Renaissance Man

The proudest and hardest line at the crag. Truly difficult. It was also the first line we even tried at Renaissance Crag. For some reason, we thought the moves would go quickly on TR. Wrong. The bottom twelve feet of this rig eluded me (and others) for the better part of three years till finally, on a hot March day, I made it happen.

Jens Amundsen, a long-time Rattlesnake compatriot, was belaying. I had planned to TR the route clean before putting in a lead bolt to protect the bottom crux, but my gut had other plans. I think I needed the motivation of leading to try harder, so Jens watched patiently while I added a fat lead bolt, lowered down, and psyched up. On my second ground-up go, I climbed through the crux and reached the flared crack—a new highpoint for me at the time—and then promptly fell off in surprise. Third go wasn't much better. Then, with my tips super raw and the afternoon sun about to bake the tiny crimps, I gave it my best harumph.

Done!

Starts about five feet right of Trebuchet, directly below the big fat lead bolt. Pull through some burly underclings, figure out a sequence through the face of crimps, then gain the flared crack. Finish up and right per Trebuchet.

Three bolts. First bolt is pretty high, so can be stick-clipped.