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Man Who Fell to Earth (C3/C4?) |
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Comments from possibly the actual first ascentionist Ivan Rezucha:
As you may know I did (what I thought was) the first ascent of Man Who Fell to Earth. I did it all nuts and self belayed. Dick Williams (and I see in Todd's guide, Todd also) apparently say someone else aided this way back. I don't know anything about that.
There were/are no pin scars. I would think that with the thin shallow cracks, there would be damage if someone aided it with pins.
I didn't have any cam hooks (didn't exist) and no cams. No RPs either. Just Chouinard nuts and one hook. At the break in the arch, about 8 feet(?) below where the free route breaks out left, I had to do "two hook moves in a row with one hook". I got up in the etriers gripped some edge with my hand in a death grip and quickly moved the one hook higher to the next placement.
I continued up the arch to the top and moved right to the belay on Where Fool's Rush In. The second pitch was free at 5.8: angle left and back right around the next roof I think.
The name "Man Who Fell to Earth" came from Jeff Pofit, a friend of mine, who tried to solo aid the second ascent. He was somewhere around the break in the arch and fell zippering his gear, and hit the ground head first, fortunately between two rocks. He was carried away, but was more-or-less OK. Because of the curve in the arch (it wouldn't be an "arch" otherwise), it's easy to zipper the gear because of the sideways forces. |
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