Aaron free climbing the Pancake Flake (pitch 23)

The next pitch was another relatively famous one, primarily because it has some of the most spectacular moderate free climbing on the whole route, coupled with some of the most spectacular exposure of any place in the world. Aaron free climbed the first two thirds of this, at about 5.10a, then aided the harder stuff at the end. This pitch had been a dream and a goal of his since he had first started climbing, some ten years before. He finished the pitch just before dark. By the time I reached the top, it was completely dark. And we had one more pitch to go.

We strapped on our headlamps, and I started up the next pitch. Aid climbing in the dark is really no harder nor more dangerous than aid climbing during the day, provided you have a headlamp so you can see the gear placements. But the pitch was unpleasant nonetheless, as I suspect it would have been at any time of day or night. For most of the pitch, I was crammed into a wide, flaring groove, and for some crazy reason little silverfish bugs kept crawling out of it. Still, my spirits were pretty high. I knew this was the last pitch of the day, so rest was coming soon, and we were getting noticeably closer to the end of the topo and the summit. The whole time I was climbing, Aaron chatted with his parents, and hearing all the talk helped to keep my morale up.

My parents had called Aaron's mom, so I took a moment's rest to relay some messages to them. Aaron and I both warned his mother that my mom has a tendency to panic, and doesn't understand the mechanics of climbing very well, so she should be very careful about what she told her. It was nearly 9:00 our time, meaning that it was nearly midnight back on the east coast. My mom couldn't go to bed knowing that we still hadn't reached our destination for the day, and that we were climbing in the dark. Apparently Aaron's mother was very reassuring on the phone, as my mom later told me. I owe her, and Aaron's wife Sarah, a tremendous debt of gratitude for being able to quell my mother's fear's so well.

I continued as quickly as I could up the flaring groove. Much of this would have required 5.11 moves to free climb, so I aided most of it. As it got easier near the end, I busted a few free moves. When the awful groove finally ended just below Camp V, the system of ledges where we would spend the night, I got out of my aiders and scrambled up the easy fifth class, looking for a good ledge. Aaron reminded me via the radio to look for the highest and left-most ledge, as it was supposed to be the most comfortable and provide the best hauling position.

I set up the haul and had Aaron lower out the pig, but it hardly went anywhere because of the tight corner we were in. I can't believe that the SuperTopo claims that the best hauling is from that ledge. If it's worse from one of the other ledges of Camp V, I can hardly imagine it. For me, this was by far the hardest hauling on the entire climb. With every stroke, I had to flip upside-down, push with my legs, and simultaneously pull on the rope with my arms just to get a foot or two of progress. And with each push and each pull, I cursed the damn swine with everything in me. Once I had the pigs close enough, Aaron helped me hoist them up onto the ledge. It was nearly 10:00 PM.