Casual In The Mind's Eye  5.9+

312 page views Good page?

Type:  Trad, 1 pitch, 55 feet Consensus:  5.9+ [details] FA:  Hunt Prothro & Howard Doyle, late 1970s Submitted By:  Andy Weinmann on Oct 27, 2011 You & This Route  |  Other Opinions (1) Your todo list: Your stars: Your rating: -none- [change] Your ticklist: [add new tick]

Add Photo  Add Comment    Printer View

Description 

P1: Climb the small crack to a good hold where the crack ends below the headwall. Traverse left about 6-8 feet to another small, thin crack just right of a small maple tree. Climb the thin crack (crux) to its intersection with WPDF at the small bulge and larger crack. Finish on WPDF. 55-60 ft.

We did this line on 09OCT2011 after having looked at it numerous times. Couldn’t find anything about it anywhere. After a fairly exhaustive search, Hunt Prothro got back to us saying that he and Howard Doyle did this back in the late 70s or so but that they just never got around to writing it up. Years later he returned to it at a time when he had soloed up things such as West Pole and Bring On The Nubiles and WPDF. He backed off this route and explained that he "...can't see how I thought it was so casual. So it might be harder than I remember it being back in the day when we floated up things now lost in the mind's eye alone." - hence the name we gave it and the grade.

Not a significant line by any means, but good, hard fun and very airy up there. Probably will be listed as a variation to WPDF since it finishes on that line, but it's a whole different animal.

A little licheny down low but will benefit from some traffic, as will the consensus on the grade.

Any other info on this route is quite welcome.

Location 

On the West Pole/Conn's West Ledge below the Summit Ledge.

Start at a finger-crack about 5 feet to the right of the two-bolt anchor atop P2 of West Pole or about 10 feet left of the West Pole/Conn's West rappel tree. The West Pole Direct Finish (WPDF) crack will be about 10-15 feet to the left of this spot.

To descend, scramble down the back side off the top and down to the Summit Ledge.

Protection 

Take small cams down to #00 TCUs/Master Cams (#000 BD cam could work too) and small wires/micro nuts. A #3 or #4 BD Cam or equivalent is helpful once you join with WPDF. Crux is the 2nd crack...gear is thin there too.