Climbing to the first bolt with gear in the corner...
Description
Short and steep with some very questionable flakes and a spooky, but relatively easy slab finish.
Find the obvious Mr. Natural hand crack on the Redgarden West Face approach trail. Just left of that is a smooth face bounded by a left-facing chimney on right and a corner/groove on the left. Just right of the corner/groove is the Toys for Tots face with two bolts.
Climb to the first bolt, avoiding using the corner if possible, make crux moves a bit left of the bolt to good holds. Angle right on some very questionable flakes and clip the second bolt. Pull up and right onto the base of a slab. You can get some sketchy gear in a flake here. Step up onto two big footholds but with not much for the hands. Either lean right to a big flake or make some thin moves up the slab, and on to the red band.
Place some cams in a good block and in a good horizontal crack to the left. You can toprope from this anchor. The second to last person in the party should travese right to the tree on Mr. Natural and belay the last person from there. Rappel from the Mr. Natural tree.
Protection
2 good 3/8" bolts protect the hard sections. Microcams in the corner to the left protect the first clip. Above the second bolt it's runout slab at about 5.8. You can get some brass nuts and small cams to green Alien in a flake before the runout, but the flake is expanding, so the gear is doubtful. Cams from about 0.5 to #2 Camalot to set up the anchor.
I'm calling this S due to the long fall potential on the upper slab. I realize some climbers will disagree since the runout climbing is significantly easier (5.8??) than the crux 11a climbing, but I feel it's better to be safe and make it clear that this is not a typical sport climb with bolts very 6 to 8 feet.
By Leo Paik Administrator From: Westminster, Colorado Oct 24, 2004
A few years back when I played on this route, it sported thin, somewhat spooky-looking, hangers that seemed similar to the recalled Leeper hangers...have these been upgraded?
Yes, the hangers are still the very thin hangers. They are probably fine, but definitely not as bomber as the bolts on other routes, like Suparete down to the right.
This route seems pretty contrived to not use the corner on the left, but it would be pretty hard without a stem over to that corner. Even with stemming over to that corner, I thought the pulls on the holds was at least 10+. it's short, though.
Definitely a heads up finish. This whole route is harder than it looks.
By Dave Cummings From: Louisville, CO Oct 28, 2007 rating: 5.11a R
I thought that this was a fun route, not too spectacular but fun.
Redgarden - Below Lower Ramp
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