Two legends: The Incredible Hulk (Above) and the Diamond on Long’s Peak. Joe Forrester
hangs an incredible amount, and the 4th class traverse into the start of the climb meant there was already 400 ft of exposure when we started. Kyle and I started schlepping our loads to the base of the climb. Climbing the 4th class traverse with a 80lb haulbag full of water was exciting to say the least. The next day we got off to a pretty post alpine start. I started leading the first two pitches and reached the top of the second pitch after an hour or so. The climbing was pretty casual, bolts with a couple of hook moves. Then Kyle started jugging the haul line. Unfortunately, he attached the Gri-Gri for back up. As he jugged higher and higher, the Gri-Gri locked up on the weight of the haul bags. I could see Kyle was perplexed and scared. The first pitch was so overhung I could barely see the belay. Very slowly the bags started inching forward on the ledge. Uh oh I thought, Kyle is going to ride the pigs. I could only imagine Jeremy as he released the bags and watched Kyle go swinging out into the abyss. Kyle wung out over 400 ft of air, arching 50ft out from the wall and then 50ft back. I am pretty sure I could see the whites of his eyes from 200ft out. After the king swing, the climb went pretty smoothly. We got to Ahwanee ledge with enough daylight for me to fix the next pitch, a reasonably tricky C2 traverse. It was pretty magical as the sun turned the ledge an ethereal orange. Perhaps the best part of the entire wall were the Asahi beers that Jeremy brought up complemented with some beanie-weenies. He wanted to thank Kyle and I for hauling up the gear, and man he was successful. We collapsed with a slight buzz. I should say Kyle and I did, Roop was pretty beat. He had climbed the Steck-Salathe the day before. The next day was pretty casual, although the pitches still overhung substantially. We reached the top with plenty of time to spare, so we sat down and ate some soup and drank some more Asahi. Unbeknownst to us, we were in for quite the night. Critters just couldn’t seem to leave us alone. The first advance came shortly after dark. Jeremy heard a small wall rat that got spooked and ran over Kyle’s head. He had quite a start. As I was shining the light around, I spotted a monstrous wolf spider over Jeremy’s head. Not more than an hour later, we heard a chipmunk rustling in our haul bag. 15