An excellent route up the righthand side of a kind of "inverted U" shape in the rock off to the right of Stichter Quits. Thin face climbing leads to a traverse left into a dihedral. Much easier climbing takes you up the dihedral and then left to a bolted belay. Single rap back down.
Protection
The initial part of the route is bolt protected (3 bolts - 3/8"). Once you traverse left into the upper dihedral, it's place your own. Draws and a selection of cams should do it. Bolted anchor/rap (all 3/8").
The first bolt is tricky to get to, you can put a small cam behind the flake but it won't keep you off the floor. Beautiful slabby moves lead to a secure and fun layback.
By Tony Bubb From: Boulder, CO Jan 6, 2003 rating: 5.10b
If you are not used to J-tree dime-edging and smearing I sincerely recommend warming up on another route prior to attempting this. The initial 50' is bolted, but is NOT a sport route and falls could be serious. Additionally, the moves are slick and for non-chalkers (me) were a little funky on a warm day.
this is my favorite route ive ever done in jtree i love it so much, the line is so f'in bad ass the thin face moves are definatly the crux, but everything is there, a trick i found when traversing back across the roof is to use the under side of the roof for a hand hold made it much easier than using the small face holds in front of your face, once your done with these moves say hello to one of the cool lyeback dihedrals around!!!! oh yeah make sure to leave a long sling at your last cam at the top of the flake to keep it from getting stuck behind in side the flake.
The traverse is slippier than it used to be. Many years of climbing have smoothed down the crystals and greased it up somewhat. Further, some of the finger holds have popped off. I popped one myself a couple of weeks ago.
This was an excellent route, but I have one issue with the climb. The first bolt is quite high off the deck, which is fine. However, the bolt is one move (and a sketchy hard move) above an excellent stance. Why did the first ascentionist place the bolt above this excellent stance? Was this to keep the "riff-raff" off? It seems like artificial boldness to me. Although the smear I used to get to the bolt felt pretty serious to me, and I remember the move with distinct claritry, more so than if I were climbing past an already-clipped bolt. Maybe that was the point.
Are there any good climbs out there for "couldn't" days? Those are the ones that I need. Maybe a few for "can't" days too ... I seem to be having a lot of those lately.
This route needs a good scrubbing! The traverse is much thinner than I recall and needs a wire brush overhaul! While it is an excellent route, I would only climb it again at about 50 degrees F with no sun. It is slippery at the crux (the traverse??), probably due to the millions of shoes that have traversed it! Still the best route on Echo in my humble opinion. Relatively well protected, but has some real thin sections at the bottem.
With all due respect (or maybe not) to TraiseB: Using a wire brush on this (or any) route will only make the holds smoother and more polished (think about what hundreds of more ascents by people with sloppy footwork would do). Keep the wire brush for those home improvement projects.
There is an alternate finish to this climb using 3 or 4 more bolts up the face, in my hasty study of the guidebook, I thought H+S went straight up this line of bolts, and the alternate went into the flake oops...
In the book, this alternate is rated 10b, but it uses the first three bolts of H+S, traversing left, and then right climbing around some ultra-thin hard moves.
Has anybody skipped the third bolt and all that traversing and gone straight up? Any stabs at the difficulty of the moves, felt stout? The pucker factor was high, and I don't think a fall would be pretty.
I love this route, I only wish that the finishing flake was sportier, because it looks so cool from the ground. The sport of the route is definitely in the first half.
I really found this route to be fun and quite reasonable. I thought the lower section up the roof to be quite hard and thin to clip the first bolt and the traverse quite straight forward once you got your right foot situated properly so the left could step out. The move to the crack was actually more intimidating for me. Up the flake was just pure fun and a nice way to end the route!
By Bill Olszewski From: San Diego, CA Mar 10, 2007 rating: 5.10a
Great climb, the best one on Echo Rock! Sweet dicey face moves below and above the roof reward the climber with a comfortable, easy crack. This one's a must for your tick list. I second the opinion for using a long sling on the last piece (learned the hard way).
By Guy Humphrey From: Fort Collins CO Mar 24, 2007
The moves to the first bolt are no joke. The gear in the flake will not keep you off the deck.
The slab is the main course, while the crack is the dessert. I am glad I talked myself into leading this one. One of the best of the trip...
Rick Graham and I did this route on 3-2-08. First time climbing with Rick in 28 years and last time I climbed Heart and Sole was 15 years ago. Nice to revisit old friends and climbs. Great fun. Nice lead Rick. Just like the old days(almost)! The climb was as I remembered. Always interesting, never really hard, and most of all, fun.
Echo Rock - West Face
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