Here's the rescue site outlined in yellow. Had a good chat with the firefighters today - it's sure tough to try to second-guess them. I will withhold judgment either way until I do the class 4 up the back side and climb to this spot. It looks a little hairy to me in terms of exposure. The climbing might be easy, but one slip and it's a 400' death fall. Even from the bottom there appear to be decent pro opportunities, though that's another thing that can only be verified from the actual spot. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to explore the area after my interviews. And to some extent I misjudged just how long it would take to get to the site, since until today I didn't know where it was. One surprise was the height of the site from the ground. These guys estimate 400-450'. And it's obvious there are no good ledges with pro placements on that wall directly below the site (which is mostly blocked by rocks in the foreground, in this picture). Rappelling with my 160' rope not an option. But it would hardly be necessary -- the only logical place from that roost is back up and over, onto the back side of those bluffs, and the firefighters say that is class 4. I may consider fixing my rope back behind that "v" notch to the right of my yellow circle. It sure is a long way down. Here's a picture of the firefighters I never used for the NT blog:
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