A massive dihedral - The last pitch of Olive Oil (pitch 5)

[@AnsaHirvonen]

Wow mikä reitti! En yhtään oo kateellinen! :D Ansa

[@progressivefrog3681]

I've only done Olive Oil once, led all the pitches (I think it was maybe 6 or 7 since I set anchors at obvious belay spots). Only the first pitch gave me a bit of pause, since there's not exactly a lot of pro on it. But the last, dihedral pitch, that ends in an easy walk-off, is stellar. Great hands & feet, a nut placement every 5 or 10 feet. My partner & I were climbing fast in those days (I'm 80 now, still climbing, but not very fast). We passed at least one party on the way up. As we were taking down the belay, the party we'd passed topped out. But the leader had a problem. He'd lost his car keys, it was getting late in the day, and he thought he'd last seen them at the start of the climb. Which was around on the other side of the Olive Oil formation. As it was getting dark & I had the only headlamp, I volunteered to go with him to look, about a 45 minute detour. The rules at Red Rocks require that you be out of the road loop by dark, unless you've called ahead to request a late exit, which I had. Well, we found the keys, but it was dark when we finally got to the parking lot. And there was a ranger there, with her foot on my partner's bumper (he was from Vegas & had met me at the car park), getting her ticket book out. I said to her, :Please check your list. I've called in for a late exit." She pointed at my car & said, "That one?" "Yes," I replied. "Yeah, that one's OK, she said. Then, she turned to my partner's car and started taking her ticket book out again. "Wait a minute," I said. "That's my partner's car. He must've called in, too." Once more, she checked her list, chuckled and said, "Yeah, you'd think so." (He hadn't.) Then, she chuckled again, said, "You'd both better start moving," walked to her car and drove away. No ticket. Believe it or not, some of those rangers do have a sense of humor.

[@mkclimbing]

Thanks for sharing this memorable story. Yeah man this last pitch was just perfect!