High above Index’s Lower Town Wall, far away from the pin scars of City Park and the perma-queue on Japanese Gardens perches a massive sheer cliff of fine-grained granite. This cliff, the Upper Town Wall, feels like a different place entirely - it’s imposing, is often completely empty, and there are more obscure routes up there than classics. The most impressive feature of this wall is the massive Golden Arch on its right side and the tiered roofs above it. In 2018, Thomas Ramier and Brad Lignoski established a (mostly) free line through some of the steepest parts of the roofs, and dubbed it The Call of Cthulhu, 5.13a A0.
My first experience on Cthulhu was last year, during the summer of 2025 with my friend Evan Atwater. Evan had been working the route for a bit before I joined in on the fun, and I belayed him on what was likely the sixth or seventh ascent on July 4th with fireworks and the occasional gunshot going off across the Skykomish Valley. After Evan’s ascent, I made my way back once but decided to throw in the towel for that season shortly after. The crux pitches felt out of my league (I still had not climbed a 5.13 at that point) and the days up there are long and logistically complicated since the route stays in the sun until about 4pm during the summer and a push to the top often ends in the dark.
Nevertheless, I was still stoked on going back for the send one day. The climbing is phenomenal and the route deserves attention from anyone climbing at the grade, breaking down to the following:
Pitch 1 - A classic “Index 11d” (ie, 12c) that has some moderate climbing off the ground, a large ledge system midway up to totally chill, and a devastating boulder problem just before the anchor. This pitch is the sleeper crux, and easily the second hardest.
Pitch 2 - A traversing face-climbing pitch of 12a A0 (there’s a short fixed line that the climber uses right off the p1 anchor to establish and avoid some bad rock). It climbs bullet crimps and feels like what I want Smith Rock to be like. It has incredibly flowy movement above the Golden Arch, with a distinct crux near the end that traverses on a few razor blade thin crimps but with decent feet.
Pitch 3 - The 13a roof pitch. Permadrawed and burly, this pitch is short and comes down to two hard boulder problems separated by a mid rest. The end of the second boulder problem has a heartbreaker traverse on terrible feet that I found so low-percentage it was one of the main reasons I did not come back in 2025.
Pitch 4 - A 12a/bish short pitch that has multiple betas to traverse below and surmount a few small roofs. Technical and rather insecure, but not too bad.
Pitch 5/6 - 5.10->5.6 climbing to the top of the Upper Town Wall.
Fast-forward to 2026, and I had a bit more margin than the year before. I could now climb 5.13 (though had never done so on a multipitch), and during the spring I’d managed to redpoint City Park, the hardest crack at the Lower Town Wall. One of the bonus-features of climbing City Park was getting to meet Brittany Goris, who had given me some beta and was at the LTW on the day that I sent. Brittany was in Index for the month of June, and by my luck, was looking for a partner on The Call of Cthulhu. It was one of those partnerships that falls into your lap, and the idea of climbing together made me both excited and a little nervous since I wanted to appear like I had my shit together.
So, on June 11 2026, I found myself hiking up to the UTW with Brittany to get back on Cthulhu for the first time in a year. To access the route, you have to hike 30 minutes uphill in the heat, and then climb a via ferrata to a ledge system where the route properly starts (nothing like a 5.6 free solo warm up, am I right?)
We decided Brittany would ropegun and that I would follow (except for the crux pitch, which can only be enjoyably worked on lead due to the steepness). She made quick work of the first pitch, the sleeper crux, and I was amazed at her boldness and deliberate movement as she bypassed the crux boulder problem at the top for another, similarly difficult but less physical sequence on the slab a few feet to the right. I climbed up after (gripped from practicing the fix-and-follow method for maybe my second or third time ever), and tried the new beta. I slipped off the slab, but managed to stick the move second try off the hang. It felt maybe easier and more importantly not that tiring (just very low percentage). I was bummed to fall, but also stoked that the sleeper crux might no longer be as hard as I feared.
We kept moving, Brittany cruising up the 12a money pitch that traverses above the Golden Arch on beautiful crimps. I managed to send this one, almost coming off the razor blade traverse but managing to keep it together. I met her at the belay, and we got ready for a sky cragging sesh on the crux pitch. Brittany gave the pitch three super close tries, each time getting one move higher and falling near the very top. I also gave the pitch three tries, falling pretty low at the first crux each time. That was okay though, because I ended up finding a way to bypass the horrible traverse on the second crux that had stymied me the year before - a full on sideways dyno that felt insane to try at first, but became surprisingly repeatable and quickly turned into my preferred method over the ticky-tacky foot moves on nothing holds. Both of us feeling a sense of good progress (though I still didn’t feel that close to sending), we decided to head down in favor of pushing to the top that day. We made plans to come back the next week, and I lay awake that night thinking about the dyno, unable to sleep.
On June 16, I came back to Index and met up with Brittany to give it another go. The conditions were quite good, a high of mid-60s and some wind to boot. As we slowly hiked up the UTW trail, I began to realize the difference in our odds of success - Brittany had been extremely close the previous session and would likely send today, having better conditions and coming off two rest days. I, on the other hand, had never come close to sending the crux pitch and had only been resting for one day after going to Squamish over the weekend to try Adder Crack (I came nowhere close to sending that one either). This would be my fourth day climbing out of the last six, and my body felt sore and heavy. Before we even got to the base of the route I accepted that I would likely be in support mode, which I was ok with.
As we racked up, we chatted a bit about our combined nerves. I was slightly relieved to hear that Brittany seemed just as anxious as I was, and as she tied into the rope she turned to me and cracked a smile.
“Let’s have a no-falls day!” she proclaimed.
Brittany once again cruised the first pitch, fixed the rope, and I set off. I arrived at the crux feeling surprisingly fresh and present in my body, but as I began the new slab sequence I felt myself tensing up. I squared up on a small bump in the granite, chose to believe, and promptly pinged off the microknob. Hanging on the rope in defeat, I pulled past the move and got Brittany on belay for pitch 2. Confident that I would at least send this one, I found flow on the sculpted crimps and delicate traverse moves above the Golden Arch, once again savoring the movement and exposure. I stuck the crux step-over, smiled to myself, and pulled into the final hard mantle on what felt like two pretty good crimps.
PING.
My left hand greased off of the slightly sloping edge, and in a fraction of a second I went from feeling secure in my position to once again hanging on the rope. Dejected and embarrassed, I immediately pulled back on and climbed the last 10 feet to the hanging belay below the crux roof pitch. At this point, I’d totally shifted my goals to supporting Brittany and lowpointing the crux pitch, the kind of thing you do when nothing is going right and you need to reframe things just to have a win. I put Brittany on belay, being quite convinced she would send first go. To my surprise, she missed the stab to one of the crimps above the roof and fell.
“At least you can play with the dyno now!” I shouted up. She agreed, and was able to make that beta work on her second try off the hang (though she agreed that throwing herself sideways hundreds of feet off the ground felt insane). She lowered, and it was my turn to give it a rip. I tied into the sharp end for the first time that day and set off with no expectations. I passed the low crux that had been my previous high point and made my way to the lip of the roof. I caught the edge that Brittany had missed, set up on it, and threw for the crux hold, a sloping crimp that I had to catch at full span. I came up miles short and took the ride into space, slightly longer than usual since we had extended the previous bolt to clip from a better hold. I realized that I had picked the wrong foot to drive off of and kicked myself for blowing it after feeling so good. I ran the move once off the hang, and lowered back to the belay.
Ten minutes later, Brittany gave the pitch a second rip and came off one move higher. Pretty soon after I was giving it my second try, noticeably more tired. I caught the same edge with less margin, picked the correct foot, and drove off of it with everything I had. My fingers latched the sloping crimp, engaged for one miraculous second, and then I was off.
“It’s just too hard this way!” I moaned. I spent the next 15 minutes playing with variations of the crux move using different feet and trying to find a way to make it less powerful and more static. After trying every possible combination, I decided it would just be a hard move and that 5.13 was a hard grade to climb. I seared my original beta into my mind and rejoined Brittany. My fingers were on the downhill by that point, and I wasn’t 100% sure if I would give it a third try. Brittany, locked in as ever, set off once again, making the first crux look like 5.11. She pulled through the final moves getting over the roof, went out of view, and I held my breath. I saw her feet fly sideways as she stuck the dyno, and I let out a whoop of joy since she would now send.
“I grabbed the draw!” she yelled down, frustration in her voice. She had apparently stuck the crux move but then began to slip off before opting to grab the draw in front of her face to stay on the wall and run the dyno. She hung out for a minute and then practiced the final traverse a few more times, deciding not to use the dyno after all and reverting to beta that was closer to the original. As I lowered her, my mind began to drift towards thoughts of dinner and an early return time to Seattle. It was the same situation as the last attempt - I figured that I would once again give the pitch a third try for fitness and we’d be down in the next half hour.
Since it hadn’t been that long since my last try, we hung out at the hanging belay for a bit, having room for just one foot each on the mini-ledge. The afternoon light began turning into evening alpenglow, and I admired the sheer beauty of Mount Index as I appreciated where I was and who I was with. We began to talk about how we each dealt with performance anxiety and how our relationships with climbing had changed over the years. Instead of being the pure type-1 hobby that it had originally been for us, rock climbing was now complicated - often outcome-driven, and at times could be straight-up not fun. Both of us had come off of a very performance-focused spring season trying to push our redpoint grades on gear, and in the past weeks/months we had each been feeling some burnout.
In that moment at that hanging belay though, I felt a weird kind of energy building. Sure, part of me felt physically and mentally exhausted from climbing a route like Cthulhu after a full work day on a weeknight, but another, deeper part of me knew that I was exactly where I needed to be.
With that in mind, I decided it was time to tie in one last time and give pitch 3 all the beans I had left.
Brittany put me on belay and I started up the pitch, still in conversation with her about something or the other. I felt totally at peace, and utterly destroyed. I entered the first crux with flow and hucked my foot up to a poor smear using a good edge with my right hand and an absolute shit 5mm undercling for my left. I stabbed to the clipping hold and barely stuck it, my fingers slowly beginning to open as I clipped the bolt and moved into the shoulder scum rest above.
“Oh my god, I’m sooo wrecked” I muttered from the not-so-restful no-hands rest.
“You’ve got this!” Brittany replied.
Not believing her for a second, I milked the rest as long as I could until my legs were on fire from standing up hard into the roof. Deciding that I’d be content just making it to the same place as the last try while feeling so much more tired, I started moving. Slowly, I worked my way through the middle climbing and peeked my head over the roof, the crux holds now in sight. I snatched the second to last edge, worked my feet up, and looked up at the sloping crimp. It seemed miles away.
“Come on Nick, you can do it!” I heard from below.
In one motion, I twisted my hips, stood up on the shit feet as hard as I dared, and tried to rip the right hand crimp off the wall. I threw with my left hand, and latched the crux hold with my body at full span. I bared down as hard as I could and let out a scream as I desperately bumped my left hand one more time to the better part of the hold. I found myself clipping the last draw and suddenly all that stood between me and the anchors was the dyno. I perched on the tiny granite knubs, and time froze as I eyed the victory jug just a body-length away. Accepting any outcome, I flung my body sideways off the Upper Town Wall.
My hands made contact with the grippy jug, and I let out a roar of surprise as I controlled the swing. I clipped the chains surging with psych and adrenaline. Unfortunately, that lasted for just a few seconds as I realized that there were three more pitches of 5.12 that I’d need to send that evening for it to “count”, and the light was already fading.
“I’m so proud of you! What do you want to do?” asked Brittany from below.
“I…don’t know! Maybe I could repeat this pitch if I came back?” I replied, doubtful of the idea.
After a few seconds of silence, Brittany looked up with fire in her eyes. “How about you fix the rope, I follow, and if I send then we team free?”
I knew in my gut that she was right. We had to push to the top, and I knew that somehow I would find it in me to send the next hard pitch and redo the first two pitches on the way down. It wouldn’t be perfect style, but it would still be a free ascent of the route in a single push - plus, a team free with Brittany Goris isn’t something that you turn down.
I fixed the rope, and Brittany managed to cleanly follow the pitch in a spectacular fourth try effort. As she got ready to lead the last hard pitch I rapped down to the hanging belay to grab our headlamps, a jacket, and our last liter of water before we began the final push to the top of the UTW. To no one’s surprise, Brittany sent the final 5.12 pitch easily on her first try. I set up my follow kit with shaking hands - I’d technically sent this pitch a year before but remembered very little about it besides the sequence was super precise and that picking the wrong feet could get you into an unsalvageable position. I started climbing and before long reached the crux, a weird traverse under a roof that was devastatingly granite. I threw for a hold that I knew was not there, and fell. Not wasting a second, I retreated to the belay and started following once more. This time I made it a bit further, the previous year’s beta coming back to me a bit. Just as I was in view of the good crimp that marked the end of the 5.12 climbing, I fell again, this time coming off a foothold that I knew was not the correct one.
My heart was racing at this point - what if I couldn’t do it? Fuck, even if I could do it, I still had to repeat the two harder bottom pitches in the dark. There was no chance. Brittany waited at the anchors, staring intently as I tried and failed two more times to get past the boulder. I was spiraling, and she could tell. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but it was probably something along the lines of, “you should take a minute, you’re spiraling”.
I hung at the bottom of the pitch, the light almost totally gone, and prepared for a fifth try. My beta had come back to me, and I knew there was a chance - I just had to execute. I took five deep breaths, convinced myself that no one else was there, and started climbing.
I tiptoped across the roof traverse, swapping my hands on a greasy sloper that I prayed was still usable in the increasing humidity. I leaned in while doing a delicate dropknee off the correct foot this time, and slowly grabbed the victory crimp. From here, all I had to do was keep it together on the balancy 5.11 terrain to Brittany’s position. Somehow I did, though I shamelessly asked her to spray me and tick the holds on the exit climbing. I was shaking as Brittany cleaned draws from my harness and put herself on belay. The headlamps turned on, and she quested up to the top of the cliff, linking the last two pitches to save time.
That long belay in the dark saved me. It gave me time to calm down, and in a way, the fact that she could no longer see me climbing put me at ease. By the time the rope was fixed at the top of the UTW, I was feeling alright - I just had to take it one pitch, one move at a time. I set off, climbing significantly slower than usual as I got used to the dim light of my headlamp (forgot to change the batteries, yet again). Before long, I was past the delicate slab moves and into the victory jug haul that leads to the top of the wall and the end of the route. In that moment though, victory felt pretty far away. We set up the rappels in relative silence, each knowing that the team free would come down to if I could find the energy to send pitch 2 and stance pitch 1 from the massive ledge in the middle. Before too long, we were at the hanging belay where we would temporarily part ways. It was fully dark by now, and Brittany prepared to go down to the base and wait for me to finish what I had to get done.
“You can do this in your sleep.” She said reassuringly as she rapped into the void.
“I might have to!” I replied. By this point everything hurt - my arms, my fingers, and my skin. Realistically, I knew that everything would probably come down to my first attempt on pitch two. The crux is at the end, and it was the most physical of the climbing I had left. I was relatively confident that if I sent that pitch I could then throw myself at pitch 1 indefinitely as it was more technical than strength based.
I rapped the second pitch, clipping the rope through the draws and rigging it for a follow. It definitely would have been better style to lead this one, but I needed all the help I could get. I ticked some holds on the way down, played with my headlamp until I was convinced that it was as bright as it could get, and set off from the base of pitch two with my heart in my throat.
Normally pitch two is my favorite climbing on Cthulhu. The holds are all pretty good, and the movement feels like it was set in a gym. This time, it felt horrible - each crimp hurt to pull on and I felt totally alone in a sea of darkness as I climbed the vert-tech while coaxing the rope through my microtraxions. I was terrified of taking a traversing toprope solo whipper into the abyss, but also too tired to really care. After what felt like an eternity, the crux holds entered my 5 foot radius of light, and I shook out on the last of the good crimps before committing to the razor-blade traverse.
I kicked my foot out left, and completely missed the hold. Feeling myself barndooring, I shrieked at the top of my lungs as I committed to leaning totally sideways and hoping my climbing shoe would make contact with the edge as I fell. Luckily, I did, and I was still on. A few more moves later, I was at the part where I had greased off earlier in the evening. My brain was full of fog, and instead of finding better beta, all I could think was “pull fucking hard”. I saw red, and suddenly I was past the move and in view of the chains. I let out a whoop of joy and heard one in response from below that sounded more like one of relief.
Minutes later, I was at the ledge on pitch 1, with just 20 feet of climbing left to lock in the team free.
“You’ve got this!” I heard from below. Having no energy to reply, I climbed into the boulder problem. I reached the last good hold in the corner, and cut right onto the face. In seconds, I felt just as off balance as I had on the first try and there was nothing I could do as I slid off the mountain and onto the rope.
“Fuuuuuuck” I groaned, transitioning my system to rappel back down to the ledge and give it another try. Before I did, I decided to try Evan’s beta that I’d been using last year that stayed in the corner. It was hard, but felt surprisingly doable. Having little mental clarity left, I went down and decided that I’d pick my beta on the fly.
I don’t know if I rested for one minute, or five, or ten, but I eventually found myself once again on the last good hold in the dihedral where I had to make a decision. Deciding that Brittany’s beta was fucked, I committed to staying in the corner. Slowly, I inched up on a right shoulder scum while desperately skating my left foot up the adjacent face for counter pressure. Somehow, I was still on. I made one move, then two, then three, and then the victory jug appeared above me. The air felt cold, the rock sticky, and I knew that if I could do one more foot bump then I could stand up and grab it.
I held my breath as I hucked my foot up a few more inches, expecting at any moment for my shoulder scum to slide out of the corner and to be off. My Katana made contact with the dimple that I was aiming for, and I stood on it with full commitment. Suddenly, the jug was in my hand. A moment later, and I was at the anchor. Processing what had happened, I let out a victory cry, Brittany joining me from below. We had done it - a team free of The Call of Cthulhu (though certainly with room for improvements in style). I descended to the base where Brittany was waiting for me.
“Thank you so much for waiting for me, that was really nice of you” I slurred meekly.
“Of course, we’re in this together!” she replied. “I’m having the time of my life.”
As we began the downhill slog back to the car near midnight, the fatigue I felt started to clear as I noticed the presence of a familiar emotion that I had been missing for some time in my climbing - stoke. 100%, pure unadulterated stoke to be outside and climbing rocks in the middle of a Tuesday night despite having a 9am work meeting the next day. My mind began to immediately shift towards the other hard multipitches on the UTW, and to harder and longer lines elsewhere. Climbing the Call of Cthulhu felt like an inflection point in my drive to climb - shifting it from hard single pitches driven primarily by grade and aesthetics, to having more experience-driven days like the one we’d just finished. I once again felt like a small fish in a massive pond of possibility, and knew that I had so much more to learn. The path forward was now clear.
I am immensely grateful for Brittany’s patience with me as I figured out my tactics and systems on this route. Teaming up with her on such an amazing route was a dream, and easily a top 3 climbing day of my life.
