Anton,
I agree that Humphreys isn’t the place to rappel for the first time. That’s why the plan became to just down climb it. We brought the rope in case we cliffed ourselves somewhere unexpected and went off route. It was for the case that things went so far south that rappelling became the only option. It never was. The routefinding actually went phenomenally well since we had the pictures from Burd’s report.
I just want to clarify that I know what a class 4 means. It’s no joke, and it can cost you your life. I understand that. The climb was pretty straightforward, but the idea of the downclimb is what made me turn around. Not having rock shoes and coming straight from sea level also factored into my decision on how safe a down climb really was for me.
The purpose of me writing this was just to give others some perspective of what Humphreys was like for me. A lot of other trip reports come from experienced legends, and it’s hard to find reports of clowns like me getting spooked
