INVISIBLE WALL: HANGING CRESCENT

On our first attempt at free climbing the Invisible Wall, this feature was my pitch – we dubbed it the Hanging Crescent. The 5.12- crux was right out of the belay and once I pulled through these moves I kept motoring and on-sighted the lead. But the next pitch, though not as hard, stopped us - we needed a point of aid to finished the climb. We returned soon after and did the whole climb free for the first free ascent. Another party repeated the climb about a month later, thinking they were doing the first free ascent, and they were incredulous when they learned that we had already done it. Chip and I returned the next season to do the 3rd free ascent of the climb (pictured here) and were disappointed to see that the previous party had permanently altered the route in ways Chip and I would never have considered.

In this photo, the right side Diamond looms above, with the King of Swords line clearly visible just to the left of Chip.