By Bernard Gillett Oct 28, 2009
| 1-5. All of these are older Mark Ronca routes; location approximate. Most are gear protected (some run outs), with a few scattered bolts. I followed Mark up one of them on the FA (#3, I think) -- it's got a couple bolts at the bottom that helps to identify it. Mark's going to have to fill in the details; I'm including them here to preserve his lines from future developing. Given the history at Mary's Bust, some portions of these lines could have been done in an earlier era. Red dashed line right of #5 is a route I top roped earlier this year. It has a nice stretch of 5.9 hands at one point (level with the headwall crack on The Beak), but was otherwise unremarkable. Probably not worth the bolts required to protect it well (for the most part, it follows a crackless water groove in the first 200 feet), though perhaps I'll look into it again in the future and find something I like about it. Further, I found a small fixed wire with a bail biner high on the route that was very puzzling, so perhaps someone has done at least portions of the line (running it out big time through easy terrain, or perhaps duplicating one of Mark's routes to some extent). The wire was absolute bunk -- I sure hope no one lowered off of it, because it was barely holding its own weight... Mark, you know anything about that wire? 6. Sparky's Cooler, direct start, 5.10a. Just the first few bolts are shown. 7. The Beak 5.11a 8. The Devil's Backbone 5.11c 9. Sympathy for the Devil 5.12a 10. Diamond Overhang 5.10a 11. Rain on the Mountain 5.13a 12. There's Something About Mary 5.12a (pitch 3 variation shown on left) 13. Proud Mary 5.12a A0 (final headwall has yet to be free climbed) 14. The Brown Palace 5.11a |