Dreamcatcher Repeated!

Sean McColl has made the long awaited second ascent of Chris Sharma's Squamish test-piece Dreamcatcher 14d(9a). The line ascends a ramp of holds that angles sharply right from a devious slab at the base of the Cacodemon Boulder.

Many strong climbers have tried to tick the line, both Ethan Pringle and Paul Robinson put some work into this test-piece, but all were thwarted by either bad weather conditions or the poor slab that guards the beginning of the route.

Sean, most known for his competition climbing, has been tearing up the Euro comp scene this summer and after returning home drove to Squamish to give the line a few burns.  Sean worked various sections of the route and dealt with the frustrations that both Chris and fellows climbers felt with the last section and the heinous slab, but on September 23, 2009, Sean lowered off the anchors with the second ascent of Dreamcatcher, verifying its grade of 5.14d

Photos Courtesy of Simon Parton and Jamie Chong

Below is an excerpt from Sean's Blog giving us a play by play of the action:

"Before I left the rest, I took a couple really deep breaths and decided it was time.  I made the hard move around the corner with my right hand and quickly brought my left hand to the pinch on the corner.  I lunged right to the crux hold and felt pretty good.  I made room for my other hand to come in, then matched feet then did the move.  My feet blew off as I was re-adjusting my fingers on the hold but I still felt good.  I pasted my left foot on the corner of the wall and threw into the next gaston.  Two more moves and I was done... I moved my left foot to a higher smear in the crack, matched hands and threw for the final jug.  I hit the jug and a stream of endorphins hit my body.  I rested back and forth a bit then did the last 4 moves and clipped the chains.  As I clipped the chains, I let out a victory cry that could be heard all around.  I had done it, the second ascent of Dreamcatcher!

Check out a full report on Sean McColl's blog

and watch Sharma's historic ascent below