What surprises me is that any climbers do it. The night before our planned climb, I drove home in a violent thunderstorm and hoped there would be a message on my answering machine from Blaster saying that the climb was off due to bad weather. No such luck. I pulled up to his house the next morning at 3 a.m. The trailhead parking was amazingly crowded for this time of day.
Hikers start early too.
I set a slow pace on the hike in and Blaster didn't see a need to fire on past me. We now had to come to grips with the dreaded and dangerous North Chimney. The North Chimney is a four pitch 5.6 route that leads up the lower part of the east face to Broadway - a large, sloping ledge that cuts entirely across the east face. This climb is more of a gully or groove than a chimney and is mostly climbed on slabs adjacent to the gully proper. This gully is full of loose rock and a funnel for debris coming down from the upper face which explains it reputation for danger.