Big Bro's, Big Pink and Big Psyche

It's been a couple more days up in the freezing cold of the Vedauwoo campsite - we've been caught speeding at 25mph, eaten a whole Jamaican Schlong and ticked a few more Wide Cracks. Both of us have hit some serious low points in mental ability, with one epic day spent looking for one route for hours in the woods, only to realise we didn't know the difference between East and West. I thought the offwidths would just be cruel on the body, but the mind has definitely suffered in equal proportions....

I'm starting to see strange signs

The last 2 days have been filled mainly with two thought processes; Big Bros and Big Pink.

Big Bros

It's nothing to do with a family relationship - it's actually a form of protection. A key piece of protection that takes us from Wild Country 6 to....... BIG!! Really big. Unfortunately we need some for Pamela Pack's testpiece Gabriel 5.13c/d in the desert that we've been obsessessing about. Yup, we've not even finished at Vedauwoo and we're thinking about the next invert masterpiece. I think we need a shrink.

Yesterday saw me ticking On a Wing and Prayer (5.12c) which is a pretty spicy invert offiwdth flare, put up by Pamela Pack. It's mainly spicy because when you fall off, the dive is totally hideous and you whack your head back into the crack in an upside position - I definitely tested that one!

On a Wing and a Prayer (c) Alex Ekins

In the afternoon, we headed over to do Justin Edl's hardest offwidth "Simiantics" at V9. Pete pulled off some powerful kneelocks and foot-jibbery to get an ascent - Good work young Whittaker! Justin also put us to shame by cruising the problem right in front of our eyes; I think we're still complete beginners at knee-locking compared to him... Some photos of the problem on Alex Ekins' website!

Big Pink


Ever since we arrived in Vedauwoo, the locals and internet pundits have been going on about a route called "Big Pink." Our tick list of all the hard stuff was pushed aside - "Man you guys have to man up and do Big Pink. That thing is so classic!"

Basically, this means you're going to get a massive sandbagging. When everyone is telling you to forget the 5.13 invert and get stuck into a 5.11b vertical shuffle you know you're in trouble. Pete and I managed to put the route off for a week, but in the end we knew we'd have to get it done eventually. To make our life a bit easier (read, get some excuses in early) we tried it on a boiling hot day in full sun and totally fucked from the previous day's climbing. We were very nervous about this one! Fortunately, Pete did it as his warm-up, onsight and I flashed it 10 minutes later. Thank God for that; we weren't total punters.

Two plonkers divided by a "Big Pink"

Some more photos can be found on Alex Ekins' website, covering our last 2 days.

http://alexekins.co.uk/wide-boyz-in-vedauwoo-part-twothree/