I recently went on a little climbing adventure with Nathan Smith. We went to a place called The Thumb. The Thumb is a long and fun climb that consists of nine pitches of old school granite climbing. The first few pitches were enjoyable and pretty easy. I have never climbed trad before let alone multi-pitch trad. It was very educational to see the way Nathan placed the trad gear. For being a sport climber, I put all my trust in the bolts that are for the most part pretty solid. Putting my trust in little pieces of trad gear that I didn’t even place was a chore in and of its self.
The Thumb is a classic, so they say. It definitely has some old-school characteristics. The most memorable feature was the little chimney that I had to shimmy my way up. I wasn’t used to that at all. In my opinion, the chimney's full-body workout made the 5.7 grade a little deceiving. Once I got passed the chimney it was blast.
The last pitch made it all worth it. The 30 foot ledge we had to step across to begin the pitch was a little scary. Once I got across and started the climb it was super fun. Once we reached the summit, we were on top of the big feature called The Thumb. We looked down the canyon and could see the Salt Lake Valley. To add to the scenery, Nathan was able to spot out a mountain goat. It was cool to see how those goats can live up on the tops of these mountains.
It was a long hard climb but in the end it was all worth it.
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