Silver Raven and night endeavors on the Bastille

On Thursday I went up with Eldorado regular Scott Bennett and the newly transplanted Floridian Johanna Twiford. We walk our ass's all the way up to the top of the West Ridge and warmed up on "Darkness 'Til Dawn" 5.10a just above the green spur. If you have never climbed this route it a total master piece of Eldo rock climbing for 3 reasons:

1. it's long 2. it's sustained 3. it has amazing movement

After that i followed Scott to "Silver Raven" 5.11D and in no less than ten minutes, i found myself on the brink of tears and yelling like a stabbing victim, wondering why i had yet again listened to Scott. After my hour long epic up the route ( which i was only barely able to redpoint) i found out why he liked the route so much. It's scary enough to have your total concentration and it's hard, both technically and physically.

On our way down we decided, half jokingly, that we should take our new friend Jo up the Bastille... at night... with out proper headlamps... nearly solo..... and in tennis shoes..... lets just say we have made better decisions and Jo was slightly less than pleased sitting in the dark 200 feet up her "on sight" of the Eldo Mega classic. Upon reaching the top we decided that the appropriate action was to start drinking immediately.