I was still hoping to circumvent the quartz mess, especially after the rather grim report they had returned with the day before. Although I tried with all my might, I couldn't swing far enough to the right to reach the second dihedral from below that would have allowed us to avoid the choss band. So climbing up through it was definitely the only option. Jimmy was excited to tackle this long-awaited problem. I yelled from the belay, while Jimmy carefully built his way up the pitch.
Hard aid is an art.
Freeclimbing tends to attract the glamour in the climbing world, but if you don't know how to do hard, tricky aid, you may not be able to get up a new route at all. Jimmy took his time, selecting thin pieces of metal and gently tapping them in so as not to dislodge the blocks he was wedging them behind. It's kind of like building a house of cards. Jimmy bounced, tentatively at first, then full bore. Occasionally the gear would break out of the thin crack he'd pounded it into, and with a laugh, he would go back up and pound a slightly thicker piece into the new, broken crevice.