Climbing the classic and thought provoking missing...
Description
Missing Link is the awesome, wandering face climb that graces the cover Mentz and Tempest's guidebook. Begin at the center of the upper face of Bluff Major, climb up and right, then back left and up to the summit, following a vague white streak the whole way. Rap from a fixed anchor.
Rumor has it that Johnny Dawes TR'd this with no hands!
Safe if you know what you're doing. I once watched a guy take a 20', headfirst groundfall from Missing Link. Much to my suprise, he lived -- his partner was nurse and the helicopter got there quickly -- though I heard that he broke 32 bones.
His first piece was a tiny, worthless cam placed instead of a bomber nut, he skipped the second piece and his third ripped as he was testing it.
This is a sneaky way to get me to sign up! If Mr Goldstein was at Arapiles in January 2003, I was the falling climber.
The key to ML, protection-wise, is to get to a large stopper placement 5 or 6 metres hard R of the initial vertical seam. I didn't know about that placement and I was strung out up and L of it when a wire pulled through when I was testing it and unbalanced me (I've tried to get doing that out of my repertoire!) The initial seam can be stitched up as you like. There may be something marginal on the traverse but nothing you'd want to fall on. At the large stopper placement, you're in a no-fall zone until you clip it but it's all quite juggy.
I did go back and try again with more success, but it took me 3 years.
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