When Matt McCormick, Matt Horner and I went to Poke-O-Moonshine on the Friday before the Mountain Fest, there were a couple of things that we did do, and a couple of things that we didn’t do; here’s the deal.
We did climb the corner system that is the first part of Gorrillas in the Mist. The ice was formed right of Gorillas in a beautiful, narrow and thin streak. We climbed it for two pitches, one of which being the most intense lead I have ever had, and then belayed. The ice continued above, but “dead ended” below an awesome roof. We took a right from the belay and climbed up into a dihedral, and around that roof, to a good ledge, and rapped off a tree.
We did not do the third ascent of Gorrilas, or even the third ascent of the “big wall” section of Poko. We rapped a pitch below the cliff top, and that pitch would not have been trivial.
Matt, Matt and I all feel good about what we did. Our climb felt complete enough and significant enough to warrent a name, at least as a variation. We climbed some really beautiful pitches, ones that you don’t get many chances in life to climb, but there is room for improvement. There is potentially some really bad-ass looking climbing above our second pitch for a complete and really hard route. Where we decided to rap was an obvious break, the terrain above looked slow and time consuming and we decided to head down and proceed with the Mountain Fest festivities, instead of scrapping our way around another roof, in the dark, with one headlight.
I have read a little bit about our ascent online and it seems like there is a bit of confusion about it. I just want to make sure we are getting credit for what we did do, not what we didn’t.
