After just a few hours of sleep, the alarm goes off—and that’s nothing new. What is new, however, is that a route which looks like a piece of cake on paper isn’t exactly that. The first two pitches, combined with the fact that I haven’t climbed on granite in quite a while, immediately make the nature of the route clear: the bolts are there, but they have to be earned. Since A0 doesn’t seem to be much help, I challenge myself to use it as little as possible. Slowly we adapt and start moving more smoothly, until we come across the “easy” pitches, which aren’t really easy at all… We’re climbing classic 6a (6b mandatory), so to speak, and Andre doesn’t miss a chance to make me laugh, flying and pulling onto the quickdraws without any shame, because, as he puts it, “on this route, the 6as are harder than the 6cs.”