Dagger 

FA: Russ Walling & Walt Shipley, 1983?

FA story: We go over to do the Dagger.... Listed in the yellow Myers Guide as 10+, FA: Donny Reid and Rick Cashner. Walt goes up a ways and there is a terrible rusted bolt. (I recall only one bolt on the pitch.) He comes down. I go and climb past the bolt and do the rest of the pitch to what is a logical stopping point, and set a fairly ok gear anchor. I thought the pitch was pretty cool and burly. Walt comes up and I decide I want to do a/the second pitch. I struggle up a dirty shallow box via some Gaston moves and decide I either just don't have it, or don't have the gear to protect it.... so we decide to rap. Since there is no anchor there, I lob in a stopper to leave. Walt decides that we don't need to leave any wireds, and slots a webbing knot in a small V slot..... I rap clipped into the webbing as a test with the nuts backing it up. Since it held, Walt removes the nuts and just raps on the webbing knot! Sketch!

Now, we go back to the Deli to refresh and Donny Reid is there... we ask him, "hey, how about that Dagger!" He looks at like, "Dagger....?" We tell him what we just did and how he and Rick did the FA. He laughs and says they never got around to doing it....! The guide book or something was coming out and being pressed for time, they just walked on by, reported it as done, and intended to come back and do it some other time. Unfinished gem!

Thanks for the FA info. Rally sweet line man, good job. Crazy stuff about that webbing knot though.

This is a great line for crack lovers! Its a good one for summer afternoons, when the entire amphitheater is in the shade. It feels 5.11a to me, even by Valley standards. At the top, just below the crux, there is a pod that takes a #3 friend perfectly. After throwing in the friend, put your left shoulder into the pod, and stem out right for a know hands rest! A couple 1.75 and 2.0 friends work great in the meat of the climb. This one has a little grunt factor to it.