Pumcat 

This is a nice line with a tricky, powerful sequence. The wall is either exactly vertical or a tad sub-vertical, and the crux is initiated off what amount to good hands. A ridiculously bad right foot converts what might be a 5.10 move into either an awkward dyno or an even more awkward cross through. This sequence was actually quite funny. It begins by pulling a lock off to just about level with the shoulder. The target hold would seem to close enough to bite, but it is a real fight to let go with either hand. A dyno from below is the way most people are likely to solve this problem. This is a fun route, on good stone, well protected, and is by no means a "one-move-wonder".

We jumped on this route on Feb 10th to learn why there was wide variance in the grade reported by others (5.10 to 5.12b). It appears that many will stem onto the adjacent dihedral using a crack on the left for the hands. This version does drop the rating to 10+. For the purist, climbing without the corner or crack can indeed bring the difficulty into the 5.12 range. Furthermore, running the sequence without stepping into the route on the right entails using the triangular pod (4th or 5th clip) in 180 degrees of rotation. I believe that this is what Alan had in mind in the first place.

Pumcat will probably be done most frequently by using the stem and the crack because it is possible to clip the gear from the left. Straight up on the face is committing and more likely to result in failure since it entails several hard moves in a row. I'd keep the rating right where it is, for the intended solution to the problem, however, there will be folks calling it 5.10. They just solved a different problem using the same gear.