BETA PHOTO: View of Upstairs Dihedral from the start. The rou...
Description
This route is a clean, right-facing dihedral parallel to and just right of the climb Sunrider.
Approach as for Sunrider, then climb the obvious dihedral to the right.
Climb the dihedral through hand-to-off-fist moves placing good gear along the way. This is a fun route of jamming, stemming, and lie-backs.
A single set of cams should be sufficient for a strong leader, but a double set of cams would be better if you are not strong at 5.9 and want to protect the more closely.
To descend, belay over from the top to rig a rap from the top of Sunrider, or scramble up to the southwest to the rough trail down to the Northwest from up above Upper Peanuts Wall.
Terrific route. Here's an alternative descent: rap back to the start on the Sunrider anchors (bring webbing). Then walk down to the ramp and rap down the gully from the tree with the horizontal trunk section. 60m rope.Check out the picture in Rossiter's guide of this tree. The webbing and rap ring were put on June 2, 2002. The rap will leave you 10 feet above the ground and 15 feet from the start of Heavy Weather. Easy mini downclimb.
By Leo Paik Administrator From: Westminster, Colorado Jul 16, 2002
If you do this on the same day as the stiffie, The Cruise, you'd find this is the far softer of the two. It was perhaps once rated 5.6.
Very short. The tree in the pictures makes the route look longer than it is. Still fun, though. There are only two short sections of true off-width, the rest of the way the crack has good holds inside, or it's hand/fist sized jamming.
The Rossiter book gives an FA date of 1980, and that it might be possible that it is the upper pitch of 'Upstairs 5.6, 1965', but that the rating of 5.6 is far off the mark. I think that it probably is the upper pitch of 'Upstairs' and was probably first done in 1965, or at least some time well before 1980. My basis for this is:
a) a prominent dihedral like this wouldn't have been passed up until 1980,
b) the rating of 5.6 seems pretty accurate. It definitely isn't 5.9.
This is Upstairs, FA Larry Dalke and Bill Chase, 1965.
According to Jim Erickson in Rocky Heights 1980: "Upstairs 5.6. This wanders up the right margin of the upper wall (i.e. Upper Peanuts), into a prominent dihedral."
As far as the grade, it is closer to 5.8 than 5.9 (although arguably easier than the 5.6 Durrance on Devil's Tower!).
It is the most-obvious and cleanest line on the entire formation, and considering the compressed ratings of the day, it is easy to conclude this is Dalke's route.
The following year (1966) Dalke freeclimbed the final handcrack on the Naked Edge, rating it 5.9 (it is now considered 5.10+). Now that's a sandbag!
Upper Peanuts
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