I Hope We’re Still Friends

This route shares the a start with Muscle Memory. Begin on the right-facing flake of Muscle Memory and climb past the first bolt, to just below the pin. Without clipping the pin, either hand traverse or trust your feet and make a thin and hair-raising foot traverse right on delicate moves to a stance at the second bolt. From here, make difficult moves straight up into the diagonal overlap. Once established in the diagonal, continue up and right to a series of flakes and plates. Climb the flakes and plates through the steep bulge to a shallow water groove and the final bolt. Make a few final difficult slab moves to reach a long, but moderate runout (35-40 feet) to the top. 

The name of this route has an amusing backstory and one that has a few layers to it. Originally, when I put this route up, I had intended on bolting it with my friend Mitch. However, our plans kept falling through. So eventually Garry and I decided to go ahead with the route. Sorry Mitch, I hope we’re still friends!

On top of that, some people might say I have a bad habit of sandbagging them, especially when it comes to runout routes. One of those people may or may not be my friend Jon. Around the same time I was scoping this route out, Jon had been frequently driving down from PA to climb at Old Rag. He had been on a tear, onsighting most of the routes I threw him on. Including some of the more runout ones. Keeping that in mind, I decided to give him something a little bolder than usual. I hiked in with only four bolts, so I couldn’t possibly place more than that. Somehow, everything went according to plan. I Hope We’re Still Friends ended up with five bolts in total for roughly 150 feet of climbing. The four bolts I hiked in with and the pre-existing 1st bolt, on the shared start with Muscle Memory. It was perfect. Just enough to get you to the top and nothing more. 

The next time Jon was at Old Rag, without revealing too many details, I mentioned I had put up a great new route for him to try. He was slightly skeptical (apparently I had already sandbagged him a few too many times), so he asked what the grade was and if it was runout. To which I told him something along the lines of “It’s 5.11, and you’ll be fine. There’s a bolt everywhere you need one.” Now of course, I may have underplayed it a little bit, and it might be the longest I’ve ever seen him take on a climb, but somehow he still ended up onsighting it. 

Located in the middle of the Eagle’s Gift formation, this route shares a start with Muscle Memory. 

5 bolts, .4-2, stoppers, bolt anchor