By: Aaron Mulkey
A weeks prior I had noticed a cool looking line to the right of Left Ventricle while doing the Broken Hearts circuit and thought to myself I need to come back here soon. I enlisted my partners Chris Guyer and Tanner Callender to head back up with me and we were all psyched to get after it. To get to Defibrillator you must climb the first 4 pitches of broken hearts and then begin the walk off. As you begin the walk off you will cross right under the climb Left Ventricle and immediately right of that is an obvious crack with hidden ice in the back corners of it.
Starting up the slightly overhanging crack was good with positive placements
Aaron Mulkey looking for the next move
Starting to get interesting
Believe it or not I was able to get a screw in to protect the lower crux. If I had not had a Grivel screw I would never had gotten the protection. I love the way Grivel screws place in the small tight pockets of ice.
This is the routes crux which proved to be interesting
This is the routes crux which is a couple of moves with horrible feet or no feet and to overcome the roof the last placement is in the back of a sandy crack where you just hope that what you hook is good to go since you have to pull hard on that tool to get better feet.
Logging some airtime !
Pulling through the roof my tool popped and I caught some air !
After about a 15-20 footer one cam popped and the rock went flying with the cam and the second cam held the fall. I was super pissed since I was on the last move but quickly got back up and made it happen the second time. Funny thing is where I placed the cam that blew I went to place again and the entire crack blew sending a 70 pound block on to my head. That just seemed to make the crux that much more interesting.
Psyched to get a rest !
The traverse proved that its never over until its over. Some careful slab climbing with horrible hooks was like fun….but different
Glory !
Thats it now someone go get on it. It was a great route and one I’m proud to add to the collection of incredible south fork climbs. Let this be the start to many more mixed climbs!
Nice work, brother. Keep it up.