Jean Aschenbrenner at the hard moves just above th...
Description
This route starts in the approach gully, right of Soul On Ice and left of Stained Glass. Difficult moves past a bolt (plus an optional TCU placement) lead to some slabby climbing, then the business. The dihedral breaks left and steepens, necessitating creative undercling/lieback moves for 15 feet. A difficult reach to the left to escape the flake is the final crux.
Protection
Fully bolted, but bring a few small TCUs and nuts if you aren't solid on 5.11. Bring gear for an anchor at the start if you belay in the gully. Bolted rap station shared with Soul on Ice.
Rossiter has this as 11a in the Boulder Canyon book, and I would have to agree. He also shows the crux at the undercling moves, which felt much easier than a section of steeper slab moves up a shallow corner down below. For the sake of comparison, this felt easier to me than either the Deep (11c) or Dream On (11c). Just my $.02.
You need a full 60m of rope to lower down. If your rope is shorter, the belayer may want to lower the leader to the top of the wet gully below the first bolt.
Looks like a key hold broke off at the end of the crux section. After doing what from the above description used to be the crux, underclinging the left-leaning corner and stretching left for a short bit of vertical finger crack, suddenly it gets way harder. There's a 12" wide orange spot on the rock to the left that looks like where a flake broke off. As it is now, it feels like 11+ (didn't do it--took a couple short, sharp swings to the right attempting it then bailed). You need to undercling with the right hand and get the feet real high on nothing to reach the left edge of the flake above. After that it may be a little more sketchy clipping the next bolt without having the now-gone hold to stand on and recover. Or did I just totally blow the last move?
By Ron Olsen Administrator From: Boulder, CO Jun 4, 2006 rating: 5.11+
I agree with Ivan--this route has gotten much harder than it was a few years ago. In addition to the large ledge that fell off just after the crux layback and step left (identified by a 1'-square brown spot), several smaller edges and flakes in the crux section appear to be gone as well.
The anchor at the top of the pitch has two bolts with hangers and a third bolt with no hanger. There were no slings or rings. I added quick-links and rap rings to allow lowering and rappelling. This anchor is shared with Soul on Ice and Flying Vee.