scepter
Test test what to say about a sweet WI5
Super Bowl Sunday in Cody Wyoming - February 7, 2015
Super Bowl Sunday is a day when most people sit on a couch and eat chips. But Super Bowl Sunday 2016 was no such day for me and my climbing partner Matt Whitman. Ovisight three pitches WI6 in Cody Wyoming has a legendary quality. First climbed by Alex Lowe and Stan Price in 1991, the route is highly visible from the road and beckons to be climbed. But don't be mistaken the route is way the hell up there in the mountains. Ovisight is tucked above Legg Creek a single WI4 pitch. Matt had heard a few other climbers from Bozeman had went after the climb but gassed out on pitch 3. They couldn't get it done. These were strong climbers who I respect but we wanted to see if we had the goods to seal the deal. We left the car at 9:20 am, and entered the long approach through the Legg Creek drainage. The sun was bright and it was surprisingly warm with temps in the 40's. When we arrived to Legg Creek the climb looked thin, I had led Broken Harts on New Years day in Cody and pitch three of that climb was thin / non existent so it seemed fitting that I would lead this. It went down like butter on toast, I placed a single screw on the 45m pitch and although it was thin ice it was, good ice and ate up tools. We continued on to Ovisight, moving higher and deeper into the cliffs. When we arrived to pitch one it was a thing of pure beauty. The pillar was a big as a house and towering into the sky reaching the rock face high above. It was Matt's turn to lead and he did it in style. We were moving fast and I took pitch two, a smaller but steep pillar that led me into some challenging bushes on the top out. We were now in the red zone, with Matt on the sharp end he weaved up the final curtain of brittle WI5+. The ice was explosive in how brittle it was. I've never had feet blow as much and as big as pitch three of Ovisight but brittle or not we were making it up this climb. At 5:25 pm eight hours after leaving the car, we topped out. The decent took over two hours with the warm temps rock fall started coming down as the sun set. Car to car our day ran 10 hours and 15 minutes. It was a long hard day in the mountains but knowing we could push our selves at a high level for a sustained period of time and do what others could not was a sweet victory. There was no sliver trophy at the car but the beer was cold and the climb was very real.