This route is located on the southwest face of the grouse slab , which is a five minute hike around to the left of the main face of Grouse Slab.
From the parking area heading towards the main climbing area of Grouse Slab, this wall is uphill and to the left, and you can see the routes of the Southwest Face on the approach before going around the Slab downhill and to the right.
Once you can see the 9 routes of the Southwest Face from the PCT (this applies for approaches from both sides), head uphill for about 3 minutes on a thin trail through the manzanita bushes.
One Toke arete is the leftmost bolt route on the Southwest face (the are 3, tough carville's book shows four), and is an excellent arete climb using decent hands through balancy moves. This climb would get 3 stars if it were twice as long, and it is the most fun route on the wall.
Actually, my Carville guide shows only three bolts. I'm glad to see a more realistic rating on this climb. The start alone far exceeded my previous experience of 5.10. It actually goes at 5.10+ in Carville's book, and, not knowing what that meant, I thought it would just be a "tad" bit harder than 5.10. I have since gotten wise to old school rating systems and their nefarious use of the "+" symbol. The East side of Grouse Slabs has similar sandbags. I haven't actually climbed it beyond the first 10 feet yet and probably should shut my yap until I do, but it "would have" been my second sport lead ever ("Desire" was my first). The first bolt seems stick-clip worthy, but, then again, my penis is very small. So small...
By caughtinside From: Point Richmond, CA Apr 18, 2008
This thing was really cool! Tricky intro move into some fun arete action. Once again, just wish it was longer!
I toproped it so I could clean the anchor so we could escape the howling actic wind, so I can't remember how many bolts. At least three, maybe four.
Grouse Slab
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