Serenity Crack/ Sons of Yesterday (Oct 12)

Alpine start, breakfast in the 6am darkness. We have 8 hard, long pitches ahead of us, so we'll have to shift. Neither me, nor Bruno slept much, partly adrenaline, partly the Japs' leaving party. We park up at the Ahwanee hotel and scramble up to the start of the route at the base of the Royal Arches. To our dismay, we've been beaten to it by 5 minutes by another team, two lads from Glasgow. We resign ourselves to a long wait. No teams behind us yet, so we give them plenty of room. The route looks amazing - the foreshortening effect hides its true extent, but a soaring peg-scarred crack juts up as far as the eyes can see.

The two scots are moving fast and efficiently, and once the second is setting off on the second pitch, Bruno gets to work. This is climbing at my limit, so Bruno may have to lead every pitch. There are some easier pitches up top, but I don't expect to have much left in the tank by then. First gear is an old 7mm aid bolt some 35ft up. Bruno soon dispatches the pitch, and it's my go. I soon get into the flow of things - every move pretty much identical, torking both fingers and toes into the old peg scars and stepping up. Actually, it doesn't feel too hard, not disimilar to Millstone's Embankment routes, maybe E1 or E2. I join Bruno at the bolted stance, and we sort out the gear and rope. The next pitch is more of the same, just tending more towards the vertical. It feels harder. Third and last pitch starts with some amenable laybacking and then the 10d crux section: spaced finger locks in shallow peg scars, and friction only for feet. Bruno hangs around for ages, measuring the sequence, placing gear. He will have to sprint it. Once he commits he surprises himself with a smooth flowing effort. I only stay on by the skin of my teeth. This is the end of Serenity Crack itself.

We have a breather, some food and water and enjoy the views before we scramble up to the start of the next route, 'Sons of Yesterday' (5.10b) - five pitches of hand jamming brutality. Although rated easier, we're not exactly fully Yosemite crack honed yet, so expect to find this more taxing. The guide suggests that the starting pitch may feel the hardest of the whole linkup for those unaccustomed to 'flared, awkward thin hands'. The sun is now hitting us full on, as Bruno is creeping his way up. When it's my turn, I find every single inch of progress a struggle to stay on. A couple of easier pitches follow that normally I wouldn't have had any troubles leading, but I am spent. The top two pitches will rank as the best I've ever climbed - a perfect hands splitter, 70 ft long and the last one more hands followed by a diagonally rising 'toe ramp' that you simply walk up with nothing for your hands and an offwidth/layback to the top. Rarely have I been so tired after climbing, and I'm glad I taped up for this adventure.We sit down and wait for the Aussie guys following us, as they're right in the ab line. All that's left is now 10 abseils to the deck. Sarah and Jen had spotted us coming down in their binoculars as they'd finished their route about the same time, so they met us at the base. I felt more tired than after the Bristol half marathon.