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Repeat and retrobolt best easy route at Buffalo 21-Dec-2009 At 1:04:43 PM russianSpy

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just did it (NO) this saturday and no, it hasn't been done.

But I don't think it needs any more bolts though, including the belays- I've been able to back it up with a sling or a bush or a dodgy nut and to be honest, neither of those felt necessary either.

On the difficulty of it- my climbing partner and I felt it difficult to compare to, say the first pitch of Pintle (12) which both of us found considerably harder than NO, including the NO's "crux" (which I got to lead).

my 2 cents worth - I freely admit I'm a chicken and generally am petrified of runouts, neither am I a very confident leader. I DID thoroughly enjoyed looking down at 40m of free rope between me and the belay and if there were bolts added, then that would have detracted from the experience greatly. On the whole climb I only really chucked in a tri-cam (woo hoo, got to use that for the first time!!) on the first pitch and didn't feel any need for any more gear anywhere else. No, 13 isn't my max leading grade, but i've been known to back off pretty low grades for whatever heart wrenching reason I decided to pick at the time. (including the first pitch of the Pintle, for which i'm quite ashamed of myself)

It's fine for the masses as it is- anyone that chooses to go to Buffalo and jump on the pointy end will have led something harder at least once in their lives (hopefully) and is most definitely physically capable of tackling it. Heck, we, like M9, started about 100-150m early and went up that unroped and in runners before "starting the climb" and that section wasn't any more difficult than the "bolted" section.

A great morning out and a really worthwhile experience for all that did it! A practice in scrambling and getting used to the headspace required on longer routes, which seems pretty important to me, anyway.

I would like to do it in winter though =)))) or maybe the myriad of other climbs that are there, any time of the year. preferably most of the year (with a few rest days thrown in for good measure)!

so, thank you mikl and geoff
and thank you jgoding for posting a link to it, and the detailed descriptions on aca website!