JUSTIN ON CAPTAIN BEYOND, MICKEY MAUS WALL, ELDORADO MOUNTAIN

Captain Beyond is among the best climbs I ever put up. In 1974, Larry Hamilton and I discovered the splitter finger cracks on the lower pitches - Kor had aided these in the sixties - and I led two beautiful pitches free at 5.10. This brought us up to a spectacular and intimidating off-width crack. We didn’t have the gear or the juice to try it so we retreated, happy with the climbing we had done. I then got up my courage, recruited my brother, and brought some #10 and #11 hexes to protect the off-width. I managed to get up the off-width and was thinking the climb was over because we had converged with an easy route called Perversion and could do it’s final spectacular pitch to the top of the wall. But I happened to look to the left and saw a rather in-obvious corner system leading to the top so I headed over to take a look. Amazingly, it was a beautiful crack in a colorful corner that kept swallowing perfect protection and offering unexpected jugs. It made the perfect last pitch to one of the best climbs in the Boulder area.

One December about forty years later, Justin was home from school and we climbed Captain Beyond, with him doing almost all the leading. In this image he is giggling his way up the last pitch just before the solstice sun left the wall.