South Early Winter Spire/West Face & Southwest Rib

An awesome climb! I have tried getting on this climb several times before, once it was too cold to touch the rock and once their were 5 or more parties in front of us! So this time we left the parking lot at 6am, probably angering all the groups who bivied there trying to get the jump. Good thing too as we did get to the base of the climb first, but only 15 minutes ahead of the next group and we could see 5-10 other groups show up after we were well on our way.

Our group was climbing efficiently and having a great time! Hardest pitch is right off the ground. Rock quality was awesome and the pitches described as runout weren't bad at all!

Got to the top well before noon taking our time with no one breathing down our necks until the very end when an impatient guy pseudo-belaying his not happy girlfriend came zooming up behind Raphi and Tim. Timed it right to get down the South Arete route in between the hoardes of guided parties there that day and were back to our packs by 2pm.

Small (micro) cams were very useful to make the runout pitch not runout.