A humbling first attempt at a big wall

I’ve been trad climbing for a couple of years and just attempted the South Face of Washington column with 2 of my friends.

I never planned to get into aid climbing, but viewed it as a means to an end for big wall climbing, which I did eventually want to do.

One of my partners had more experience then me, and the other had been practicing lower outs, jugging, and aid leading for the last couple of months leading up to this attempt.

We ended up bailing from the top of pitch 6.

Lots of the small details/logistics weren’t in our favor, like the approach taking longer than anticipated, and weather being extremely cold. But the real factors that counted against us were how long the opening pitches took us, and my overall headspace. I took a short fall and decked on pitch one.. which felt like a stupid mistake and definitely hurt my confidence. The jugging was hard, and when I finally felt good enough to take the lead again on pitch 6, I was making good progress until I got to 3 micronut placements in a row, blowing one of them and taking my first aid fall into space..

Overall, I’m really glad I tried this route. It was a good gauge of my aid climbing skills, mental limitations, etc.. I love climbing, and love trad climbing, but I think after this trip I know that I have lots of work to do on my aid climbing and big wall tactics before I’m ready for bigger objectives.