Big Sends

Lisa Rands finished the Mandala (V12) today, beating Eric to the first female ascent. Here she is working it last spring:

This huge deadpoint was the crux for Lisa, while pulling through off the tiny crimp is the crux for most of us (2nd picture).



photos - Jeff Sillcox

Neither move looked hard today, so as soon as she hit the crimp in the right spot, the rest was a formality.

Matt Birch made a quick ascent of Direction (V13) and Wills and I both fell off the end of it. I finished my day with perhaps the most impressive send of the day: An untied-approach-shoe-flash of a problem that was supposed to take me at least six tries... unfortunately, it was on plastic at Andrew's home wall. And Wills salvaged his day by shooting video of Lisa on the Mandala that will surely show up on one of those other climbing websites soon.