Me leading the Stovelegs

I led pitch 9, which continued up the spectacular Stoveleg crack system for another 150 feet. Since most of the pitch was a perfect splitter hand crack, I free climbed almost all of it, except for a nasty wide section in the middle. Unfortunately this section, for some reason, felt like the most awkward and painful offwidth I had ever tried to climb. I started aiding, but I still found myself thrashing. Maybe it was the masses of aid gear hanging off me, or maybe it was the fact that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, but whatever the case, I was soon begging for mercy. And the crazy thing is, this section was only about ten or fifteen feet long. Still, it took me what seemed like an eternity to climb through it. Once I had gotten through it, the rest of the pitch was fairly easy. I'm pretty sure I spent twice as long on that little section than on the entire rest of the pitch before and after it.