BETA PHOTO: Romancing the Stone. Climb a steep face, work left...
Description
The route starts on the northwest face of Witches Tower. Climb up to the first bolt on good holds. Good face moves on knobs and edges get you to the second bolt. A red Alien can be placed in between bolts here. Veer a little left and place gear to gain a ledge and the third bolt. Fire up past the third bolt using a hanging, weird block. Reach the arete and climb up past three more bolts to a two-bolt anchor. A purple Camalot can be place before reaching the anchor.
Protection
Mixed gear. Six bolts plus a small rack up to a two Camalot.
By Ron Olsen Administrator From: Boulder, CO Sep 23, 2005 rating: 5.9
A good route with varied moves and nice exposure. The layback past the hanging flake and the moves up the arete are fun and airy.
I placed a red Alien after the first bolt, a #1 Camalot (or #2 Camalot) after the second bolt, and a #.5 Camalot to protect the final move to the anchor.
Romancing the Stone and the neighboring route Tese are must-dos on your way up to Sherwood Forest.
The creepy and loose sounding rock on the middle of this route really took a lot away from this route. I'm sure it much more solid than it seemed, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was going to pull a HUGE piece of rock off every other move. I think it would be a really good route if you weren't a wuss like me and just cranked on everything.
By Tony Bubb From: Boulder, CO Jun 24, 2008 rating: 5.9
I did this one more 'directly' and did not step left to the camalot placements, and as such hit some questionable rock. a good route overall though, but I was trying to figure out what was what, as maybe 50' up there were two diverging/converging lines available with bolts to the left/right of eachother. Was a little confused on which was the intended line.
No less, it was a nice long pitch done to the top anchor and was enjoyable. Thanks for 'finishing' the route.
A nice route, but it's not 5.9; 5.8 at the most, maybe 5.7. Maybe I'm biased because I've been climbing a lot in Eldo recently. The moves past the hanging flake are indeed cool, but be careful. As Jeremy implies, all things are temporary, and some of those flakes seem to be potentially more temporary than, well, other things. Climb lightly, and tell your belayer to stand off to the side.
I have to agree with Jeremy. This climb (while a lot of fun) has a lot of missiles hanging, waiting to release. I'm not normally a fan of altering routes, but it would be nice to see some of the more questionable items removed, simply as a safety matter.
Witches' Tower
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