Earl Wiggins Jammin' Supercrack

November 1976. Indian Creek Canyon, Utah. A crystal clear day with warm sunshine. Earl Wiggins launches up the first pitch of Supercrack, a perfect splitter hand crack that had been discovered and named in 1971 by Jim Dunn, Billy Westbay, and Stewart Green while heading down to climb the 5th ascent of North Sixshooter Peak. Five years later, armed with a rack of Hexentric nuts, Jim and Stewart returned with Earl, Ed Webster, and Bryan Becker to climb and film the first ascent of the world's most perfect crack. Earl flashed up the first pitch in ten minutes, proving these amazing parallel-side sandstone cracks could be safely climbed with the era's basic climbing equipment. Ed made this photograph, which appeared on the cover of Ascent magazine, by looking at Earl through the aperture of a chimney right of Supercrack. Look out next winter for a film about the first ascent of Supercrack being produced by Higher Ground Productions and featuring archival film footage by Stewart Green.