Kurt Ross and Colin Simon Climb Fat Rocket Man

Kurt Ross and Colin Simon have climbed Rocket Man, a sandbagged 350-metre M7+ WI6 on the steep walls below the Snowbird Glacier on Mount Patterson in the Rockies. Ross and Jess Roskelley attempted the big route a few days before but ran out of day light before finishing. Ross led and sent every pitch on his final day up the route.

On Instagram, Ross said, “With a ton of psyche and help from Jess Roskelley, Colin Simon and Mark Bramble, I redpointed this rig called Rocket Man in exceptionally fatty condition.” Rocket Man is one of the 10 classic Rockies mixed routes in a 2012 article you can read here.

@jcurrency picking his way through the horribly loose choss of pitch 7 on Rocket Man. If he hadn't cleaned this notoriously sandbagged "M6" pitch on our first attempt, it would have been way too crumbly to free.

A photo posted by Kurt Ross (@kurtross) on Nov 25, 2016 at 8:21am PST

Rocket Man was first climbed in 1999 by David Thomson, Kafira Allen, Eric Dumerac and Raphael Slawinski. It did not have a second recorded ascent until 2011 when Raphael Slawinski and Jon Walsh climbed it, read about it here.

In 2007, Ueli Steck and Simon Anthamatten climbed a variation to Rocket Man called Rocket Baby M8+ WI5+X. Nick Bullock and Greg Boswell climbed Rocket Man in the fall of 2013, read about it here. In the winter of 2013/14, Gery Unterasinger and Alex Hollaus climbed it, read about it here. This is likely the fattest Rocket Man has formed of late. Climbers heading up there should keep in mind the avalanche conditions, which you can check here.

A photo posted by Kurt Ross (@kurtross) on Nov 24, 2016 at 4:24pm PST