hi ralph my name is josh. i was the one who put up 'case of the fags' Because it was such an obvoius line (to me anyway) that it was hard to beleive it had not been done. dan hare still works at neptune and i went in to talk with him about because he put up that bolted climb to the left on the arete. he did know about the two cracks and did say that he climbed the right one (hence i climbed the left one) he didnt give a grade on the climb because he didnt remember but a friend of mine tried it and its pretty rough getting over the first bulge. its wider then it looks from the ground, maybe three an half or four inches. my friend did not free it (just a bit of french free) and dan never said he freed it either so maybe you want to talk with him about it. you should give fags a try. as far as i know it has not seen a second ascent and i am interested to see what other people think of the grade.
josh |