Grapevine 

A great route! The phrase of the day was when we did it "be wary of 1965 5.6 Kor chimneys." That thing is difficult. It has good pro. You may want to save a bigger piece for the top. The chimney pitch of Kor's Flake is much easier IMO. The rest of the pitches are outstanding. Great crack climbing. My favorites were pitches 1 and 4. The two 8+ pitches. Pitch 4 through the roof/overlap is really great Lumpy climbing. We did Mainliner the weekend after Grapevine. I lead every pitch of both climbs, and I thought Grapevine was slightly harder, overall.

The "fixed sling" anchor mentioned at the top of the first pitch in this description is a bunch of slings around a cheesy loose-looking block. A much safer belay can be arranged near the bottom of the wide crack that starts pitch 2.

Hmmm, I didn't find this climb to be nearly as great as everyone else has described it. The view and the exposure is fun, but the climbing line itself is a "Grapevine", wandering and easy. The "crux", I felt, was an easy antisandbag lasting only a foot or two.......the rest of the climb has very little technical climbing. The most classic pitch of the climb is the chimney--which is actually pretty sweet as far as chimneys go. This climb is definitely worth doing though---because it is long---, but don't be expecting three-star climbing like found on the Book.

I thought that the "5.6" chimney was the crux of this route. Granted I am not a chimney climber, but that thing felt much more like 5.8 to me.

I also agree this climb isn't three star status. Each pitch indeed has some fun climbing, but also some crappy sections. The chimney pitch is something else, pretty spectacular little slot, but way harder than 5.6. Gear recommendation: 1 set stoppers, 1 set cams, 4 or 5 hexes should be perfect to make you feel comfortable.

Also, if the fist crack beginning the second pitch isn't your cup of tea, you can easily step left and follow a thin crack for 10 feet and end up in the same place.

I thought the crux of this climb was actually just a few feet off the deck and only lasted about 2 moves. I also had some questionable gear going into these moves in a flaring finger crack. The squeeze chimney was miserable - I wouldn't call it 5.6 even if it were at Vedauwoo. If you are carrying your approach shoes or a pack you'll definitely want to hang them below you on runner. Aside from the low crux on the 1st pitch, I thought the route had excellent placements all the way up. We didn't do the 5.9 variation.

The route description here on MP is much better than in the book. Here's how we saw it:
P1: Thought that nice finger crack off the ground might be the hardest climbing on the route. Then much easier up to rap station.
P2: The squeeze chimney was surprising. It is 5.6, but a thrash if you have shoes, bottle, etc clipped to harness. Gear slings instead of harness rack would be helpful. Pass the rap anchor at the top of this, and continue 40' up left to nice flat perch right on on the corner.
P3: There's a good finger ledge 9 feet directly above this belay. Didn't see any 5.6 to left or right, and the lack of footholds made it look much harder than "5.9R". So to get the extra 8" needed to touch the ledge, I stood on my seated partners shoulder - 5.8 AO! She took tension and did one batman move while seconding. P3 then can stop below or continue up past that dramatic left facing dihedral/overhang. The book rates the dihedral as "strenuous 5.8+" but staying on the left face seemed more sensible for a "mild 5.8". That's basically the top of hard stuff.
P4: One can formulate different crack/groove systems while angling up right to join Mainliner and the "Saddle" descent. We kept going straight up, aiming for an obvious deep slot, which turned out to be good, enjoyable, 5.7 climbing, 250' ending on top of the Sundance crest - very nice.
Walk back on the crest until can enter the east gully high up. There's one rap station into the gully but don't need it.