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Opis:
After getting down from Poincenot, I messaged Shira at 3:30am and told her that we weren’t sure if we were planning to climb Rafael Juarez the next day. I was exhausted and my arms were very tired. I spent nearly an hour melting snow for water before shooting out another message telling Shira to be here at 9am sharp because we are for sure going up. I slept that night in my helmet, in fear of rockfall, and woke just before 9am. We racked up as we debated what route to climb. My vote was to climb the easier line which is the Anglo-Americana but Chris wanted to climb the Piola-Anker, a route that I had never heard of that had 6 pitches of grade 6a or higher. I reluctantly agreed and we set off up the north ridge climbing splitter after splitter of amazing granite. The route contained some of the most enjoyable climbing I’ve experienced down here even though my arms were so worked that 5+ was a struggle. We climbed the route in perfect weather and chilled for maybe 30 minutes on the summit. It was pure bliss. The standard descent is to rappel the Anglo Americana but we choose to rappel the Arteballeza since our packs were on that side of the mountain. The raps went quick except for one stuck rope again on the steepest pitch of the rap line. We romped back down to Polacos in the late afternoon and moved our tent to a safer location down the hill.
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