This is the only sport route in this part of the Narrows, but there is probably room for two more 5.12-looking sport routes on this wall. From the hump at the top of the corridor, descend the slippery, nasty slope toward the road. This climb takes the line of 8 bolts up the middle of the diamond-shaped face on your right, about 70 feet down from the hump.
Boulder up a faint right-facing corner (5.10+) until you can stretch left for a jug and make the first clip, about 20 feet up. (I meant to put in a lower first bolt, but didn't want to interfere with an already established bouldering traverse of the wall. A long stip clip should help here.) Continue up past two more bolts (5.11+) to a small roof. From here, 30 feet of sustained crimp and sloper climbing take you up the flat, red face to a rest. Two more bolts worth of tricky climbing gains the anchor.
This route is deceptive--all the things that look like jugs from the ground are horrible slopers. Nevertheless, this is a great, just-past-vertical face climb on water-sculpted granite that makes for a nice cold-day challenge.
Protection
10 quickdraws--8 for the route and 2 for the anchors. A stickclip might be useful for the first bolt as well.
After talking to the one or two people who do the traverse at this obscure area, and ascertaining that they didn't give a shit if I put a lower bolt in, I added a new first bolt to this route in June 2004, so it's no longer dangerous getting past the first section. Also, it is now the righthand of the two bolted lines on the wall. There's still room for another route out right.
Narrows Proper
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