Orange Crush is a good climb up an obvious left facing corner with orange lichen streaks, with a crux sequence of thin corner moves to a tricky bulge with big holds and a potentially awkward mantle.
The 11d rating given by the FA party seems about right by modern Boulder Canyon sport ratings, but this is significantly easier than the adjacent Respite rated 11d/12a.
Follow the Blob Rock approach trail to the gully between Blob Rock and East Blob. Continue up the gully past the very popular moderate sport climbs Shimmer, Simmer, Bolt Cola and Get Shorty and the less popular but very good trad climbs Center Route and Where Eagles Dare. Where the gully narrows, the (currently) leftmost set of bolts is Orange Crush.
Moderate climbing leads past 2 bolts to a slab and the base of the corner. A few more moderate moves lead to a big layback/finger jam and a stance. The climbing is sustained from here until you are established over the bulge. Make a hard move to thin tips layback and a difficult clip. Small fingers may help here. Another hard move gets you big holds on the bulge, but it's tricky to avoid barn dooring. The next clip is from a big jug, which you partially mantle to gain the slab and the end of the hard climbing. A few more bolts lead slightly left across a moderate slab to the anchors.
You could also angle right above the crux to the Respite anchors and thus top rope both climbs.
I disagree that this is 11d, even by modern Boulder Canyon standards. We did this line last January not knowing what it was, and thought it was 11a/b tops. Other Blob sport routes such as Respite, Jolt Cola, Bearcat, and The Ticket should provide reference as to what 11d/12a should feel like. Even the first pitch of Jolt Cola (11b/c) seems considerably harder.
Joe Collins said: I disagree that this is 11d, even by modern Boulder Canyon standards.
Joe's done tons more hard sport climbs than I have, but I've done a lot of the modern 11a's and b's. Orange Crush is harder than all of those 11a's and b's I've done (eg, Scientist and Morpheous and others on Plotinus, the 11a's and b's on Sleeping Beauty, Free Willie and others at Animal World), Divination and Hunky Monkey on Lost Angel, Rush and Rage Against the Machine on Wakeup Wall), Schizofrantic on E. Blob (to list more than a few). Also felt Orange Crush was harder than Hike for Y2K on Blob Slab, rated 11d.
If you're comparing to Eldo or Boulder Canyon trad standards, then I'd certainly agree with Joe.
The ratings are pretty messed up in Boulder Canyon, even comparing just Boulder Canyon sport with Boulder Canyon sport, not to mention comparison with Eldo (which is tricky due to the difference between trad and sport).
Fair enough Ivan... and I didn't intend to sandbag. I was using the other similarly graded routes on this section of Blob as a barometer. I agree that Boulder Canyon ratings are all-over-the-place, but at the very minimum a route should be graded somewhat consistently with its neighbooring routes.
Right Gully
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