advice for mulitpitch in red rock

Hi all,

Quick question. My buddy and I are coming to RR to do some trad climbing and are keen to try Birdland, Frogland, Dark Shadows. Everyone indicates that these are popular routes and prone to long line up and traffic jams. Planning to climb Fri, Sat, Sun in next month.

If you were us would you:
1. Get up really early to get on wall first? (everyone seems to have that idea some times)

2. Take our time and aim to arrive for noon when all the parties have gotten started and plan to be done for dark. We are steady trad leaders for these grades. Not super fast but not slow either.

We are good with either. Just want to avoid tons of wasted waiting time (at base or at belay stations behind a slow party of three...been there).

Advice?

Many thanks in advance.

JD

I've always aimed for the "first on route" approach. Waiting until the afternoon can be problematic on routes like Birdland where the slow parties will be rapping through you as you climb, which can suck. It can also be a problem if slow parties decide to try the afternoon start.

My best advice is to be flexible and always have a plan "B" for the day or be okay sitting in line for a route.

Most all these routes have other great climbs near them that get little traffic. Have the rack and guide book handy so that you can climb these if you don't feel like being stuck in a traffic jam.

And some days you do get lucky and while walking out to some other route at 10am on a perfect Saturday you look up at Birdland and there is nobody on it. Naturally you have to go up it.

Thanks for the quick reply. Not sure I understand about slow parties JF1. I would guess that slow parties would be fine with slow parties as they are the least likely to try to pass you from below. The times that I have been stuck at belay stations with slow parties, they are either apologetic or encourage us to pass. No one's fault. Biggest issue I've found is clunky threesomes. Not all threesomes. Just some.

If Birdland is packed try Rawlpindi almost as good with out the finger crack at the top, and right next to each other

will smith wrote:If Birdland is packed try Rawlpindi almost as good with out the finger crack at the top, and right next to each other

We did exactly that this weekend. Great choice. Got there around noon and there were parties at every belay on Birdland plus parties rapping down and we had Rawlpindii to ourselves. The first pitches aren't quite as classic and clean as birdland but still really fun climbing. The squeeze behind a chockstone on P3 was fun and memorable, and the slab on P4 is great.

Great comments all around. Thanks everyone! Like the alternative route suggestions.

Another fun one that we had to ourselves this easter weekend (despite a leisurely start) was Lady Luck in First Creek Canyon. In fact we only saw a couple parties all day on routes in that entire area (plus a few in earshot down at Lotta Balls). Fun, continuous 5.3 climbing up cool featured slabs for about 1000' with a couple short and well protected cruxes. We took our time and made a relaxing day of it.

I like the idea of having backup ideas in the vicinity in case you are out of luck when you get to choice climb. Wonderwoman, is chasing shadows a good back up or is it just as popular as dark shadows?

Ah good point about that. I didn't realize that they shared the beginning. Good to know.