Cold, Early Trip up Ruper

Tom and I were hiking toward Ruper at 6 a.m. this morning. It didn't feel that cold out and I was hot by the time I had scrambled up the Lower Ramp to the base of the route. That didn't last... My hands were numb after following the first two pitches (strung as one by Tom). I led the traverse and across the Upper Ramp to the base of the 4th pitch, which Tom led. I then led the last two pitches on one and endured some defrost pain at the top. Runout with numb hands does tend to focus the concentration. Pitching it out and the cold weather caused us to be a bit slow, taking 2h25m for the roundtrip back to the car. No big deal for me, but Tom missed his morning stand-up meeting. We should have been able to do that under 2 hours. I've simul-climbed the roundtrip with Buzz in under an hour.