Bear Mountain Picnic 

The initial move is definitely hard for 5.8. I also found a few of the bolt placements to be less than ideal with potential falls on to ledges and such. The exposure of the arete is quite thrilling. A lot of rope drag if you do not use some long draws in places as I remember.

Really fun exposeed arete. Bolts were okay, don't know if there would be a better way to bolt it, have to take what the rock gives us. An 11 leader will have a blast on this, an 8/9 leader will shake a little but the holds are all there, just exposed.

Great climb up an interesting rock formation with one of the those great views up top that only climbers can see... man.

I would suggest a crash for summer climbing. The first bit of climbing is really slippery when you're sweating, and the rock down below is nasty (not to mention the fall someone spotting you stands to take if you hit them too hard)

i did this climb for a warm up and loved it. i climbed it 3 times after that. i got the profile against the sky picture as well. usually routes at that grade aren't alot of fun, they're just good warm ups, but this one is definitely worth doing no matter what you climb. you'll probably want an experienced belayer if you plan on leading and don't know if you can make it. my friend fell and i caught him, but i had to make sure he had enough slack not to smack his head on the roof but not so much that he hit the ground. i think i got lucky he swung right under the roof and no problems or accidents. (whew)

Fun climb! I agree the start can be a little challenging for beginners, but can be easily bypassed by approaching route from the right. Also the belay ledge is a small rock platform about 30' up from the trail so you might want to anchor your belayer to one of the nearby trees.

Start of Bear Mountain Picnic Submitted By: Chad Burdyshaw on Aug 26, 2010

Harder than 5.8 IMHO, and novice leaders should expect this not to be an easy "picnic" that being said good warm up. All but beginning of route is in shade. Makes it a bit cold for winter mornings.

scared the piss outta me when i first climbed it. Could climb 9, but had never done anything this "bold". I will always remember the move out from under the roof. great climb for anyone serious about the sport.

Tough for the beginning leader that I am. Did some other 5.9's that felt better than this. Good holds are there, just takes time to find. Get's hot up top!

This was one of my first leads and I think really set me up to do other stuff that had some exposure. Super classic.