The 'long' trad classic of Pine Creek, with lots of hand cracks and variety. A bit of crumbly and/or hollow rock in several spots (including the crux).
Location
See Marty Lewis guide. Two raps with two 60m ropes just barely make it down (watch rope ends!). The second rap comes down right in the middle of the sport routes on the Ministry wall, and the creek noise makes it hard to hear, so make sure you yell "Rope!" very loudly and give folks below a bit of time to react before you pummel them with the ends of two 60m ropes dropped from 190' above!
Protection
Pro to 4" including micronuts/RPs for crux, extra 1.25-3". Two trad anchors, two bolted anchors with Mussy hooks (top of 2nd, top of 4th).
A note should be made about the third pitch. The out of print orange Bishop book shows the route going out left around/under the roof at the end of the chimney. I tried that and encountered a bail nut/biner. The route actually goes out right from the top of the chimney as shown in Croft's book, "The Good, the Great and the Awesome".
Best 5.10 route on the East Side in my view -- every pitch good, and every pitch better than its predecessor, physical and sustained. We thought each of the first three pitches was equally challenging and in the .10a/b range. A single easy stretch is the first 40 feet of P3 -- the chimney.
Gear beta spoiler alert *
The technical crux on P4 is protected by a pin. A yellow C3 protects the next move, and a slot at the back of the hand traverse takes a yellow alien.
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