THE DIAGONAL DIRECT

Here I am doing the last moves of the crux, about to run it out to easier terrain. Still climbing in a swami belt and EBs … but there’s a brand new #3 Friend on my rack.

In about 1979, Pat Adams and Mark Wilford got to just about this spot trying to do the first free ascent of the climb. Pat was just a little above where I am in the photo when he pitched off, falling onto a single wire stopper (probably where my last piece is). The fall ripped Wilford right out of the hanging belay and they both ended up suspended from that single wire nut, 800 feet off the deck! Rather spooked, they retreated from this highpoint, just inches away from the first free ascent, but alive.