The Ladder is the left-most climb facing the fire road on the bubble. Its pretty easy to recognize with the large pockets on the slighty overhanging face. Older guide books tend to draw the route just right of the actual bolts - which aren't mentioned. This is the 5.9 version of The Ladder. The climb is neat and mostly straight-forward; big jugs, spaced widely enough to make you work for them. The crux comes between the 4th and 5th bolt where the jugs end and you have to traverse a little right. From the ledge, the next bolt is about 10 feet higher, and clipping this bolt and the following bolt are also difficult.
Protection
8 olts to a 2 bolt anchor. There's potential to land hard on a ledge if you fail to clip the 5th bolt and fall.To set up a top rope, walk around the left side of the Bubble and head up a steep path. A long sling will help reduce drag.
Nearing the top of this route, at the 5th bolt, I moved hard left to the anchors above the "West Face" (or is it called "West Facing" ? ) and found that to be an interesting variation. It is about 5.10c done this way, at the moves to pull away from the arete are somewhat hard.
This climb requires brute strength to lead, more than I am endowed with (I've only top-roped it). For me it's much harder than West Face. I've watched about five climbers flail on the upper part after being lulled into thinking it was only 5.9, based on Tresa Black's "Rock Climbing the San Francisco Bay Area." One took a long swing while trying to traverse left to West Face and was lucky not to hurt his ankle.
Bubble, The
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