Mt. Proboscis, Spanish Variation, Second Ascent. Over the first two weeks of July, 1997, and as part of the BBC television series “The Face,” Nancy Feagin and I made the second ascent of the Spanish Variation to the 1963 route (McCarthy-Kor-Robbins-McCracken) on the Southeast Face of Mt. Proboscis in the Cirque of the Unclimbables. A full account of our trip is contained in The Face, published by BBC books and authored by Richard Else and Brian Hall. Note a mistake in the topo on p. 87: pitch 5 (shallow comer and crack) is 5.11c, not 5.10d as printed. Also note that Nancy was able to free the whole route, but due to time constraints associated with making a documentary, was only able to top rope the crux pitch (5.12a). Future aspirants will be pleased to know that we did considerable cleaning in the cracks. We recommend going later in August when it will be as dry as possible (we had immense problems with summit snow melt filling the cracks with cold running water). Overall, an absolutely grand time was had by one and all.

Barry Blanchard, UIAGM, ACC, CMC