Breaking Ben

Climb Face To Nowhere to 8 bolts leading up the dramatic arete!

This is the ultimate testpiece at East Animas, demanding an incredible amount of focus, technique, crimp strength, sloper strength, unwavering endurance, and razor precision.

Originally envisioned by Ben Griffin, he suggested I get on it, and I became maniacally obsessed with the single best pitch of climbing I have ever been on. After multiple seasons of efforts, I failed to send after several very good attempts and many one hangs. I moved to the Front Range for about a year after visiting Durango four times over the course of the year coming back to attempt to free this route. Other people in the climbing community believed it to be too height-dependent and modified the initial stopper/impossible crux with glued holds eliminating the original sequence that I used. After moving back to Durango, I put in five more days of effort to send the line in its current state, still one of the best sport climbing pitches I have ever done. I chose the name Doppleganger, because the original climb was slightly different; however, it is strikingly similar.

Climb Face To Nowhere, then bust up and left climbing up the incredible arete.

Climbing Face To Nowhere, you can use a couple of small cams. As for the sport section, it is usually fixed with permadraws of some kind.