Repulsion is again welling up in Chris Vandiver. He squints through cigarette smoke, peers upward at a dripping, leaning dihedral and says what he always says at Pinnacles: "I hate it." We are standing at the base of another route on the Balconies, this one created by Frank Sacherer and Steve Roper in 1961. It is a horror of horrors. The dihedral is seeping black ooze. Whines, buzzes, bleats, and chirps emanate from it, sounds we cannot associate with any familiar life form.

"Bats and birds," Chris mumbles to assure himself we are still on planet Earth. He reluctantly begins to free climb the initial bolt ladder. The route has about thirty aid bolts, perhaps half of them placed on this first pitch, and wisely placed on the wall slightly left of the terrifying dihedral. Thank God we won't have to insert any limb into its dark, humming recesses. We hope to free climb past each and every old aid bolt, some of which poke out far from the rock, droop, or wiggle. To our knowledge, no one previously has mustered the slightest ambition to free climb this wizened classic; this surprises us very little.

After free climbing past the first few bolts, Chris glides back to the ground. He is not certain the bolts are good. I take over, following the ladder, finding sustained 5.9 and 5.10 climbing and occasionally a good bolt, even a new one. The rock is amazingly sound. But gradually the bolts lead closer and closer to the dihedral. Finally, I'm obliged to stick a hand into the crack, lie back a bit, and otherwise become far too intimate with damp, dark places.