Ride The Snake 

There are 7 bolts in the first pitch. I accidentally drew 8 bolts in the beta photo. There are two bolts in the slab before the anchor, not three as shown in the pic.

casey

Fun route. Watch the lichen on the slab. I found it to be a little devious to climb through the roof at 5.9. It's good to have a warm up rather than just jumping on 5.11 of the deck!

Belay bolt was added to the start of RTS on ledge-perch for your convenience...

The link up of "Ride the Snake" and "Gneiss Roof" is now called: "Nice Ride"

• Be careful moving up past the first bolt above the Ashtray, I think I noticed a jug that was missing, and if you fall before getting to your first piece in the roof, you might hit the ledge.

I recently collected some bail gear off this route. I already have plenty of booty, so if it is yours let me know and I will return it.

caseybernal@hotmail

Great route. The first 3 pitches are a lot of fun and clean. I don't think the 4th pitch sees much attention (loose rock, lichen and runouts). Gear is needed but not much. I used 1 #.5 Camalot, 2 #.75s, a #6 Trango/#1 Camalot, and a few small nuts, but that is it. So don't drag up a huge rack. The rap is great fun, but make sure you have 2x60m or just walk off. Definitely 2 stars.

We did this route today and I thought it was great! WELL worth doing, a real adventure. Here's some info for the difficulties as they are presented:

(1) The tyrolean across the creek is in place (as of 6/13/06) and it's very robust, a taut steel cable. A pulley is recommended as it'll probably chew up a biner, it certainly did a number on our REI pulleys with nylon wheels.
(2) Unlike the comment on the main Mission Wall page, I saw no evidence of ticks. Nonetheless, I sprayed some bug juice on the legs, etc. No ticks at all.
(3) There are some traverses & roof moves that may be a bit difficult to protect for a novice second climber. That, and the significant exposure, make this not a good pick (IMHO) for a less experienced climber.
(3) I'd say go light on the gear. We used gear only on the last (roof) pitch, and then only: 2.5 Friend; 3.0 Friend; 2 Camalot; 3 TCU. No nuts, nothing smaller. Could've been done, I'm sure, but it seemed more of a hassle to plant gear on somewhat easy terrain 10 feet from the belay than to just go up and anchor in. My opinion.
(4) Caution: We probably screwed this up, but we rapped from the first anchors to the climber's right of the top anchors. With a 70 m rope I passed a good mid-point anchor but it was under an overhang and inaccessible to me dangling in mid-air. Found good anchors at the VERY end of the rope. Be careful, knot your ends as you may need it. Again, we probably missed something. Per the earlier post 2 60m ropes may add a comfort margin. Just be careful. Enjoy!

This is a super fun route and tall for Clear Creek. Am I the only one that thinks the crux move on P4 is a little strenuous for 9+?

Very fun route all the way to the top. The 4th pitch however is NOT 5.9+. The traverse is not too bad, or the mantel afterwards. Going from the jug after the mantel and up the thin corner afterwards is easily 10+ compared to the preceding 3 pitches. I collected a surrendered biner in that section where a previous party had obviously tried and bailed from the route.

Dan Godshall

Ah, the dreaded "9+" rating. I think 9+ can sometimes be harder than 5.11!

Although not too comparable to the actual crux moves of the Gneiss Roof pitch, consider these ol' tried and true local 5.9s:

West Buttress, Eldo
Cosmosis, BC
Hair City, Eldo
Femp, Lumpy
Cest la Vie (P1), Eldo
South Face Castle Rock, BC
Parallel Journey, MM Wall
Gorilla's Delight, BC
Tagger (P1), Eldo
Loose Ends, Lumpy

-darren

If you are curious about this, but worried about the grade you should at least do the first 2 or 3 pitches. The fourth pitch is certainly strenuous, but the crux move is well protected. The roof that looks like the crux is not too tough. For that you plug a #2 Camalot in, you reach up for huge jugs, and pull a nice mantle move. With the mantle complete you reach for another jug, clip a bolt, take a deep breath, and charge on up into and through the crux.

Well worth the time spent to get to this climb, and the cable traverse is pretty fun provided you have a pulley.

I collected some more bail gear from one of the belays and I would be happy to return it to the owner.

casey

Pitch four is a sandbag. We are not living in the 60s or 70s. Someone could get hurt. Keep things current with the times and area. Clear Creek seems to overall have soft ratings. Why go the other direction? With that said what a great route!

Brian,
We should all be aware that route grades are subjective, and hence, everyone has their own opinion of what level difficulty a route is. I offer you and everyone to submit a grade to the website and then we will eventually have a consensus grade.

With that said, I am a firm believer in universal grades, that are applicable in all areas. That way out-of-staters know what they are getting into. We certainly felt that the grade was appropriate for other climbs in Colorado, like Darren stated, and for the crag itself. Have you climbed any other routes on the wall?

I am most interested in how/where you thought "someone could get hurt". Darren and I would certainly consider updating the route (as we already have) in order to make it safer. Again, I invite you and anyone else to provide specific feedback on how to improve the safeness of the route.

I am glad you liked the route!

IS it possible to do all of the pitches with just draws?
I don't have any protection, so are there enough bolts to avoid and big runouts?
If not, how many of the pitches are safe to do without protection?

It is possible to do the first two pitches of Ride the Snake with only draws (there is no trad gear required for these pitches). The next two pitches (3&4) are actually of a different route, Gneiss Roof , and it DOES require gear if you want to avoid possible R/X rated falls. See the link above for more information and some comments about not taking trad gear.

Again, for some "moderate" bolt-only climbing, do the first two pitches. If you want more, go do Ground Control to Gumby One or the first pitch of Wild Child. There are many other climbs on the wall that only require draws though they are mostly harder.

Enjoy!