Galen Rowell and I did this route 30 years ago . It was February and we started up with headlamps. Galen had the approach wired, so it went quickly. The pitches rolled by and I only really remember the narrows pitch that I led. That experience is unforgettable. We topped out and post holed down the descent to arrive for a beer with the sun still on the valley floor. That's all that was in the hard drive as Chase and I set out at 4AM Saturday.

In the dark with our too dim headlamps, we made three time consuming probes to find the approach trail and eventually just set off up the slope sin camino. Daylight arrived at the ramp and the rest of the approach went well. We roped up and started off at shortly after 6am. I linked pitches for three and a half leads to the flying buttress. We were moving along well and stopped to down one of our 3 liters of water before passing behind the buttress.

Chase took over on the steep pitch after the rappel and took us up under the "slippery off width" pitch. I led through that one which in retrospect was the crux at what I thought was 10a. Chase then worm holed up into the narrows and made short work of that grunt fest. We were occasionally hauling our small pack and it looked like it would go so we tried to roto-root it up through the narrows. Sure enough it jammed, so I started climbing and this is where we lost our momentum.

I got past the roof quickly, no big deal, and arrived at the first constriction about 8' up into the narrows. With two rock solid heel toe jambs and two down facing arm bars I forced myself up, but no dice. Finally I went hard right about 14" by pushing laterally and it opened up a bit. I thought I was wrapped and up I went for the next 8 feet. But again, I was stopped cold. I went in deeper to try to pass, then out farther, nope. I had good arm bars and feet and pushed as hard as I could, eventually even grabbing the pack, jammed above, and trying to yard through on that. Sh#t, I was pushing to the point of imprudence. I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to climb this section without going through, but I decided that's what was going to happen and started slithering down to where I had carefully memorized the topography of the 14" horizontal passage. After a good half hour of pushing I had arrived back at the belay. Crap. I started up the outside in what is actually a pretty moderate off width. To pass the chockstone it was possible to stand on the chockstone, tie in short, and retie. Done.

I felt like I'd been dragged behind a car after that one and caboosed up behind Chase for the last pitches. We topped out a little after 12:30 after about 6 1/2 hours climbing. Another great day in Yos !