On July 18, Ryan Evans and I climbed what we believe to be a new route on the Arctic Lake Wall in Sequoia National Park, to the west of Mt. Russell. Located on the western summit of the Arctic Lake Wall, the route begins in highly featured orange rock and surmounts a short roof before gaining a ledge at the base of a large, white dihedral approximately 200' up. The dihedral above looked too difficult to protect with natural gear, so the route traverses right and continues up a less prominent dihedral, eventually gaining a splitter crack that leads to the summit ridge. Two fun pitches on the ridge lead directly to the summit. We left no permanent protection or anchors and called our route Chillin’ the Most (600’, III 5.10- PG13). While walking back to camp we stumbled across a meadow with hundreds of shooting stars blooming. We lay back on the soft mountain grasses and soaked in the High Sierra sun, the urgency of our planned afternoon climb fading away in a dreamy midday snooze.

– Damien Nicodemi