Outer Space w/Mark

At the very top of the Bastille

Photos

Mark and I met at 5:30 a.m. and headed into Eldo for Outer Space. I cruised up the first two pitches of the Bastille in one long pitch. I put in a bit more gear than usual, as I was warming up, though I think I still only placed six piece of gear in 150 feet of climbing. :-) Obviously I feet pretty solid and this speeds things up a bit. Mark followed nicely, though seemed to want to do a harder variation to the right of a big flake up high, but I convinced him to go the easy way.

I then led up the first pitch of Outer Space (10a). This pitch is prototypical Eldo climbing. Funky! And the crux move is protected by an RP. Eldo is an acquired taste to be sure, but like fine wine, is appreciated more and more with experience. It took me a bit to figure out the gear and commit to the moves, but then I moved up well above the RP. I then chose the wrong cam off my rack and got a bit pumped getting in the correct piece. This is such a cool, techy dihedral and it is pretty continuous. I was solid, but it was more work than it should have been.

Leading the first pitch of Outer Space

The second pitch is the crux at 10b/c, but both Mark and I styled it and thought it was easier than the first one (with one caveat for Mark). The key to this pitch is doing the crux moves just right and quickly and then liebacking the hell out of the next crack sections! This route lends itself to this because all the hard sections are separated by great rests and it is usually easy to place the gear. Mark cruised the crux down low and only fell off the penultimate boulder problem, which he got easily on his second try. He was relaxed and didn't even get pumped. This is a super fun route with cool moves and great position, as it is quite steep.