11/18/2023 0 Comments Satisfying smoke waterfallEarning its name for good reason, it features a notoriously remote, complicated, and strenuous approach, omnipresent rain-Mills was bombarded on lead with golf ball-sized hail-loose blocks, mossy cracks, an “easy” but runout 5.9 pitch, and rappels that typically snag before dropping through a waterfall. “It’s a greasy friction slab,” Mills explains, “nothing to hold onto, no anchor even if you wanted one-and believe me, I did.” Exhausted and dehydrated, Mills knew she was just one clumsy move away from dropping off like her shoe.Ī careful planner, Mills still finds herself doing “some pretty stupid stuff,” knowing that harder and more dangerous isn’t always riskier.įor instance, in the photo below-and no, that’s not Angelina Jolie but Mills on the Southeast Face of the Lotus Flower Tower (V 5.11 2,000ft) swapping leads while free climbing four big walls in the remote Cirque of the Unclimbables in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Yet Mills says the riskiest part still lay ahead: a technically simple third-class slab that they unroped for. But this time the loop on one shoe broke, sending it plummeting nearly 3,000 feet and forcing Mills to climb the last two pitches semi-barefoot. The next day, belaying Hill on pitch 19, as usual Mills took off her climbing shoes and clipped their loops into a carabiner. Hill says, “It was pathetic! Liza and I joked about dreams of water.” ![]() Without bivy gear, they spooned together to stay warm as the “wall bugs” swarmed over them. Moving slower than expected, fighting to stay awake, as the sun set and cold and darkness descended, they made it to the Thanksgiving Ledge on pitch 16. ![]() Hill adds, “But with half the climb left, we had to keep going.”Įxhaustion, magnified by blistering heat and dehydration, set in. It was a super hot day and by the tenth pitch, to our horror, we ran out of water.” Mills explains, “Neither of us had ever used one and couldn’t tell how much water was left in them. But as Mills knew from her childhood in Brooklyn: Risk is everywhere. Their route, El Cap’s West Face (VI 5.11c, 20 pitches), should have been a stroll for the duo. Still, Mills recalls, “When we’d walk around Camp 4, climbers looked at me, like, Huh? Who’s that? ” On Mills’s second big wall she found herself partnering with Lynn Hill, a dear friend from the Gunks, who, after moving from New York to Yosemite, passed the mantle of top Gunks woman climber to Mills. ![]() Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |