I finally finished up Fat Tug in the Twisted area in Field, BC.
A fun new route to the right of Blob Blob Blob. Climb Twisted or Nasty Habit to the base of the route on top of the ledge. Climb thin ice sheets on rock straight up from the two bolt anchor to a fixed knife blade 5m off the deck. Continue up and left on ice blobs with screws in blobs for pro. From there a #1 cam takes you to the first bolt. The difficulty/danger of the beginning depends on the amount of ice around. From there climb technical rock between ice sheets protected with 8 bolts to the upper ice sheet. Climb the ice to a stance and build a v-thread, or top out. It's 45m back to the bolts.
I sent the climb in two pitches. The first pitch goes just past the #1 camalot, you can sling a horn for a belay. The second goes from there to the top via the bolts. The crux is at the small roof on the second pitch. I was able to climb from an ice sheet on the right, traverse under the roof and climb onto another ice sheet left of the roof above. Then traverse back right clipping the bolt on the way.
Establishing this line was a cool process, and I defined a lot of my ethics for the future.
I put in the upper three bolts on rappel after seeing the line from Jon Walsh's Nasty Habit but ran out of battery. Back the next day I bumped into Raphael Slawinski and Sarah Hueniken putting up Blob Blob Blob on lead. I bailed that day, as I thought it would have been too crowded up there. Second guessing my rap-bolt tactics, I chatted with Raph, Sarah, and Ian Welsted about this and although they were super supportive of whatever I choose to do, I was inspired by the conversation. I went back to finish it ground up and there is no question that it changed the nature of the line. It's better, the experience was more meaningful, and I'm more proud of it!
The highest ethic should be carried through to all climbing, regardless of the size and obscurity of the route. Cool learning experience!
