Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Yamnuska-"Unforgiven"

As noted in my last post, I thought the rock climbing is over for me this year. Today I got another chance to go out though, and with Marc Hammer we settled for a last (again!) multi pitch on Yam. The forecast was for sunny all day and +18, but in the parking lot it was really windy and overcast though. With little hope we hiked upwards, no real goal in mind, the wind at least eased off a little by the time we reached the base of the cliff. Now our mind was set on "Unforgiven", a new route from Andy G., which is supposed to be very worthwile. I really liked the route, consistend climbing in the low 11s and quite steep for Yam. Excellent rock from the first to the last pitch. Although I have outmost respect from the first ascentionists, I was a little disappointed in the style the route was outfitted. The route info on Tabvar from Andy suggests a "light" full rack of cams to 3.5 and a set of microcams and a med. set of wires. We thought this was way too much gear, all you really need is a set of wiers and a few cams. There were a lot of bolts placed right beside perfect gear placements, and some in fairly easy terrain. I would assume that if you can climb 5.11, then you should be quite comfy 2 meters above a bolt in 5.8 terrain.
But again, this should not come across as a negative comment, we had a great day on "Unforgiven" and thanks for all the effort those guys put into multi pitch sport climbing every year, so us lazy bastards can enjoy a challenging, but safe day out in the mountains.
and it's almost a full moon outside!

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