Climbing Nez Perce Spire, Southwest Face
Yesterday I met Steve at 5:30am and we drove down to Blodgett Canyon to climb the southwest face of Nez Perce Spire. Rock Climbing Montana says it is 8 pitches, 5.10. It is definitely the tallest climb I have ever done.
The pitch length and difficulty of our route varied quite a lot from the guidebook’s. However, it was freeing not knowing exactly how hard what you were climbing was or how long you should go before setting up the next belay. Big ups to Steve for leading all the hard stuff.
I had a bit of a scare on the first pitch, taking a 20 foot lead fall/slide on a slabby section (apparently there was some slack in the rope, none of my pieces popped), and was both grateful and proud of myself to be caught by a #3 stopper I had put in a fairly shallow crack. (A piece of metal a little smaller than a jellybean with some metal wire attached to it.)
The sun was out and we didn’t have any other major incidents, and were back to the car around 7:30pm.
