MP Link: https://www.mountainproject.com/route...

Arguably the most popular and well known climb in the region.

Despite this fact, up until 2 months ago, I never really gave it the time or attention necessary to send it. Like any climb, its quality is obviously subjective but I'm fairly confident that most of the people that are familiar with the region universally agree that it's not the best climb in the area, let alone just the Coliseum. Yet, despite the mediocre, leaning towards negative opinion among those in the know, it continues to carry this allure among the climbing tourists, weekend warriors, and out of towners (as was certainly no different with myself in my early climbing years). Think of it as the New River regions' Mount Everest.

Thirteen years ago, approaching the age of 30, I made 2 climbing related goals, one of which being to send a 13. Armed with my limited knowledge of the New region, I came down here with the express purpose of sussing out the one "Juggy" 13 I could think of (and it seemed to be a lot of peoples first 13). After one session on it, I came to the conclusion I wasn't going to put it together in the following 4 months and abandoned it for something more attainable (which ended up being "Virtual Reality (5.13a)" at Safe Harbor, PA in November of that year).

The next 10 years that followed, I would commit a session a year, probably more as a litmus test then anything else. Finally, in 2019, I found myself in the New for an extended period and it certainly seemed like an opportune time to finally commit the time and energy to put it down. It took a grand total of 3 burns to lose my interest, probably more so because I got distracted by the amazing climbing of "POD" (5.13b). POD went down the following spring. After another burn and subsequent beating on Apollo and its crux, I was immediately distracted by "Mercy Seat (5.13a)" and well, another excuse to disregard Apollo.

...and that's what I realized when I got down here this past spring, I was just making excuses not to do it. While it's still true that I'm not totally inspired by Apollo, the real reason I wasn't giving it its demanded attention was because I wasn't confident in myself that I could actually put it together in a short amount of time.

Well, it took 2 months.

(more to the story, but I'm only allowed so many characters in the video description)

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