Comments:

We had to bail from this after Hobbs couldn't do the traverse on the third pitch. He got a little off route, and apparently it seemed harder than the 5.10- that it was supposed to be. He spent three continuous hours on lead (two and a half trying to make some progress, then another half hour retreating back to the belay), after which he was understandably pretty tired. At that point, it was too late to get through the whole climb before dark, and even if I led the pitch, following it would have been just as hard for Will as leading it, because it was a run-out traverse. So we decided to just rap from there. This is the first entry of a “failed” multi-pitch climb in my entire climbing log, and for that, I suppose I'm a wee bit bitter. But it has given me pause to think. The fact that I already have dozens of big multi-pitch climbs under my belt, including four big walls, one of which was a grade VI, and yet I have never had to bail off a climb until now, is quite remarkable. Maintaining a 100% success rate for so long, especially through one's first few big walls, is almost unheard-of in climbing. I certainly owe a tremendous part of this to Aaron, and in some ways I suppose this climb proved that. The only times before this that I've even considered bailing off a climb were also with other partners (namely Corinne, in all cases.) Aaron and I have a pretty damn good thing going, and this whole weekend really brought me to appreciate that all the more.