Epinephrine Practice Route
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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In terms of "well protected"...that's going to vary, depending on folks' opinions. "well protected" chimneys aren't super common. |
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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 |
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Pontoon, |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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+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. |
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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! |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |