained. I probably took 15 or so times on that first burn to work out the moves, while ticking and scrubbing key holds. There was a clear sting-in-the-tail crux pulling over the top of the headwall and I did my best to figure it out, ticking a key hold from above once I had pulled over.
I thanked Cole for his great patience and we rallied back to camp, arriving at dusk to building clouds and cold blustery winds. The temps continued to drop through the night and the winds intensified, making sleep challenging. Our early alarm was repeatedly ignored amid the now arctic conditions and when we finally awoke, we were pretty damn worked from the previous day's labor and a fitful night of tossing and turning.
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| Fatigue, blurry eyes, and pain. |
I rope-gunned the route wearing my puffy nearly the entire time. We made good time and it was inspiring to see Cole rise to the occasion, pushing hard through steep and intimidating stone.
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The King of the Monkeys, Cole Allen, crushing the "Monkey Traverse."
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| He's single ladies... |
I toted up scrub brushes, pins, slider nuts, and extra brassies, intent on making that connector seam go. I pushed away fear as I top-stepped grovelly #3 HB placements, 000 C3's, and #0 slider nuts. However, tantalizingly close to reaching the headwall, the seam completely shut down and progress stopped. A spicy pendulum could have possibly got me over but I was here to freeclimb, and this line just wasn't coming together. With a deep sigh, I bailed off a tiny brass nut and backcleaned my gear on the way down. Near the belay, I penji'd right to a take a looksey at a hidden corner system and BAM! There it was. A beautiful corner with an initial roof bulge moved into a cool stem-box and finished directly at the base of the headwall. While the features looked more aesthetic, the condition of the stone was deplorable. Much work would have to be done before I would even be able to attempt to climb. It was getting late so I headed back to the belay and pushed on up the Gorillas Direct finish...again.
What's not to love about topping out a 900 ft wall of salt and pepper Stuart Range granite with your good homie after rope-gunning with no falls? So I enjoyed myself for about 3 minutes and then refocused mentally on my next mission. I had a very tight schedule of work ahead and would need to maximize caloric intake and rest, yet also get in a little training to top off the strength I was losing while focused on this project.
Six days later, I headed back in the range with back-in-the-day climbing partner Tyree Johnson and lifelong best-friend Mahting Putelis. I hadn't climbed with these jokers in years and we laughed that we were getting the band back together for a reunion tour. Tyree and I had cut our teeth on lots of hard alpine and lowland rock early on, which climaxed with ascents of the Nose and the Salathe on El Capitan. Ty was just getting back into climbing after a chronic shoulder injury that had taken him out of the game. Mahting and I had been friends since 5th grade, growing up together in the concrete jungle of Kalamazoo, Michigan. We had both heeded to the call of the mountains after high school and headed west. Our shining moment in the hills together came in 2006 when we put up our first first-ascent, the now celebrated
East Face of the Main Gunsight Peak deep in the North Cascades. Mahting is a professional photographer/videographer based out of Denver and was game to capture the ascent.
That first day was a true ass-kicker. We pushed up to the lake with beastly loads, made camp, packed kit, and again headed to the top of the wall with a pile of rigging, cleaning, and camera gear. I trundled the shit out of the top of the wall knowing that with the three of us up there and Mahting shooting photos and videos we would have to stack the odds in our favor as we were in for some shenanigans.
I did a cursory scrubbing as I rapped down the headwall, putting in directionals as I went before fixing a second line down the connector pitch. It took about 4 hours for me to transform the connector pitch into a reasonable free passage but it came together nicely. Afternoon turned to evening and before we knew it dusk was upon us. I had hoped to mini-trax both pitches, but with time running short I gave just a single burn on the connector pitch, again taking multiple times (as I had on the headwall) to figure out the moves and suss the pro.
Ty was getting a bit tense as darkness descended on us and I did my best to assure him that it was all good, the plan being to rap to the base, stashing water at belays on the way down and fixing a line on the first pitch for Mahting to shoot from in the AM. My years of late nights on the East Face of Liberty Bell had built up my confidence in high angle nighttime adventures, so I simply clocked in for nightshift and navigated our way down. Nonetheless it felt damn good to hit terra firma a few hours later after negotiating a complex descent with not quite enough tat or bail gear. We stashed gear at the base and hightailed it back to camp arriving around 11PM, 21 hours after I had awoken in L-town that previous morning.
I did my best to hydrate, fuel-up, and recover, even refraining form the whiskey, and soaking my heavy arms in the lake. Morning came all too soon and we all awoke beat the fuck down.
I continued doing what I could to recover, eating lots of food, stretching, remaining positive and trying to psych up my weary companions. The team of three component and photography logistics slowed our departure from camp, but we eventually got sorted out and headed up. It was one of those approaches where you're tired from the first step. Unfortunately our progress towards the route came to a halt when Ty harpooned his scalp on a sharp stick, causing a decently large avulsed laceration, and necessitating a "pleasant jog" back to camp for me to grab steri-strips. Ty held pressure while I was gone and Martins and I doctored him up when I returned.
Morale was at an all time low as it was nearing noon and Ty (reasonably) wanted to bail, but I wasn't hearing any of it. It was game on and nothing was gonna stop me.
I hiked the first pitch while Martins filmed and took my first glance at the time once at the belay (I just hadn't even wanted to know). It was 1:30 PM. Ty followed and again brought up bailing but I told him it was no biggie, don't worry, I knew the wall well, and I took off like a rocket. The next few pitches flew by and with each passing pitch Ty's stoke increased. Near the midway pitch he looked over at me and said, "dude this is so rad, THANK YOU!" I had learned a lot since Ty and I had last climbed together. Since he had got back in the game, he had been the stronger partner in his outings, so for him it was a real treat to take a back seat and get rope-gunned up an awesome route. I was zoned in, firing quickly through the cruxes, and running it out to save time.
Before long we were at the base of the connector pitch. In my single mini-trax burn, I had learned that my original start moving L to R was hard and sketchy and that I would have to attack the initial bulge head on. It was filthy, but I mined out some placements and quickly backed up my slightly sketchy rock-pounded pin anchor. I pushed higher into the bulge and was forced into a layback, lichen rained down and my foot holds crumbled but I pushed on, deadpointing to sequential fingerlocks over the bulge. Now in a position to deck onto Ty and the belay ledge, I gave out a few grunts and fought to mantle the bulge. The pitch moved on into a aesthetic stem box with specific gear and moves, climaxing with runout overhanging climbing on jugs.
I pulled Ty up and rested, trying my best to ignore the pain and fatigue in my sore muscles and the overhanging 54m headwall looming above. The pitch begins through easy slabby steps before moving into solid vertical tombstone flakes. I had chosen the L crack above the tombstones, as it appeared easier to climb and cleaner then the direct R variation. I took one final rest and launched off. Solid (though gritty) hand and finger jams led way to a slightly powerful sequence regaining the main R crack where I did my best to reset and rest in a slightly awkward undercling spike at the base of the business. I pushed on, up steep pinches and wild laybacking, running it out as the climbing and pro dictated.
The climbing remained sustained through steep wide sections punctuated with meaty hand and fist jams.
I did my best to stay calm and positive as the pump settled in and I began overheating. Despite a few cams and nuts in place from the day before, I had to run it out considerably in this section, risking big falls on grainy cracks.
I desperatly fought my way into a sequential section of wild chockstones, cursing and screaming. Somehow I hung on as I deadpointed to a thank-god finger-jam. Despite the good hold, I was completely redlining. Above was a large ledge and perhaps the first respite in about 30m of overhanging climbing. I sized it up and threw everything I had at hitting it.
I did my best to recover while holding onto the big ledge, but my returns were clearly diminishing. I also tried to get a piece in, as I was very runout at that point, but nothing would fit. Eventually, I moved up onto a big ledge and into a cramped awkward position to sink a thank-god blue TCU. The lip of the headwall was just above me and a final crux sequence was all that lay between me and success. The fatigue of the last few weeks and days was set in deep and I just couldn't get much back but I pushed on, matched an edge below the lip, rocked my feet up and threw to my tick mark. My hand barely grasped it. My arms chicken winged, I tried to rock up and over, but just couldn't move up. I went to drop down to the matching edge and reset then BAM, I was off, and my dreams of a redpoint were crushed at the end of a 30ft whipper into space. I hung at the end of the rope dejected, hyperventilating for at least 10 mins. I had thrown everything I had at the pitch and it just wasn't enough.
When I did complete the move and rock over the headwall, I came to the crushing realization that the tick mark I had placed from above on my only previous go on the pitch was actually 3 inches too high. The good incut hold lay just below and unmarked.
I tried not to be too bummed, as it had been one of the best performances of my life considering the deep fatigue and conditions on the pitch. Despite being runout and in full on battle-mode, I had not once given into fear or considered backing down. It was a bitter pill to swallow that a misplaced tick-mark was perhaps the only thing that transformed what would have been one of the best days of alpine rock climbing into a project burn. But as I'm known to say, "if it were easy it'd be called mountain-biking."
We had pulled off the first ascent but I was far from settled, or psyched. I grudgingly applauded myself for my performance, but GODDAMN IT, I would have to return yet again.
My family returned from Michigan that night. I rested, trained a bit, and lined up my next partner. I was pretty damn edgy that next week, totally preoccupied with the project. I tried my best not to be an asshole, but did spend much of my free-time sitting on the couch, staring at the wall, lamenting on what it would take to send. Adding to my edginess and anxiety was the fact that the first autumn storm had hit the Cascades with plummeting temps, likely meaning snow and ice on top of the wall. The window for this project was closing and no doubt it would be a long torturous winter if I entered it with no send.
On September 9th, I returned with fun-guy Jon Gleason. I rope-gunned the route and TOOK IT DOWN! It was a great day of alpine rock-climbing with no falls. Big-ups to Jon for supporting my mission and climbing the headwall with our puffies, approach shoes, and water bottles hanging off him.
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| YES!!!!! |
My albatross had been slayed and the line of strength on the wall was complete. It was a contemplative topout and descent, thinking about all of my various adventures over the years on the West Face Wall with my good friends, and also my original intentions to memoralize Joe on this sacred mountain. I think he would be proud of my vision, efforts, and determination. Around the corner lies his friend
Lara Kellogg's memorial route. And just across the way from that, Laura's husband and Joe's friend
Chad's. Hopefully in the future, aspiring young alpinists will search out Joe when they investigate this climb and be inspired by his blog/trip reports, voluminous CV, and his character.
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| A shot to you brother Joe. |
I hope that folks will find inspiration in this blog post and the adventures it details, there's a lot of wild times to be had out in the fertile peaks of the Pacific Northwest. Dream big, don't give up, and remember, "ain't nobody gonna live the dream for ya."
Mahting Productions - King Kong First Ascent - Teaser from
Mahting Putelis on
Vimeo.
Afternotes
- It was challenging for me to assign a grade to this climb as it is a bit of an anomaly for the Stuart Range and the North Cascades; more aligned with the enduro pitches of the Bugaboos, Squamish, or Yosemite. The best local climbs I can compare it to are the long corner pitch on the West Face of Colchuck Balanced Rock, the stem box P1 of Der Sportsmen, or the headwall link-up on Dragons of Eden. With that being said, save for the first comparison, it does not hold a comparable technical crux and is simply more sustained.. I'd been in a bit of a weird bubble of Moonboarding/Training and alpine rock climbing, with lots of rest in-between, over the last few months and couldn't quite gauge where I was at with my climbing when I sent. This is the time of year where I experience a natural annual low in my strength and power and a peak in my technical trad skills. With that being said I've climbed more lowland and alpine 5.12 this past year then ever.. I think the 11d grade is good for now, it will likely clean up to be 11c but I don't think it's gonna get any easier (though you never know, these climbs tend to get quite a bit easier with traffic as they clean up), or I could be sandbagging it.. I just couldn't warrant a 12a grade without some repeats as it just isn't that technically hard. Future suitors will be challenged by the sustained nature of the route and the committing sections above their gear. On my redpoint burn I was able to climb it with a double rack save for two small nuts that were and remain fixed. I knew where to place gear, what to save for when, and I was punching 1 to 1.5 bodylengths in between placement stances. These logistics may prove challenging on the onsight, but I have no doubt that people will bone-crush it onsight next season. I left a couple of old beat-up aliens fixed at the top of the climb for the climber who tops the headwall with no gear left. This isn't the best stance and a more comfortable one lies on a big ledge just a few feet above. But, it allows the leader to enjoy watching their second struggle up the headwall.
- We did not go to the summit! In many alpinists book (including mine) this first ascent is not complete. It's definitely light-duty! Since our shiver-bivy on the first ascent I believe Gorillas in the Mist has been completed to the summit only twice. Once by Jens Holsten and Shaun Johnson to and from a bivy on the northside of the mountain and again by Alex Ford and the late Laurel Fan with a planned bivy atop the West Face Wall. I will return during the long warm days of July next season and take it to summit car-to-car, perhaps as a reunion tour with Blake and Jens. Most parties will descend easily from the West Ridge as we did.
- This wall has seen previous attempts including some type of action on the headwall. There was a two-nut bail anchor on the bottom third of the headwall splitter and a two-bolt button-head belay at the base of the headwall, similar to other bolts found on the bottom 1/3 of the wall. I assume that the headwall belay was put in by Mark Makela and Geoff Sherer in 1993 who attempted the climb with full-on wall gear, fixing ropes. They made it up what would be most of the pitches of the West Face Wall (though I do not know what variations/pitches they climbed) using a mix of aid and free, but never completed the last few on wall. I am interested to know the exact details of their attempts and will update this post if I'm able to get in contact with them.
- With the three variations that have been climbed on Gorillas, I think this wall will appeal to a large range of Cascades Alpinists. I think it's safe to say that the first pitch has officially been downgraded to 10d and the "Monkey Traverse" on P3 has cleaned up so much since the original ascent that it's barely tipping 10a. The 10- alpinist who is game to push themselves on an adventure will find it on the original Gorillas in the Mist with perhaps a move of french free/aid. The 10+ alpinist will have a blast taking down the Direct (all parties that have climbed this have messaged me with accolades of stoke, thanks guys, psyched for ya!). King Kong will be a well trodden classic in future years and a worthy challenge to a solid 5.11 Cascades Alpinist. Somewhere in difficulty around the West Face of CBR and a good stepping stone before stepping up to more challenging climbs like Der Sportsmen, Dragons of Eden, and Let it Burn. It has a wild climax and a truly epic finish pulling over the headwall as the sun sets, I'm excited to hear the stories.
- HUGE THANKS to the many friends who have spent time with me up there over the years and supported my missions: Jens Holsten, Blake Herrington, Mark Westman, Rafe Maxwell, Cole Allen, Tyree Johnson, Mahting Putelis, and Jon Gleason. You guys rock and I couldn't done it without you!! Mahting hiked in there with a beast of a load, spent many hours editing the images and creating the teaser video, and didn't get to climb a single pitch, thanks homie!! We are eager to make a more full length video of this ascent in the future so be on the look out for that. Also to Cedar Wright who made the Shiverer-Bivering movie years back. Joey Maypes and Beat Brigade Productions for the beats in the teaser video. To my wife Ginnie Jo, for giving me the freetime and support to get'er done, love you babe! Lastly, to my girls, Ayla Jo and Ariana for providing the inspiration to live life to it's fullest and dealing with a tense daddy for the week before he sent.
- Another HUGE THANKS to the companies and shops that have given my support over the years: Mountain Equipment, Bridgedale Socks, Outdoor Research, CiloGear, Human Powered, Frictions Labs, Leavenworth Mountain Sports, and Pro Mountain Sports. I've never had an official sponsorship with any of these guys but the help in gear, clothing, and discounts I've received has been paramount in my success. Thanks so much!! Also, to the American Alpine Club for a generous Live Your Dream Grant back in 2015 (I still owe you guys some media on that one... the proj just isn't finished yet... hang tight, I will come through).
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