Climbing and linking Slot Corner to Land of the Lost has been a priority of mine for a long time and I finally got to make it happen. Sam and I took advantage of the last Saturday of the season in Hyalite to get er done. We actually tried to do this climb the previous weekend but missed the turn (cause there wasnt one; nobody has been up there in a while) and ended up in Avalanche Gully. We used the early season approach to reach the seldom climbed first pitch of Slot Corner. It was an easy WI3 that only required one screw to reach the top. Pitch 2 was the money pitch of the day; the actual 'slot corner' pitch was atleast 4 times larger than any photo of it I have ever seen! I guess its usually a column of sorts but not this day. It was just one giant vertical sheet of ice very very similar to Curtains. I tackled this short and to-the-point WI4 with just a couple of screws and off/up to Land of the Lost we went. Land of the Lost are climbs located in the same gully as Slot Corner and could just as easily be called Slot Corner pitch 3 and 4. The first pitch of LoL was the best ice we saw all day. I led it without any trouble. Sam volunteered to take the sharp end on the last pitch and he brought me up a very thin, snowy, rocky final pitch. It was really cool being so close to Winter Dance; a climb I can only dream about for now. About the time we topped out, the sun finally reached us and the snow and ice turned to total crap. Im really glad we got up a little extra early this day. I was at the Unnamed Wall the previous night scouting Bingo World and Thrill is Gone, both which I deemed undesirable for me, even though Bingo World was touching down and climbable. Looking across the canyon Sam spoke up "is Bingo World gone!?" Sure as hell, it had broke at the lip of the cave and a 30' tall + or - chunk of ice fell down! I know these things happen, but its different to witness such potential mayhem. Luckily, nobody was hurt, though it had been climbed earlier in the morning. Our lobster fried faces were pretty excited to get to the adult beverages patiently awaiting our return.
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| Sam following Pitch 3 of the day. |
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| The last pitch, the 4th pitch, the second pitch of Land of the Lost. Winter Dance above. |
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| Kinda looks funny right? Thats what crappy ice looks like. Not a crappy climb, just crappy ice. |
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| Pitch 3 or the first pitch of LoL. |
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| LoL |
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| LoL |
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| Slot Corner main pitch aka pitch 2 |
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| Slot Corner pitch 1 |
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