Once finished, they headed out and I waited around for another hour before going myself. I began to double check all of my gear before heading out for the day. I’ll list all of that below.

Climbing Gear

136 meters of static rope (two ropes 1x 150’, 1x 300’)

70 meters of dynamic rope (not preferred but needed it)

Harness (BD Big Gun)

10 locking carabiners

5 wire gate carabiners

4x single length slings, 3x double slings, 1x quad sling

2x quickdraws

Ascending Kit: 2x ascenders, 1x aid ladder, 1x microtrax, 2x oval carabiners

Grigri

Both days I used the same camera set up. A Sony A7III with a 24-104mm f/4 & a 18mm f/2.8 prime lens.

I hiked up to the top (grueling doing it alone) and began rigging all of the lines to the wall. From the top anchors I fixed a static line that ran over a roof. This is quite a bit safer than using a dynamic rope over a lip or edge since a static won’t stretch back and forth over the rock as you swing & jug the line (minimizing the rope cutting potential). The anchoring was done with a double figure eight (with a double fisherman stopper knot) attached to two lockers that hung on the two anchor chain links. With the next few pitches I fixed my dynamic rope over a flat section of wall and my long static over the pitches with edges and rubbing potential. Once at the next anchors, I’d set another line with the same system. I’d then coil the remaining part of the previous line, girth hitch it with a single sling and clip it into the anchor. When passing an anchor that I wasn’t going to set up the beginning of a rope on, I’d simply attach a quickdraw or double length sling with wire gate carabiners to one of the bolts to redirect my line to fall right on the next pitch. In some circumstances, I didn’t redirect to the anchor at all in order to be able to photograph a specific feature while being at a stance to the right or left of the subject. The ascending system was also something new to me. Previously I’d been using a single grigri, a left ascender, and a pulley. This works super well for single pitch shooting, but not super wall for bigger walls. Instead I opted for a left & right ascender, a single aid ladder, and a microtrax. I’d attach the two ascenders with daisy chains girth-hitched to my harness and then the aid ladder attached to my right ascender. With a locking carabiner I attached the microtrax below all of this as a fail-safe backup in case the two ascenders both popped off the line (not likely, but safety doesn’t hurt). This allowed for quick movement and a much less strenuous action of jugging

Now back to the climbing. I travelled down the lines to meet the guys on pitch 6, which was the crux of the route for them. Ben had previously freed all of the pitches on the climb asides from this one. About 45 minutes into trying it, he discovered a no hands rest that would later allow for their passage of the pitch. However they decided to call it for the day and rap to the ground. The idea was to get a solid night of sleep & give it another go tomorrow am, starting significantly early than 10am…