Very cool trad flick featuring Lifeline (5.13b) in Sedona, Arizona.
Lifeline (5.13b) is a John Mattson masterpiece that splits an overhanging buttress of Coconino Sandstone in a cirque high above Submarine Rock near Sedona, Arizona. The crack runs through the sizes, from very tight hands to ring locks to tight fingers to tips and finishes with a baffling bolted sequence of levitation up a fin requiring flared fists, fly-aways and faith in sandy footholds and flared toe jams. I have never been so challenged by a rock climb in my life. Perhaps it’s because I have large hands and fingers, but this route seemed like .13c to me. Regardless of the rating, its remote position, requiring an arduous one and a half hour approach up a labyrinth of washes through the vortex that is the desert of Sedona, made for the most demanding project of my career.
