Epinephrine - 5.9 popular

Climbed on 3/23/10. I'm not going to lie...the chimney pitches were pretty rough for me. I guess I have very little experience with that type of climbing. They were ok when wide enough, but when they narrowed up or I felt the need to move in for gear, it became physical. I was very glad to have an old style #4 Camalot and probably would have liked two. I'm guessing that if you are confident, you can stay out in the wider parts and run it out a little more, but keep the climbing easier.The chimneys were hard enough that we did not link any of the pitches and used all four belay stations. This was also useful since we hauled a small bullet pack as well. The upper face climbing pitches were fantastic and went much faster. Because of our slowness through the chimneys, we never really hit the sun on the upper pitches, so it was a fairly cold day. In all it was a 45 minute approach, and I think we did 13 pitches plus the last 600-800 ft of simuclimbing, which took almost 12 hours. This could easily be shortened if you can link the chimney pitches and maybe a few others. Despite the reputation, the walk off was pretty straight forward, thanks to ample cairns. The trick is to climb up to the summit of Whiskey peak after reaching the top of Black velvet peak, by way of the saddle between the two. After that, there were cairns marking the way down the ridge until you reach the large double cairns. Here, you drop down a gully system and eventually hit the decent from the top of Frogland.