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Bold New Rockies Mixed Route

From the team who brought winter climbers the route Man Yoga, comes their latest addition to bold winter mixed climbing: Kahveology.

Jon Walsh and Jonny Simms are no strangers to pushing it on frozen walls. Their most recent outing found them climbing the new Kahveology (the science of coffee,) a 160-metre M8 WI5 on Storm Creek Headwall, the valley parallel Stanley Headwall. In the fall, Walsh and Marc-Andre Leclerc climbed The Plum on the Storm Creek Headwall.

The Plum

On Jan. 23, during the start of a warm spell, they made their way to an esthetic ice-flow that dried out one pitch off the ground. The new four-­pitch mixed is a direct-start to final ice pillar to the 2012 route Check Your Head, a 180-metre M6+R WI 5+, Walsh climbed with Jason Kruk and Joshua Lavigne.

Check Your Head

Walsh wanted to climb the route bolt-free, but the protection was not satisfactory and he added a few bolts on lead. Walsh said, “Unsurprisingly, the back of the cave was chossy, and I had to place two bolts just to get into the steep climbing. Then two more bolts got placed as I blew my gear and tools out on body weight placements. With four bolts placed through the steepest and hardest pulls, I got to a nice crack which marked the beginning of what’s probably the best stretch of limestone I’ve ever dry tooled on. After a few steep pulls out the cave, the angle eases to vertical to slightly overhanging for about 30­ metres, with numerous bulges to negotiate. Perfect torquing cracks and incut holds, made for really fun sustained climbing, with enough stances to shake out from, although never a hands free position until the belay.”

Read Walsh’s Full Report on Kahveology on his blog here.

The second pitch was new terrain and you can watch the action in the clip below.

Kahveology
Pitch one is a 45-metre M8.
Pitch two is a 50-metre M6R.
Pitch three is a 30-metre WI5.
Pitch four is a 25-metre WI4.

[shareprints gallery_id=”10971″ gallery_type=”thumb_slider” gallery_position=”pos_center” gallery_width=”width_100″ image_size=”large” image_padding=”0″ theme=”dark” image_hover=”false” lightbox_type=”slide” titles=”true” captions=”true” descriptions=”true” comments=”true” sharing=”true”]Photos by Jon Walsh and Jonny Simms

Kahveology

Watch Walsh and Simm’s in Man Yoga.

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