Ω Last month, special secret service agent, Ewan ‘the Ginger Ninja’ Sinclair spyed a “new” line in the Bronx Cave. Not a pure line, but not a pure eliminate either (although he is an Aucklander). Starting on the Speed Freak flake it is possible to pretend that no holds exist above the obvious crack that runs across the front of the cave, and thus a sequence of steep compression moves is revealed, leading to the razor edge on Ryan VH’s obscurity Calypso And The Barnacle (WTF?). From there (still avoiding the crack) a final lunge to a perfect sloper-edge and then the lip nets a long, power-endurance problem.
Dubbed the Agent Orange project (in deference to its creator), Ewan and I have being trying this line furiously ever since. It took a few sessions to unlock the sequence, then the redpoint attempts began in earnest. You can watch the output from one of those sessions here.
Anyway, yesterday, while Ewan was being gassed (literally, he was being gassed as part of his pre-deployment training for a secret mission abroad!) I trudged out to the Bronx Cave on my own (Richie Rich bailed, Lewis was sick) in a developing spring storm and dispatched the first ascent. It didn’t go down without a fight, I got to the razor edge 4 times before finally sending.
The grade? I was initially thinking V9. None of the moves are desperate, but there are a few hard ones in a row at the end. Definitely a lot easier than Allison Wonderland V11 and Fatal Discharge V11. And harder than Passive Attack ;-) So I’m going with soggy V10 (a la Mr Olympia). That might lure the hot shots out. Time will tell.
The best bit? The potential for link up madness is almost unlimited: Allison Wonderland V11 into Agent Orange; Fatal Discharge V11 into Agent Orange…Black Out V9 into Sideways V6 into Agent Orange Ω
