So we set out to do Limelight because it has a reputation for being somewhat hard and scary for 5.7 and I need to face my demons, in that I should be able to lead 5.7 even if it is hard and scary, but Limelight is booked solid and so I end up on a 5.7 that’s a little harder and a little scarier: Silhouette, 5.7+ PG/R.

Ouch. PG, OK. But R? No thanks. Best part is that it’s PG/R at the crux, still I figure I can go up and look around. Sometimes these PG routes are actually pretty well protected with modern gear.

It take me about nine years to get there because the blocky start I picked as an alternative to the 4th class ramp turns out to be trickier than it looked and I have to make this hideous sideways, humping, mantle-off-my-butt move to get up onto the slab beneath the route. Totally lacking in grace, and Todd is laughing at me, and I’m saying “no laughing until I’m safe” and he says that he’s very worried and really it would be an ugly fall if I came off here but when you’re actually sitting on the rock it’s hard to make your position look all that precarious.

Finally I’m on the slab and with that behind me I’m wondering if anything on the actual route will seem as challenging. I climb casually up the corner to the top of the flake where I have to start traversing left. I place two pieces here as they’re the only things between me and the ground and make the easy walk across the narrow ledge until I’m just below the crux.

I can’t get gear here, not even the smallest, ugliest brass nut. It looks like one hard move to get to solid holds and there’s just no way I’m willing to risk it. My last pieces, at least 15 feet to my right and at my feet, will keep me off the ground but they won’t keep me from slamming back into the blocky corner or the slab beneath it. I shuffle slowly back over to my gear.

It’s easy to get down from here, some straight-forward downclimbing and then I can walk back down the 4th class ramp I eschewed on the way up and clean the gear I placed at the alternate start from the ground. But I have an idea.

“I think I can place gear at my feet,” I tell Todd. I lower myself down until my hands are where my feet were and make the traverse again. It’s only slightly trickier at this level and when I’m directly under the crux again I’m able to put in one very good cam and one OK cam. Good enough.

Twice more across the void. I go back to the corner and clean the gear there. The rope drag would be too hideous otherwise. This means that I must have complete confidence in these two pieces. Do I? No, but I know that it’s only mental, so I forge on. Now back across, for the last time, I hope, to my crux gear. Stepping up onto the small ledge is tricky but the gear is right there for that move and then, coming up from below this way, I find a hold I’d missed on my first pass. If I’d found that hold before would I have gone for it? Maybe, but I’m just as glad to have the gear at my feet as I keep moving up.

Sure enough, the holds are solid and a few moves brings me to a stance and some gear. Definitely no worse than PG if protected this way.

Since I’ve lived so far I decide to do the 5.8+ roof variation, which I swear is nearly as hard as the roof on Jean, which everyone knows is a sandbag at 5.9, but it’s well protected (aside from wishing that I could put a piece somewhere other than on top of that flake) and goes with only minor hesitations. The climbing above the roof is very nice indeed, up disjointed vertical cracks, the last one of which is a real kicker. We skipped the rest of the route above the GT ledge but I can definitely recommend the first pitch (first two pitches according to the Swain guide).