For my third and final attempt Nate brought me around the corner to a dihedral with a line that he was interested in. I looked up and saw some poor ice and some tiny seams, but, with some encouragement, I tied in and grabbed the pin hammer and a small pin rack. Now, to give some background, I’ve pounded one pin on lead and I used the hammer I welded onto my tool, which is not that heavy, to say the least. It would be interesting to get on a difficult route and partially learn pitoncraft!

Nate made the first couple moves off the ground and I saw that there were some small holds that might bring me up enough to get to some gear and keep me off the snow covered, cooler sized boulders at the bottom. I got on the route and pulled on some small crap, hit a great hold behind a flake, placed my right frontpoint on an edge (right foot in this shot), and tried to get some gear. 10 or so feet up and a reasonable pin sunk I tried for the ice.