Astrologger 5.11+
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| Type: | Trad, 1 pitch, 100 feet |
| Consensus: | 5.11 [details] |
| FA: | |
| Season: | Faces West/Northwest |
| Submitted By: | Tony B on Jul 1, 2008 |
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Tony working hard on Astrologger.
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Description "I hope you ate your Wheaties" (TM).
Astrologger is on good rock and is an attractive line, but the necessary difficulty in getting to it and its lonely position mean that it is seldom traveled. If you could climb the top alone, or the route had been cleaner, I would have given this 3 or 4 stars.
As well, its given grade of 11b is way out of line with other local grades and is sandbagged sufficiently so as to be hard on the Ego.
To avoid an awkward scramble, we elected to lead up the "approach pitch" past the anchors and combine this into a single pitch. The opening is A0, french-freeing a fixed line to the first of several bolts, then 5.10 climbing up on good but dirty holds (I cleaned these, but rain might restore their dirty condition), to an anchor. The climbing is sufficient to assure that you will not arrive to the anchor at 'the base' in fresh condition, and the climbing right off this anchor starts off tough and gets tougher.
From the anchor get up a leaning, overhanging flake, (1.5" gear) get into the corner (2" gear) and then fight your way up the corner on slick thin jams (2-2.5" gear) with an occasional wide piece. The crux comes about 1/3 the way up the main pitch, but the rest is still exhausting.
At the top the climbing relaxes back to 5.10 after a few good jams (3") and is a thinner crack (fingerlocks) to reach a serviceable bolt-and-chain anchor.
Location Approach as for the Sheriff's Badge and continue North to the North Walls. Heading up into the Gully as for Alaska Highway, you will be perhaps 40 meters from intercepting the wall on the left when you come over a HUGE flat-topped boulder and see a large rock-pile (Cairn) on your left. Turn left and follow the light path (I dare not call it a trail) to the rock and keep and eye up on the wall at eye level for a fixed and knotted line with bolts above, and the bolt line to the anchor below the steep left-facing acute dihedral/flake.
Protection Either a short batman up a fixed line to 4 bolts (dirty 5.10) to an anchor at the base, or do a messy scramble from the left to the base, then:
Two 1.5" cams, (or 2 purple camalots)
Three 2.0" cams (or 3 green camalots)
Three 2.5" cams (or 3 red camalots)
two 3" cams (or two yellow camalots)
and finally a 1" or a .75" cam or two for the top. (or a blue or grey micro camalot)
To reach a set of chains...
Emilisa working the chimney rests
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zip
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By Dave E.
From: washington
May 11, 2009
rating: 5.11b
| whoa whoa whoa, no way this is 11+, even for squamish. however, the climbing could be considered ambiguous, im not going to give it away, but i will say that i found there to be two cruxy sections, entering and exiting the flare. beyond that, get up there and find out for your self, this route is spectacular, imho
edit, three stars cause its a ways out, could be a hardman warmup for alaska highway though |
By Tony B
From: Around Boulder, CO
May 11, 2009
| Felt at least 3 letter grades harder than any other 11's I did there... but then again, I may have biffed it. |
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