INVISIBLE WALL TAN CORNER

Layton Kor established the Invisible Wall as an aid climb in 1965, and as far as we know no one ever repeated the route until 2004 Chip and I decided to have a look and see if it would go free. Here I am leading the first real pitch on the Invisible Wall - there are two easier approach pitches before this. This is the beautiful Tan Corner with 5.11 stemming and lie-backing and perfect protection. But the corner eventually dies and a 5.10- runout leads up and left to a belay at the beginning of the Hanging Crescent, seen above me.

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In this full view of the Invisible Wall, the Tan Corner and Hanging Crescent features are seen near the center, with thin water streaks just below and above. The Invisible Wall was originally an aid climb put up by Kor in 1965, towards the end of his serious climbing. We believe that the climb was never repeated, on aid or free, until Chip and I freed it in 2004. We saw no evidence that anyone had been there - after 40 years even Kor’s piton scars had healed. When we finished the first free ascent the route was in pristine condition - we left no traces of our passage except for our chalk, which quickly washes off on Longs Peak.

We hoped it would stay that way, that this would be a climb that would never have any metal left by humans. But another strong twosome repeated the route a month or so later thinking they were doing the first free ascent - there was no evidence of our earlier passage. The style they chose to do the climb in was quite different from our style. They pounded in fixed pitons and cleaned out large quantities of beautiful alpine vegetation from the last two pitches pitches. Chip and I repeated the route the following season (because it’s such a great climb) and were shocked to see how it had been forever altered. But it’s still one of the coolest climbs anywhere.