This is more or less the story of the seven months of my life that I dedicated to freeing City Park, a 5.13d crack climb in Index, Washington. Before it was freed for the first time by Todd Skinner in 1986, it was speculated by some to be the first route graded 5.14 in America. Though it fell a bit short of that milestone in the end, City Park has been a catalyst for some incredible tales in the history of American traditional climbing. I won’t re-tell the stories of those who came before me, as they are better told by the people who were there - so if you haven’t already, I highly encourage reading the story of the first and second ascents (chronicled in Hangdog Days, by Jeff Smoot), as well as the story of the sixth and first female ascent by Brittany Goris (an amazing story on her blog that I re-read dozens of times while working City Park).
With that out of the way, here is the tale of the tenth ascent, nearly 40 years to the day after the first.
October 2025
I was injured. My PT had put it pretty bluntly the week before: “your flexor tendon is degenerating”. This had slowly come on over the summer of abusing my fingers at World Wall, Seattle’s main sport climbing cliff, and my right ring finger made a mild crunching sensation as I finished my final set of tendon glides in the Lower Town Wall parking lot. I did a set of short pulls on a 20 millimeter edge attached to a force gauge, part of my usual warm up to see how strong I am on a given day. My right hand, the injured one, came in at about 70% the strength of my left. Not ideal, but that was okay. The sky was blue, the leaves were changing, and there was a cold breeze in the air for the first time in months. It was a perfect Index day.
I arrived at the base of City Park just as the only other party at the wall was finishing on Godzilla, the 5.9 classic next door that very conveniently shared its anchor with one of the hardest cracks at Index. Perfect timing. I slowly unpacked my bag and set up my lead rope soloing system, threading my rope through a Wild Country Revo that I had bought on discount and purposely damaged by bending one of the inside springs to theoretically make it catch on the rope easier. The modded belay device made me uneasy, and my main form of protection as I belayed myself up Godzilla was to just not plan on falling.
I made it to the anchor more pumped than I would want, and set up my static rope to rappel down into City Park for the first time. I took a deep breath, and as I slowly leaned back over the edge I felt my stomach drop a little as the first features of the pin-scarred splitter came into view. I kept descending down the rope until about ⅔ up the route I found a small stance where the crack jogged sharply left, making an “S” shape foothold that seemed like a natural place to pull on from. I inserted my fingers into two logically placed pin scars and stood up on my feet.
Immediately, I recoiled off the wall, my fingers screaming from pain. I waited 30 seconds and tried again, this time managing to hold the position for a few seconds before the pain became unbearable. This was going to be harder than I’d thought.
December 2025
Shortly after my first day on City Park, I left Seattle to spend another November living in Moab and climbing in Indian Creek. During that time, I tried to get on as many finger cracks as possible and rebuild the pain tolerance that I knew had existed in me at one point in time. I got used to placing and falling on gear again, and came back to Seattle in December ready to rage. Unfortunately, most of December in Washington was spent inside while multiple atmospheric rivers dumped over a foot of rain across the state, and for the first time since the spring I was consistently training in a gym again. My coach, Mat Wright (who I’d chosen to work with for his experience climbing hard traditional routes) had written me a plan to train the specific muscle groups and energy systems that would come into play on City Park, and after a few weeks of consistent hard training and rebuilding my capacity to handle long sessions I was already feeling stronger and itching to get back to Index.
By New Year’s Eve, the atmospheric rivers had finally subsided and there was a short break in the rain. I knew I had to go back to Index and see how City Park felt, but was apprehensive about flailing on a toprope in front of a likely crowded Lower Town Wall. I decided that I would kick myself for not going, and embraced a “fuck it” attitude as I walked up to the base of Japanese Gardens to greet my Index friends that I hadn’t seen in a few months. I was hoping to warm up on Godzilla and hang my static rope, but it had a line three parties deep, and there was also an aid party on City Park. Not exactly ideal. After waiting for an hour, I decided to warm up by going for a flash on Japanese Gardens, which I’d been saving for years for the right moment. I fell at the final crux, which didn’t exactly help my confidence. After all, if I couldn’t flash 5.11 what business would I have trying a 5.13d? Luckily, the “fuck it” attitude prevailed and the aid party finally finished their laps, even being nice enough to fix my rope for me at the anchor. It was, at last, time to get back on City Park.
I jumared up to the “S” feature that I had tried and failed to pull onto in October and slowly weighted my hands. It was painful, but manageable. I made one move to the next obvious jam, then another, before falling off. Two moves! An infinite percentage of improvement from the last time. As I rested and tried the sequence a few more times I found my skin hurting less and less, almost as if its sense of self-preservation had given up. After hanging on the rope for over an hour and carefully marking each jam with chalk to denote which hand it would take, I managed to hang on long enough to link from the S-feature until just one move before the difficulty eased off and a ledge appeared that marked the end of the hard climbing. My fingers began to dribble with blood, and my arms ached from essentially campusing 20 feet on fingerlocks. I was in a lot of pain, but had a huge smile on my face - the game was on.
February 2026
I stood beneath City Park as the afternoon light on Mount Persis turned to evening twilight. It was past 4pm, and the sun was due to set in less than an hour. I was running on five hours of sleep, too much caffeine, and a bit of stress from work. But, the rock looked dry, and I’d decided to show up for a night session.
Since December I’d made some more links and this evening would be focused on making a toprope lowpoint (the process of trying to link from an arbitrary point mid-route to the top instead of the more intuitive style of trying to push a “high point” by starting from the ground). Rather optimistically, I was trying to climb to the top from just ⅓ up the route. If I managed to do this, I would both have climbed through most of the cruxes in a single link and would have freed the whole route in overlapping sections for the first time. My friends Ben and Vadim were nice enough to hang a rope for me on Godzilla before I arrived so I didn’t have to lead rope solo it this time.
As the sun set and the final parties at the LTW packed their things, I put on a headlamp and set off. I raced up Godzilla in “free snake” fashion, a highly off-center toprope with no directionals that would result in a nasty swing if I happened to fall. It felt much safer than lead rope soloing. I did my usual skin-priming warm up of pulling on and linking three moves, then five, then seven, then ten. I had the upper section of crack pretty wired by this point, and the middle decently on lock except for a few moves where I had multiple options for beta. As I lowered past the “S” feature (known more colloquially as “the break”), my heart sank - there was a small, but very present streak of water seeping out from the crack and saturating several of the holds. In just my luck this also happened to be the redpoint crux, a delicate sequence of locking off on a pinky jam while standing on a flared toe jam that needed to be placed perfectly to hold enough weight. Knowing there was nothing to be done, I made a mental note to bring tinfoil or an old dish towel the next time I came out.
It was fully dark by now, and I was the only person at the wall. The temperature was in the 30s, but the rock felt surprisingly warm. I once again turned on the “fuck it” attitude and pulled on to the route from the jug rest ⅓ up the route and began climbing. The pain from putting nearly my full body weight on tips jams registered in the back of my mind but it felt distant somehow, almost as if it were ambient noise. I suddenly found myself within arms reach of the break, confidently grabbed the wet hold, and immediately slipped off. In a panic, I made the mistake of instinctively grabbing my Taz Lov, the primary device in my top rope solo setup. It must have interfered with the camming mechanism that grabbed the rope, because instead of falling a few inches like I was used to, I slid 15 feet down the rope before coming to a sharp stop. I’d forgotten to engage the progress-capture on my backup device, and kicked myself for being so stupid. Suddenly I started to feel angry - angry at the fact the rock was still wet despite three days of no rain, angry that I hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, and angry that after seven years of climbing I still made basic mistakes checking my systems.
I grew up around adults with anger issues, so I generally try to suppress my own - at this moment, however, I decided to embrace the dark side and use my anger to perform on City Park. I lowered down to a small ledge, turned off my headlamp and counted to 300 in the dark as the chorus of frogs and bugs, surprisingly active for mid-winter, rang across the cliff. I pulled back on and performed the sequence again, and then again, each time falling at the wet hold and letting off an Adam Ondra like tantrum of screams and swears. Eventually my skin began to go from thin to raw, and I decided that my next try would be my last. I sat in the dark trying to summon every ounce of rage that I could - at my job, at the state of the world, even at myself - basically, everything that I had a reason to be angry about.
Suddenly, I heard a noise far to my left. I looked over and saw the light from a headlamp as a shadowed figure rounded the corner and started walking towards the trail back to the parking lot. I turned on my own headlamp and the unknown person stopped, briefly casting their beam of light in my direction in acknowledgement before continuing their walk out.
“Have they been listening to me scream like a rabid pterodactyl this whole time?” I thought.
The wave of anger that I’d built up suddenly evaporated and was replaced by a deep sense of embarrassment. What was I doing here? Why was I so obsessed with a rock? What was wrong with me?
After a few minutes I got ready to give my lowpoint one last attempt. I breathed deep, and pulled on.
Instead of moving through the pin scar campus board quickly and ferociously, I moved with precision, sinking each jam carefully before committing to it and slowly eying each foot settle on the essential crystals and knubs that I needed to take just enough weight off my arms. As I reached the break, the seepage greeted me like an old friend. Somehow, I was still on. I breathed deep and slowly slotted my toe into the correct pin scar and weighted my foot with everything that I dared. The next two pin scars appeared in the window of light from my headlamp. Time seemed to stand still as I reached with wet hands for one, then the other. Suddenly, I was standing on the break. I’d done it! Now to finish the route from here. No big deal, I’d made this link tons of times in the past few weeks. I shook out, and began to move, but my heart quickly sank as I realized how tired I was and that my skin was totally gone. I made one move, then the next, stabbing my fingers into the darkness above hoping to find the purchase that I knew was there. I let out a bellow of pure effort, one that I couldn't keep in if I’d tried, and then I was standing on the final ledge. I turned around to face outward from the wall in silence, the shadow of Mount Index the only witness to my accomplishment.
April 2026
I whipped around a sharp turn on Highway 2 close to the exit for Index, perhaps a bit too fast. I turned down my music and tried to bring focus back to the road. It had been over a month since my last session on City Park and my mind raced as the Index Town Walls came into view.
After making the big link in February, I’d been convinced that it was time to lead City Park. I knew that I could do the route in overlapping halves, and I just find it so much more fun and satisfying to be on lead, even if it is scary at times. Unfortunately, my dreams were crushed as it proceeded to rain every day for the second half of February and almost all of March. Just as things began to dry out, I left town for a trip to the Red River Gorge that I’d planned in January. I returned from Kentucky absolutely wrecked, and made the hard decision to hold off on returning to City Park for at least another week while I recovered from the Red and the weeks of intense training beforehand. It proved to be the right call, and by the second week of April I was feeling like myself again. I made plans with my friend Calum to sesh City Park together, which would be my first time having an actual belayer and a partner to bounce beta ideas off of. I always feel amazing after a deload week and couldn’t wait to get back on City Park after a few days feeling like an absolute beast.
On April 8th, I rolled up to Index feeling like absolute shit. Basically, everything non-climbing in my life was going wrong. My work week had been particularly brutal from catching up on the time away so my energy levels were shit. I was getting spring allergies for the first time in my life(!), so my sleep was shit. Lastly, I had just gotten broken up with, so my focus was shit. I pulled up to the Wagon Wheel campground distracted and tired, but still excited to catch up with Calum and get back on the granite after so much time away.
We arrived at the LTW and set a proper toprope on City Park for the first time. I seconded up Godzilla and began to reverse-run the moves, having to re-tick the crucial pin scars and microcrystals after a month of rain had completely cleaned off the cliff. I re-learned a few moves, fiddled with some gear, and after feeling sufficiently warmed up I came back to the ground and let Calum get his first try on the route. He did extremely well - he housed the middle and upper boulder problems using a mind-boggling amount of pinky jams (I had been primarily jamming with my index fingers and found these parts of the route super hard). The only part he seemed to struggle with was the first boulder problem, which I found relatively secure and didn’t consider to be a crux. I was fascinated by seeing someone else climb City Park - I knew that there were a few different betas from the photos and videos I’d seen of other people on it, but it was cool to actually see them working in person. I decided not to change any of my beta during this session, at least on my first try, but made a note to experiment more.
Calum topped out the route, and then it was my turn. I tied in, feeling only half-present. I had no idea how this would go for me - the moves felt just as hard as in the winter, and I was less familiar with the route overall. Coach Mat had told me to try and repeat linking the final two boulders for my first session back, so my general plan was to climb to the jug mid-route, rest on the rope for a while, and then try and go to the top. I wasn’t feeling super focused, and as I began climbing I was still in conversation with Calum and my other friend Chris who was climbing on Godzilla. I arrived at the ledge after the 5.10 bolt ladder below the start of the proper crack, aware of where I was, but also feeling very separated from myself at the same time. There was a steady breeze in the air, and though it was warmer than I was used to, the low humidity seemed to balance things out.
I made it to the jug rest about halfway up the route and hesitated. At this point I knew that I was supposed to let go and take five minutes to rest, but I couldn’t find the heart to do it. It had just been such a shitty few days and all I wanted to do was climb City Park unapologetically instead of ticking another arbitrary lowpoint. I figured that I would probably fall early in the next boulder anyway since it was the hardest and that I would take my forced rest then. After a minute or two at the jug, I began climbing again - slowly and with precision as I knew that to be more efficient than moving fast through the easier moves of the second boulder. I arrived at a particularly hard move - a desperate lock off on two tips jams before getting a poor rand smear and thrutching to a middle-knuckle jam that feels like a jug in comparison. I had fallen on this move many, many times. Time seemed to stand still as I bumped my foot up, double checked that it was in the right spot, and drove off all three points of contact with juuust enough force to arrive at the next pin scar with low enough momentum and pluck it out of the wall with my right hand. I was shocked - that move had never felt so easy. I blinked again and I was below the break, setting up for the redpoint crux. I executed another desperate foot move with surprising poise, and then I was once again on the final move of a hard boulder before a resting position. I snapped back to where I was, and cranked on my fingertips with everything that I had. I was now standing on top of the break, past the redpoint crux and below the final stretch of 5.12 fingerlocking to a good ledge that marked the end of the hard climbing. I felt fear and expectation begin to rear its head for the first time that day, and did my best to swallow it. I was already very proud of how I had climbed, and this was a new highpoint coming from the ground. I could climb content.
I heard the familiar rumble of an approaching freight train. The tracks are just a hundred yards from the cliff, and climbing with the train in the background can feel particularly gripping. This time the noise and rumbling in the air felt like a weighted blanket from the rest of the world. Nothing else existed except me and these final thirty feet of climbing. I began to move again, and just as soon as it had started it was over. I was standing at the chains of City Park, having arrived there from the ground without ever weighting the rope. I let out a roar of surprise, satisfaction, and perhaps a little heartbreak. The train was still so loud that I barely heard it. I stood at the anchor in my own world, unable to process what had just happened. After a minute, I leaned back, signaled for Calum to lower me, and returned to Earth.
May 19th 2026
I sat in the driver’s seat of my parked car, unable to move. The Silversun Pickups echoed quietly on the stereo and my stomach churned with nerves.
“Maybe I should just turn around and go home.” I thought to myself. It was probably about to rain anyway, and the day would be a wash (figuratively and literally). Eventually, I found the will to get out of the car, and I walked across the train tracks to the Lower Town Wall to meet Brittany Goris.
After sending City Park on toprope, I had sussed the gear and gotten on the sharp end. It had proven to be a massive step up in difficulty. The gear was small and fiddly, and there were sections where I just didn’t have the strength to stop and place anything, opting instead to run it out. The final 5.12 sprint after the crux was particularly scary - I was convinced that if I made it there on point I wouldn’t have the margin to place any gear at all, and had decided just to place two stacked pieces from low and gun it 20 feet to the final ledge. Every time I led that section of the route, I was terrified (though I never took the big ride). Eventually, I realized that I probably needed to place more gear even if it would make the climbing a little physically harder.
I walked up to the wall, heart pounding, and greeted Brittany for the first time in person. I had shamelessly DM’d her on Instagram asking for taping beta a few weeks before, and she had promised that if I hadn’t sent before she arrived in Index for the summer that she’d share some stoke with me on City Park. We chatted for a few minutes about the conditions or something stupid, and then she headed up a fixed line on Narrow Arrow Overhang, her project, as I got ready to take a warm up tr on City Park.
As I ran the upper moderate climbing, my mind fixated on my previous redpoint attempt the week before. On May 11th, my skin had been fully healed for the first time in a month, and I had gotten about as close to sending as one could get - slipping off very early during the first hard moves past the 5.10 bolt ladder, lowering down a few feet to the bolt ladder ledge, and sending from there. If City Park were halfway up El Cap, that would probably count, but I knew that I could do the route in better style and that it meant too much to me to take a heavily asterisked ascent. I wanted to match the style of those that came before me, but was starting to have doubts. The weather was steadily getting warmer, and to make things worse, I had moderately strained the A2 pulley in my pinky after shock loading it from a fall in the crux a few weeks earlier - and it was slowly getting worse. There was now an injury clock to race against in addition to the temps, and the latest forecast predicted rain for the next week followed by record high temperatures. This would be my last attempt for a little while, and I worried it might be my last attempt period (at least until the fall).
As I finished my warm up lap, it started to rain. I held my breath waiting for it to pick up, but after a minute or two the drops stopped falling from the sky. The rock was still dry, and the game was still on. I rested on the ground for a half hour, making small talk with my belayer, Stamati - an Index local legend and a huge mentor figure in my climbing. Stamati (and probably the whole of the LTW) could sense my nerves, and did my best to reassure me that everything would be okay, and that all I could do was try my best. The conditions were far from perfect at 87% humidity, and I had a good excuse for backwards progress on this try if it happened. Eventually, fearing that it would start raining again, I decided that it was time to just go for it and get it over with.
I made my way to the ledge below the start of the hard climbing that I had stanced the route from the previous week and looked down. I don’t know what else I expected, but basically everyone on the ground was looking up. Some people had even dropped packs at the base of the City Park and had fully sat down to spectate. I huddled my body into the small alcove and closed my eyes. No one was there. No one was there. I was just having another solo working session.
Finding a sense of relative calm, I plugged my injured pinky into the only lock where I was forced to still use it, and pulled into the main crack system of City Park. I stood up on the foothold that I had blown off of the previous week, and put my body and mind on autopilot as I climbed through the first boulder problem to the good jug where I could shake for a bit. I didn’t dare look down to see who was watching, and started to think about what I should make for dinner that night as a way to distract myself. Maybe some kind of chana masala. Mmmmm.
Knowing that I was as recovered as I would get, I started moving through the second boulder, the hardest one. The early moves on this part would be the first place where I would get a sense of how “strong” I was feeling on that try, as they are almost entirely on your fingers with a single foot barely smearing into the crack to maybe get a few kilos off. In December, this section felt like a desperate campus board workout, something beyond me that was more likely to result in injury than success. Today, the fingerlocks felt like jugs. I knew in my gut that I would not fall here, and that I would make it to the redpoint crux - the desperate backstep off a nothing footjam while reaching high above into the smallest pin scar on the route. I shook out just below the move and ripped two small cams from my harness to place - the first being a sacrificial lamb that would probably rip (but made the rope run nicely out of the way of a key foothold), and the other a bit below it that would actually catch me if I fell. Time stood still as I inhaled sharply while driving my right foot into the crack as hard as I could while straightening my leg and reaching up. The crux hold came into view, and my index finger slotted in perfectly, a fresh layer of skin dulling the pain massively compared to the attempts prior. Suddenly, I was through the move, and standing at the final bad shake before the 5.12 sprint to the victory ledge.
I saw movement on my right, and glanced over - Brittany Goris, who I’d totally forgotten about, was still on Narrow Arrow Overhang in the perfect spectator position. We locked eyes, and I could have sworn that she was smiling.
“Ah, beans” was I all I could think. "Gotta do it."
The Lower Town Wall had gone completely silent. I came back into my body and began refocusing by counting my breaths to pace the rest. I hit twenty-five, put a black totem between my teeth, and locked in.
I made a desperate stab right off the rest to a good but flared fingerlock, and barely stuck it without slipping off. Immediately, I went from feeling poised and in control to acutely aware of the fatigue I felt in my fingers. I knew that even though I had made this link quite a few times, I could still drop it here. I made a few more semi-desperate moves to poorer locks, opening my hips as much as I could to stay on my feet. I slotted my right ring finger into a mono and slammed in the black totem just below it, taking care not to get too much drool on my fingers. I stood up hard on the last good foothold and pulled into the final campus-y moves, just a few feet from the ledge. I felt myself starting to scream, not just from being gripped but from other forms of fear - fear of failure, fear that I would grease out of the humid crack, fear that I would never match this highpoint again. My fingers latched a crimp on the ledge, and I hucked my foot up next to it. Feeling myself starting to barndoor, I gritted my teeth and kept screaming as I stood up.
After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, I was standing on the ledge, the 5.13 and 5.12 climbing of City Park all below me. I heard a chorus of whoops and cheers from below registering in a distant part of my awareness. Before too long, I was pulling the last 5.11 moves, feeling shaky but in control. As I bumped to the final hold on City Park, I started screaming again - this time out of joy and relief. I sat down on the ledge in disbelief. Just like that, the seven-month saga had ended. Not knowing what to do with myself, I looked across the valley at Mount Index. The snow on the mountain was almost gone by now, and it was beginning to turn green to herald the arrival of summer. A cold breeze blew through the air, just as it did on that October day when I had stood on this same ledge and lowered into City Park for the first time.
Looking back, climbing City Park was such an insane goal to set for myself and such an insane thing to do - so many stronger and more talented people than me have tried this route and failed to finish it. The climbing is hard, the gear is small, and catching the line in good condition is an ordeal in itself. City Park was the first route on my "life list" that I had actually completed - in the same mythical tier as Cobra Crack and freeing El Cap. I have never gone so all in on a single project, especially one that was so above me at the time of starting. It motivated me to push myself and train like I had never done before, and to become a version of myself that I thought only existed in daydreams.
I remember the first day I ever came to Index, a few weeks after moving to Seattle fresh out of college in 2022. I was a 5.10 trad climber with a single soft 12a sport route under my belt, and from the moment I walked across the train tracks to the Lower Town Wall for the first time, I knew Index was a place where I belonged. It's been nearly four years since then, four years of a near-constant grind in a pursuit of finding purpose through climbing hard rocks and connecting with the people climbing beside me. For me, City Park had been a North Star, a guiding light to swim towards while I've also tried to figure out life in my mid-twenties and deciding where I want everything to eventually go. As I sat atop the route having reached that waypoint, I felt no closer to making any of those decisions (much to the chagrin of my younger self perhaps, who thought that climbing hard trad routes was the solution to all of life's problems).
Nevertheless, twenty-one-year-old Nick would have still been very proud to see himself on that day as he stood up from the ledge, clipped the chains on City Park, and asked Stamati to lower him down to the waiting crowd.
