Rolofson limits the Overhang area on its West (left) side with The Ground Doesn't Lie. Since there is a good break between The Ground and The Pigeon Pile Pinnacle in the Table Top area, I have followed suit here - for the time being. The Ground is a small, three bolt, boulder problem that sits 50 ft left of the very popular 5.9 called In Between the Lines. Its most obvious feature is just being small. Surmount several tricky finger locks passing two clips and solve the crux at the third bolt. Hint: look around. This rounded buttress is something of an arete and has good holds on both sides. I thought that there was an additional sequence to be solved just getting to the anchor after the last bolt. Nice problem, and worth figuring out. Feels a little insecure.
This route is some of the pumpiest (is that a word?) 20ft of climbing at Table. I always come away feeling like I climbed farther than the 3 clips up there.
By Ken Trout From: Golden, CO Mar 12, 2004 rating: 5.10c/d
We named it after a saying of John Sherman's. He had written how all sport-climbers lied about doing hard climbs and anyone who used a rope was a tension-taking liar. Sherman's idea was that only boulderers really did hard climbs because when boulderers fall they hit the ground and can't lie about failing. Hence his saying, "The ground doesn't lie."
I certainly wouldn't choose to lie about FA stuff, but I know why some folks might. More than once I've had folks "snake" lines that took days to clean and bolt. That's okay if it's not The World's Hardest Route. What's important is how many people are doing the route.
Traffic has really picked up on The Ground Doesn't Lie. What's different? Seven bolts, instead of three.
RSS Feed
