Zambezi Hatchet Head - 5.8

This was my third ever trad lead, I believe, and I took close to a 25 foot whipper when I wandered too far left and ended up 8-10 feet above my last piece on the blank slab. I was sketching to get back on route when I popped off. I had a good belayer and he dropped me below the overhang but kept me high off the blocks and the ground. I shook it off and sent it. As others have said, once you get past the overhang it is fun and less difficult.

Once you plug a cam in the horizontal crack, the rest will go with nuts and/or tri-cams. On the first ascent I crammed a pink tri-cam into a shallow vertical crack, just for something, but couldn't find it when I went back and climbed the route again. It's not terribly difficult to get up to the horizontal crack below the overhang anyway.

Overall a fun route that leads to a great view for the leader to belay from. Don't remember whether I was able to build a gear anchor or used a tree.

Roof is fun. I'm 6'3" and I was able to get my feet up in a good-enough position, lock off on a crimper and reach through a bit of the crux I think. So it didn't feel too bad.

It took some struggling and hints from redisant, but I finally made it through the crux! The rest of the climb was a cakewalk and ended up being really fun!

And there was climbing and it was good.

The roof is the only 5.8 part on this climb.