Congo, 5.11 b/c, Orenaug

The author about to reach for the second crux cross-pull (Photo by Sue Cashman)

Congo starts with a hatchet shaped pinch for the right hand, and a sloping bottom of a sidepull for the left. I step upward onto two quarter inch footholds on the smooth face below the overlap, carefully twisted to face right. A left foot shift outward brings my toe onto the slightly larger triangle, and my left hand shifts upward along the sloping side of the sidepull dent, looking for the marginally better sweet spot. Time for crux number one - a very high step with the right foot to smear on an 85 degree divot, right at the edge of the overlap.

My left foot rises from the triangle, and I always panic a little as it gropes for any purchase. There is a thin ledge, a little over a quarter inch wide, but I can't see it past the overlap, even if I could look down without barn-dooring off the hatchet-head. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't; it doesn't matter, because my entire being is focused on the throw to the next right hand hold: a triangular dent, yellow in color, with a decent incut. Time passes while I wait for my body to stabilize over my foot. Then, the throw.

I latch the throw, and the force tries to rip me off the left sidepull and swings my left foot away from the cliff. In a moment I have damped the motion, either with a toe hook on the overlap, or with my new preference, a cross step of my left leg in front of my right; just a sketch, just for a moment, as I lean left for a bucket and the first crux is complete. Time to breathe again as I step left for a sloping but decent foothold, and pause for a moment before the very long second crux.

When I'm lucky, I remember the entire second crux. When I'm not lucky, or not strong, or not balanced, or maybe haven't slept enough, I fall.

Time to go. My right hand goes from the good yellow sidepull to a not nearly so nice one above it. A step up with the left foot onto a very thin indent, and the right foot stabs out onto a nearly non-existent edge and pull into the move from a twisted squat. I have to stay low, or the feet will tear away. Then I carefully circle my left arm up from the good hold to a small projection like a right pointing switch the width of a finger. It has to be clasped just right... Then I can rock back left a bit and pull the right foot up eight inches onto a half inch wide sloper. Now rock right to weight that foot and unwind to toe into a thin horizontal seam. I wait a moment for the oscillations to die away and then my hand leaves the low sidepull, seeking the elusive sidepull at shoulder height, tucked away amidst a chaos where Congo meets Zebra.

A forty five degree nearly inch-wide flat surface awaits me on the right, My foot carefully comes up high, and I pull hard right into the second cross-over, just a few inches above the first. Now, both hands right, right foot level, and the left foot comes up to whatever it can find, just for a moment. The right hand leaves its home for a very, very high reach past the left to a castle on the edge of where the overhung face eases off before the small roof. It's almost over. I probably haven't had a breath for thirty seconds, but a few more moves and I am into the blocks under the roof for a rest.

The first time I was here was on an eighty-five degree day. My stomach had roiled from the effort, and it was five minutes before I could move on.

The blocks under the roof are awkward and slope in every direction. Once I start, I'm tired quickly from the previous work, and from the insecurity of working with these huge blocks.

Usually, I push upward to the edge of the two foot roof and get my hands into the huge horizontal crack. It's terrifying, because I'm sure that the crack goes all the way back inside and down, and that the entire roof is keystoned in, ready to drop on my legs and, seconds later, my belayer. But for all that the crack is deep, to someone really tired, it just isn't that good, so if I've made it this far, I always fall here.

But I'm pretending I'm weightless, and that I know how to handle the roof. I learned it by climbing up Zebra and spending a day just on the roof. I head for the downward pointing block at the right side, hand traversing the crack. This is the last crux. Feet up onto the point. walking carefully, while I layback from a discontinuity in the crack, I start moving up, though the black hole of the local gravity anomaly seems to be sucking me back under the roof. Leaning right, I reach left, high. More footwork on fairly sleazy holds and a sloping left hold that slowly pulls my right hand out of leverage from the crack. Left foot high into the crack, and I rock to a vertical ridge, as my right foot leaves the rock, and I struggle to put it back, up in the crack.

But if I've made it this far, it isn't impossible to take another step or two and latch a really big hold at the top of the ridge. From there to the top, it's nothing but four...