Bob's Big FA.

Saturday morning Bob had a fairly big first. He sent his first FA of the year but also his first sport FA ever! On top of that, and I might be wrong, it was also Bob's hardest FA to date.

Bob had been spying a line beside German Engineered. He had top bolts over it for over a month. Last week we set up a TR over it and began sussing out a potential line. That is when his rope got jammed in a constriction. The effort to get it out shredded the sheath of the rope, causing a core shot.

After that, Bob spent the rest of the morning bolting the line but we ran out of time. He had to leave with it only half bolted.

Soon as we arrived at the face yesterday, Bob set up his rope and took the drill to finish his line. With 12 bolts plus top anchors Bob was done.

Bob then jumped on the sharp end and began his ascent (Kim was climbing Tach Auch and took a few pictures while Bob was climbing). Beginning just to the right of German Engineered, the route follows the face directly up where it meets a hollow sounding but very stubborn boulder. It then goes right of the boulder to gain a ledge. From here it goes further right to a flat face that has good but not obvious features as it shifts back to the left to meet another ledge where the anchors are.

Bob sent it in fine style. Core Shot 5.8 made the sixth route on the German Face.

While Bob was bolting, Kim and Jan were climbing and I was cleaning the fixed line ramp. After Bob sent Core Shot, Jan and I bolted the ramp. Six bolts protect the climb to meet up with the top anchor of Sick Like Dog. German Access 5.5 is the easiest and probably the most traveled line there. We took down the fixed line and that rope is now retired. Next season we will use a fixed line for the upper faces.

We think that the German Face is pretty much played out now. There is room for other routes, but they would be fairly broken up and contrived. We feel pretty good about our progress this summer, a new area with seven 80-90 foot lines. Those are from left to right:

German Engineered 5.7

Core Shot 5.8

Tach Auch 5.9

Photophobia 5.10c

Hat' Shit 5.10a

Sick Like Dog 5.6

German Access 5.5

We cleaned out our stuff for the winter though we may get out a few times before the snow hit. The Halloween stuff is already in stores and before ya know it, we will be drinking eggnog and singing Christmas tunes.