Desert Solitaire 

Great route!!

Chip Ruckgaber and I freed this route in Feb 2000. It involved some hard crimping on friable flakes that may or may not still be there. At the time it felt like Eldo 5.11d, but that will depend on what holds are still available. The free line went left initially past the first bolt, then crossed back to the right.

cheersmike schlauch

It still goes free. The holds I used seemed like they'll be around for a while, but were very sandy. The route might be slightly harder now though, hard to say.

Pros:
5 out of 6 pitches have high quality climbing, a very good ratio for CNM.
The last pitch is great, a poor man's version of the mega last pitch of Infrared. Even if you're baking, don't give in to the temptation to skip it.
The fixed anchors are very well thought out.
Mostly comfortable belays.

Cons:
Less than prime rock quality throughout.
Not much of a line -- you can scramble into the route at 1/3 height.
Not a tower.

Notes:
We thought the 5th pitch was the crux, considerably harder than the first.
Rack: We would have been happier if we'd replaced one of the #3 Friends with a #4 Friend or #4 C4 Camalot, particularly at the crux of the first pitch and the start of the sixth which was unprotected w/out a larger piece. We made only one placement w/ our "medium to large nuts" but could have used a couple of smaller (#2-4 Rocks) in the aid section. As far as TCU size gear, we placed at most 1 green Alien size on any pitch (though I could see placing more); we didn't use any smaller cams except in the aid section where we placed both a 00 and a 0 C3, though leaders whose aid mojo was running stronger could get by w/ at most one of those pieces.
With a 70M rope you can rap directly to the start, avoiding the circuitous downclimb, in 4 raps. Combine the raps for the 4th & 5th pitches as well as the 2nd & 3rd but be careful as both combined raps are stretchers.

The above comments do a good job describing the route, but I'd like to say just a bit more about pitch 4, the old aid pitch.

It is freeable at a grade in the mid 11s, so if you are taking the rest of the route free you should definitely attempt to free his pitch, everything you need is there. The main difficulty might be that the crux here is more of a face climb, where the rest of the route is a straight crack. However, the crux is short, and you have good pro that you can double up on right at your feet. Go for it!

I climbed it 5/30/7. The holds in the crux are probably among the most solid bits of rock on the upper section, but yes it is a sandy route.

Aid section is probably C2. There are a few questionable placements in a row in soft rock. I broke off a few holds trying to free the moves before losing the stomach for it.
Note: you can go up P3 via either way (both are not only worthy, but excellent) and then rap and do the other way to add a **** pitch to this awesome route.

Did this Sunday w/ 2 friends. We all agreed that if you can do the other 5.11 pitches then the aid section isn't much harder & is reasonably protected. We felt the moves (3 of them) to be ~11c & protected by 2 purple Black Diamond C3s (size 00), the highest of which was just below our feet when we reached the bolt.

This route is superb & doesn't see nearly the traffic it could/should.