In April a few people from Tempe (including Pat Maclane,
Alex Stiger and Halley Tollner) started coming down to climb at the Beaver Wall
after seeing much of the hype from the previous seasons. I met up with them as I don’t get to see them
often and got back on some lines I had already done. Nearly re-sending Rage to Live 5.13a/b and Hebe
5.14a on my first goes with little to no warmup started to bring back the
possibility of a project I’ve had in the back of my mind for quite some time-
sending all the sport routes on the Beaver Wall. I started working on what is currently THE
line on the Beaver- Alex Kirkpatrick’s Chains
in the Grove 5.14a. This route
starts on Trapezoid 5.13b, climbs
through both cruxes and then moves a few feet right to link into the hardest
moves of Hebe. A linkup, yes, but a very mega linkup of two
of the mountain’s proudest and best lines.
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Getting back on Rage to Live 5.13a/b with the Tempe crew. Photo by Chris Novellino |
From the start, I knew Chains
was going to be a battle. Though I had
already done both lines, the full rig was a different beast. Hebe’s
start was somewhere around 12d or 13a to the glued flake rest before the very
long crux sequence (where one links in from Trapezoid)
and is fairly easy to dial in and make extremely efficient. Trapezoid
was different- not only was there somewhere around 15 or 20 more feet of
climbing, but the dual cruxes demand far more power than the bottom of Hebe.
Moves I fell on maybe once in the process of sending Hebe suddenly became major obstacles. This awareness, however, kept me fairly sane
during the time spent building up the route-specific endurance required to
send, despite some very frustrating punts (including one from the move after Hebe’s infamous deadpoint crux at the
very end of the route).
It would be some time before I sent, but the day it finally
went down was one of the best days of my life.
James was back from Flag, and in the morning we headed up with a few
friends to rig the Old Man Gap highline for old time’s sake. With clear skies, we drove to Windy Point
(with my friends Nadine and Morgan and I rapping along to the dope verses of
the Flatbush Zombies), where a singular small cloud sat over the area. It began sprinkling as we organized gear in
the parking lot, and as we rigged the line the rain and wind grew until we were
getting pounded by hail and snow in a bizarre twist of weather for late May in
Tucson. We left the line half-rigged to
hide in a small hole in the rock, where we stayed until the precipitation
stopped an hour later (and joined by Thomas Barcom). We finished rigging under somehow-sunny-again
skies and, constantly joined by more and more friends, had the most fun I’ve
ever had during a highline session. At
some point or another during the day, we had everyone from an extremely
experienced highliner from Phoenix (Jared Marvel) walk the line, to Tyler
Meester’s first successful highline mount and partial walk, to several total
newbies scooting out to experience the exposure while sitting and hanging from
the line (even prolific Tucson first ascentionist Eric Rhicard, who was climbing
nearby, gave it a go!)
A couple hours after the Beaver Wall went into the shade, I packed up my climbing gear and headed
over with some of my oldest and closest friends- Sean Campbell
and Sammi Visbal- and much newer ones including Abby Volkmann, Tyler Meester
and Hannah Lily Hall leaving a few to continue raging the line. In one of my best days of climbing ever, I laid
the rope out, tied in, pulled on my trusty Mad Rock M5’s and fired it first go
of the day. Tyler got some spectacular
photos and I returned to the rest of the crew at the OMG after hanging out with
Sean and Sammi a bit longer. I was
floating on a cloud, and though the day did have to come to an end, I took
another walk on the line to celebrate before we derigged. Huge thanks to Mad Rock- the M5's killed it on yet another Tucson granite testpiece- and to Stone Crush Gear, whose pants provide unrestricted motion and great abrasion protection perfect for both slacklining and sending.
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Sunburnt and sendin'. At the second crux on Trapezoid, just before the link point. Photo by Tyler Meester Photography. |
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Into the crux of Hebe. Photo by Tyler Meester Photography. |
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Into the final, hardest moves. Photo by Tyler Meester Photography. |
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Sticking the infamous deadpoint crux at the top on the way to sending Chains in the Grove 5.14a. Photo by Tyler Meester Photography. |
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Finally at peace after sending Chains in the Grove. Photo by Tyler Meester Photography. |
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