Black Canyon Trifecta Revisited

Inspired by his good friend Mike Pennings' feat, Josh Wharton went to the Black Canyon to try to climb the same three routes in a day. Wharton teamed up with Thad Friday and started from the North Rim on Sept. 25th at 4:30am for Southern Arete. They returned to campground in 6h15m to refuel and then headed for Astrodog, arriving at 12:20pm. They topped out on Astrodog at 5pm, rapped, started up the Scenic Cruise at 7pm. They then "entered a fatigue induced time-warp", and arrived in camp at 1:15 a.m. They completed the link-up in the same order as Pennings and Jeff Hollenbaugh, though the latter party climbed The Cruise instead of the Scenic Cruise. Wharton said he just couldn't stomach another offwidth.

Pennings and Hollenbaugh did the link-up in just over 24 hours and now Wharton and Friday have done it in 20h45m. This is about 6000 feet of technical climbing and both Wharton and Pennings think it is harder than linking the Nose on El Capitan to the Northwest Face of Half Dome.