Monkey Face…DONE!
Thanks to Mark and Natasha Denyer, for the lead and the encouragement. Wow, what a climb! Everything and more, of what I was expecting. We decided to do this on Friday instead of the weekend to minimize the cluster of others seeking this Smith Rock classic. Actually if we arrived at the climb 15-minutes later, we would have been behind one of those clusters… This climb has a good variety of exciting moves. The first pitch (I think we combined the 1st & 2nd), is a blocky, 5.4 scramble with good exposure, especially once you reach the notch and look over to the other side…Yikes! The Bohn Street ledge has room for maybe 4 people, but is quite comfortable compared to the short face you just climbed. Our second pitch was the aid climb up the well bolted ladder… It’s been a while since I stood in aiders, so it took me half way up to finally get the rhythm down.
The crux of the aid ladder was getting into the mouth. It wasn’t pretty, but I got in. Once in the mouth cave, I was able to catch my breath, snap a few pics, and psych myself into stepping out of the mouth onto Panic Point…then following Mark’s lead up the variation called Monkey off My Back, a 5.9 scary and exposed finish to the top.
Now the rap, almost a 200’ free air rappel. Lucky the wind wasn’t blowing, as I’ve heard that, that can get you spinning and there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it.
We started the climb at about 9:45am and the last one touched down at about 2:00pm…a 4+ hour tour.
Monkey Face….DONE!
More pics here in my Pacasa Album
🙂