Epinephrine Practice Route

Can anyone think of a safe, well protectable route that is a good way to say "if you can climb this, you can definitely climb the Epinephrine chimneys no problem?" Ideally 1 pitch, or a multi pitch where the other pitches aren't as hard as this chimney practice. I would say nothing harder than a 10, ideally a low 10. I practiced in the local gym which has one flared chimney/tight corner (it's quite flared if you are to call it a chimney) with no holds and no features, but you know that's not the same.

The hardest section for me was gray Camalot in the back of the chimney. Feeling confident with jams up to fist made it feel much more secure than it would have been otherwise. The actual chimney moves on the route weren't hard.

Aside from that, the other advice I can give is to be comfortable climbing all day. You don't want to be tired on pitch three.

Black Widow Hollow on Mescalito is considered to be a good warm-up for Epinephrine. It's a three pitch route and the crux is pitch two. I think that route is pretty tough while Epi's chimneys aren't as difficult.

In terms of "well protected"...that's going to vary, depending on folks' opinions. "well protected" chimneys aren't super common.

Here's a climb in RR, that is fairly short, its not super committing...and it has a pitch that is a perfect feeler/warm up for Epi.

mountainproject.com/v/black…

Have fun!

-Josh

I thought it was easier chimneying then the hardest parts of Epinephrine but an easy place to practice techniques is the Plumbers Crack at the Kraft boulders

Pontoon,

The chimneys on this route have somehow developed a reputation that is worse than they deserve. Compared to chimneys of a similar rating in Yosemite they are pretty straight forward and don't have any sections that are particularly difficult.

The reason most people get shut down isn't so much the chimneys, but being able to move at a reasonable pace on moderate terrain. Looking at your ticks the majority of your climbing is single pitch routes. Your experience on long routes is probably going to be your biggest challenge. How long are you going to be in red rocks for? There are a ton of awesome multipitch climbs to do there and I would recommend starting out on shorter stuff and working your way up.

Will

Yeah I'd second what Will had to say. My partner and I were relatively new to multi-pitch when we did Epi. We had done a lot of stuff in RR before(lots of ~5pitch climbs), but nothing that long. We took the route pretty seriously when we did it, in that we really didn't want to bivy up there. Started hiking in at 5am, already knew the approach pretty well too. We started climbing at 6:00ish, atop the chimneys by 10am, and then pretty much just relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the day doing all the stuff you'd surely want to do (take pics, videos, look around, etc). We were back at the car at 5pm, thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Also, this was early March. Hope that helps. Have fun.

will ar, I'll be there for 8 days, and Epinephrine is on my wish list, not on my "definitely gonna do list." The longest route I did was a 6-8 pitch route ( mountainproject.com/v/regul…) which took four hours. That's basically a hike though. I plan to do other long routes earlier in the week and then if I feel like we're climbing fast and feel comfortable on the rock there, do a test chimney and then get on Epinephrine if it goes well.

Part of the reason I ask is because I met someone whose 5.12 level partner chose to bail at the chimneys... Then again maybe that's 5.12 on plastic. What's hard is an individual thing, that's why I want to make sure I'm good on Red Rocks chimneys. I have heard it's not that bad from others.

I agree with will ar, climbing efficiently is the biggest challenge. If you climb something like Sour Mash or Dream of Wild Turkeys first and have no problems with multipitch speed, you should be fine on Epinephrine. The chimneys are more intimidating than hard if you don't have much chimney experience. In terms of difficulty, I thought it was like Crimson Chrysalis with an added 3 pitches of chimneying and some simul-climbing on top.
Frigid Air Buttress has some chimneying/wide sections that might be good practice, but they aren't as hard or continuous. The Nightcrawler might be a good test, as the 2nd pitch is 5.9 chimneying, but harder than anything on Epinephrine. The 3rd and 4th pitchs are mostly bolt protect 5.10 and are way harder than anything on Epinephrine. But if you can climb a 4 pitch 5.10 pretty ok then no part of Epinephrine will feel too hard to you and then you should have no problem climbing at a good enough pace.

Pontoon wrote:will ar, I'll be there for 8 days, and Epinephrine is on my wish list, not on my "definitely gonna do list." The longest route I did was a 6-8 pitch route ( mountainproject.com/v/regul…) which took four hours. That's basically a hike though. I plan to do other long routes earlier in the week and then if I feel like we're climbing fast and feel comfortable on the rock there, do a test chimney and then get on Epinephrine if it goes well. Part of the reason I ask is because I met someone whose 5.12 level partner chose to bail at the chimneys... Then again maybe that's 5.12 on plastic. What's hard is an individual thing, that's why I want to make sure I'm good on Red Rocks chimneys. I have heard it's not that bad from others.

If I had to choose a partner that I'd never climbed with before for Epi, I'd look for someone with alpine experience rather than someone strong on plastic. None of the rock climbing is hard, but it's good to have a well rounded skill set and plenty of endurance. It really did feel more like an alpine rock climb than a lot of the multi-pitch trad climbs I've done.

+1 for Black Widow Hollow on Mescalito for chimney practice. If you can stay cool through the ~200 feet of chimney groveling on pitch 2, Epi chimneys might feel fun. As others have said, the chimneys on Epi are much more of a mind-game, as they are airy and smooth.

As far as pace, if you can do Eagle Dance and walk off in a day, you're set.

Two thoughts that cannot be hounded or debated enough here, but here it is. 1) Being a #4 and #5 and you can keep gear over your head for almost all of the hardest chimney climbing. 2) While it wil take 2-3 hours, the descent route has more cairns by far than any other route I've been on in RR. Whether this helps people not get lost, well I can't speak for others, but to me it felt more a matter of time/fatigue than complexity.

My first climb at RR was Epi and it went great. Stop analyzing everything to death and go get on the climb. Like previously mentioned have your multipitch transitions down and go for it. Easy approach, easy route finding, and easy(but longish) decent. Pay attention to the beta of follow the cairns and its all good. Yeah we walked down in the dark, but with limited sunlight hours it was a given before we started. I am by no means a stout climber for the grade, but Epi was great, low drama, and a really enjoyable route followed by a pleasant night decent with the Vegas skyline as a back drop. Don't research the thing to death and get out there and enjoy it!

John Hegyes wrote:Black Widow Hollow on Mescalito is considered to be a good warm-up for Epinephrine. It's a three pitch route and the crux is pitch two. I think that route is pretty tough while Epi's chimneys aren't as difficult.

+1 for Black Widow Hollow.

Although I had a fair amount of long route experience, I had very limited experience with chimneys when I climbed Epi for the first time and led almost all of the route. It's pretty mellow as far as chimneys go, nothing like the squeezy crux chimney on Black Widow Hollow or the. Warrior

My partner and I still joke about Black Widow Hollow. We read some beta here or elsewhere that made perfect sense after the fact---> It is a great route. I'll never do it again in my life. Horrendous groveling.

Epinephrine chimneys, on the other hand, are stunners. If they scare you at least you won't hate them for it.

Yes, just get on it! You will see what you are working with quite quickly.

If anyone is concerned about the descent from the top of Epinephrine, try climbing one of the routes to the summit of Whiskey Peak such as Frogland.

The walkoff from the top of Whiskey Peak is the same as the bottom third of the Epi descent. You can see Whiskey Peak from a lot of the upper sections of the Epi descent and this helps with general orientation.

One key tip - don't leave gear at the base of Epinephrine. The descent does not bring you back to the base of the climb. Gear up at the car.