Primal Scream in Huntington Ravine

Hi, a few friends tried to climb Primal Scream today. After completing the first pitch (pretty fun) we could not find anything of what looked to be the 2nd or 3rd pitch. Has anyone taken this route to the top? Is it possible that some of it fell off?

I have not climbed it myself but you can check out this video of some people climbing it:

youtube.com/watch?v=LRlozBn…

(click title for full screen)

You found my video!

I can tell you what I remember from the rout, it was a few years ago.

First off, Handren's book photo of the rout is wrong for pitch 2, he has the rout going far right, when in fact it goes fairly straight up through the "twin hand cracks". The writen discription seemed accurate. Were you not able to to locate the cracks?

p3 was great, technical moves lead around the bulge onto a thin face. p4 was too much for us, "tip toeing out on the dwindling foot ledge" was OK, but had no pro, but looking around the arete was what stopped us. Super thin 25ft face traverse also with no pro seemed to be a No Fall situation and looked questionable. 40ft run out around an arete. I'm bummed we missed out on the climbing above that, but we connected to pinnacle buttress proper to finish.

As for major rock fall, pitch 2 & 3 were mostly composed of face climbing, so I feel as though hundreds of feet of solid face would have to have fallen. Not impossible though. Did you see lichen on all the surfaces? Did the rock look super fresh? plants? I want to go back, so let us know!

After the first pitch we ended up belaying at a pin belay on the left arete that looks like it was used for the pinnacle direct variation. I think we may have gone too high? We never found any "twin hand cracks", but were definitely relying on the photo for where to go. The photo has the route traversing under a 20ish ft tall flake. I couldn't tell from your video where you went. Do you remember where you climbed?

As far as that no-fall zone, is that for the leader and the follower?

Sounds like you went too high on pitch 1. When looking at the photo, if you were to draw a straight line between pitch 1 & 3 anchors, you can just see on one of the hand cracks in the photo, the 2nd pitch belay would be above that, and then it hangs a right for the 3rd pitch crux and then continues back left.

I very well might have been slightly off rout when we bailed on pitch 4, or at least not seeing it correctly, but it would have been no fall for the leader. Maybe I should have climbed higher on the arete? Will have to go back and see, but I would still not try to lead the moves that we bailed on.

• Hi
• I had same issue. Towards the end of pitch 1 there is a pin. But it makes sense to go 10 feet up and belay almost on crest of the pinnacle. Then go up/right (not just right ) for 30 feet and there are 2 cracks that are maybe 15-20 feet long. It's hard to notice them when looking from side. (I spend 1h looking for p2 when I went right or right and down from belay) 
• 3rd pitch is nice. 
• On 4th pitch I almost gave up for lack of pro. After tip toeing traverse , you go up (slightly left of arete) and look at more climbing around the arete  without gear. I finally found a placement right on the arete that took only yellow-blue X4 offset. This piece is crucial and solid.  Otherwise you are 15 feet above last piece and have to go around somewhat sharp arete and traverse another 15 feet before placement. That being said the last traversing "bold move " is not hard. 
• Pitch 5 is ok and ends under hand crack in overhang.
• Pitch 6 looks impossible . Angle right and down on small footholds (shitting your pants) but soon small okeish gear appears under the overlap ( when looking from start of p6 the overlap is  5-6 feet below on the right , not the overlap all the way down) . Maybe 10 feet traverse , place more okeish small gear and go right and up through larger but sloppier holds , and finish traverse.  Luckily it's only 5.8 but feels hard. 
• I did the beginning of p5 together with pitch 4 . Belay on arete at nice stance. Do rest of p5 together with p6. 
• Rest of climb is obvious 
• Paul
• 
  

Cool! Sounds like you pulled it off! Next up, Roof of the World!

Pssst! It's "route", not "rout".