Friday, February 19, 2010

we daddys are real psychos

this is the crux mixed pitch, the obvious break left of the center connecting the little ice blobs
last few meters of Murchinson FallsJeff reaching the last belay before joining Murchinson Falls
I have not been out climbing since before christmas with J.D., other than a short afternoon on Bourgeau left with Christian, a friend of mine from Austria who visited me for 2 weeks. Then finally, yesterday I went climbing with Jeff Relph (also a father of 2) up in the Murchinson area. He spotted the unformed line of "but my daddy is a psycho" earlier this Winter and we wanted to give it a go. Since Jeff was the one eyeing the line, he got the sharp end of the crux mixed pitch. He put up a good fight on lots of marginal pro and the door was open to this possible first ascent. Another WI3 pitch brought us to the top pillar of Murchinson Falls, which presented an unusual and fun ice chimney. All in all a very worthy route in a cool setting. Unless Jeff comes up with a different name, I call it "we daddys are real psychos" for the time beeing.
P1 70m WI3-climb the first 30m step of Murchinson and then go left on the first ledge to the base of the obvious corner/chimney
P2 55m M6/WI4-straight up and once you reach the ice go left and belay whenever you find a good place. We made a rock anchor on the right because of hollow ice.
P3 80m WI3-up a couple short steps and right on huge flat ramp to the base of the last pillar. We belayed in the big rock cave just left of the pillar, where we were sheltered from the hanging daggers.
P4 50m WI4+ Up the last pitch of Murchinson.
A standard rock rack plus a couple knifeblades and 8 srews will do.