IN THE FALL of 2017, I climbed Woman of Mountain Dreams (V 5.11) on Mt. Wilson with my friend Lindsey Hamm. The first few pitches of that route follow a corner system to the top of a formation called Aeolian Tower. From this vantage, I spied a splitter corner system over to the left of the Original Route (V 5.9 A3). Further reconnaissance revealed that the middle third of this route sported a radical overhang. Fast-forward to November 2018, and I had convinced my friend Kyle Willis to give the route a go. There was a bit of uncertainty about the continuity and difficulty of the crack systems, so we compromised and brought a light nailing rack.

The first pitch of our new route, Jedi Mind Tricks, is shared with the Original Route and Dream of Wild Cheeseburgers (Boyce-Willis, 2016, see AAJ 2017), a mossy and run-out 5.9 hand crack described as an “approach pitch” for the Original Route. Above this we headed left toward the hanging basin below the Original Route. Five hundred feet of 4th class brought us into view of our intended line. Looking up, we realized that it overhung enough that bailing from the upper part of the route would be extremely difficult with the gear we had. So we fixed a line down the approach pitch and headed into town to regroup.

We headed back up the next morning better equipped with aid gear, pins and a Beal Escaper. From the start in the hanging basin, a couple moderate pitches brought us to the meat of the climb, a 200’ overhanging corner feature. The climbing remained reasonable and we only busted out the hammer for a few pin placements. After climbing the first of two overhanging pitches, we fixed lines and descended to a super-comfy bivy in the basin below the wall.

The next morning we jugged to our high point and pulled the bags up. The crack above was amazing and splitter, providing easy passage to the headwall. Unfortunately, the seams that we had hoped to find up high petered out along with our courage. Four solid pitches of slabby, run-out vision questing brought us to a ramp that linked into the Resolution Arête. We found ourselves at a feature called the Catwalk,only two easy technical pitches and some scrambling below the summit. Judging the wind direction, we figured we were considerably more sheltered here than we would be on the summit plateau, so we opted to bivy again. After a lazy morning, we continued to the summit and lounged on top, procrastinating the heavy walk down and out Oak Creek Canyon.

All in all, we climbed 13 pitches for about 2,000’ of proper 5th class, with 10 of those pitches (about 1,400’) being new terrain. While it would take a fair bit of cleaning, the route would likely go free around 5.12, with a couple pitches of wickedly overhanging splitter finger cracks.

– Sam Boyce