05 Aug Home on the range 8b+ trad in Wyoming

 
Canadian crack climbing specialist Jean-Pierre Ouellet (Pee Wee)  has managed  the 2nd  ascent Home On the Range in Vedauwoo – Wyoming (US9.
This 17m  overhanging finger crack  (with a crux of 7C boulder)  was first free ascended in 2009 by Justin Edl.
 

"HTR is only 50 feet long," – writes Pee Wee on his blog – "this little bastard is very hard. It is slightly overhanging and it aggressively leans right at a 45 degrees angle. And it is as flared as the Vedauwoo cracks gets… For this kind of crack I use a weird slopper-hand-finger jam combo… It works really well until your foot slips or you grease out of the crack… It’s an interesting crack skill to develop but it can be frustrating, as it doesn’t take much to just slip out of the crack…
 
This thing is really weather dependant (for me anyway). You need a good breeze to make the flary/sloppy/fingery jams hold. On some humid days the crux was simply impossible for me and I would get really frustrated, but on windy days I would do really well on the route and make good progress fast. Since it leans a lot it is almost impossible to jam both feet. I ended up using the good old combo for that kind of cracks: Super-Mocc on the left foot for jamming and Anasazi Verde on the right for edging. After a week hiatus to go work at a trade show, I ended up sending the route. It took me about 20 tries over 2 weeks.”
 
 
Source: ukc
 
Ph: Andrew Burr