This is a fun crack, and I would not call it an offwidth. There is good hand jamming through the crux. It is however somewhat awkward, polished and slippery. You do not need any pro larger than a #3.5 Camalot, and in fact the crux section is #2 Camalot or smaller.
Tough climb, but crack jamming is not my forte. My pointy shoes got horrendously stuck on several moves.
FYI: the slings at the top of this route are pretty badly frayed or even cut. Bring your own to rap with or traverse 15' right and rap from the shuts above the 5.10 slab.
The rap slings are still in questionable shape as of mid April, 2005. I would have replaced one or two but was afraid I'd vomit on them after leading the damn climb.. It's not too hard to scramble right to Panic's anchors for a rap or wicked slab toprope session.-s
Isn't the photo above of I.V. League? That's what my guidebook seems to indicate (Front Range Crags by Peter Hubbel). Hubbel's book calls the crack/flake system to the right of the bolted route (Panic in the Gray Room) Emergency Entrance.
Interesting. The Classic Lyons Area guide (also by Hubbel) lists this route (the annoying flaring crack of extreme purple toenails) as Emergency Entrance while the far-right flake system is I.V. League.Either way, the latter is much more fun, whatever the name.
Yesterday, there were no slings on the tree to rap from. I continued up higher then had to downclimb a couple moves to get to Panic in the Gray Room's anchors. Be prepared to do the same or move out just below the tree and go up 15 feet of unprotected slab. The tree although its big enough, doesn't seem to be that securely rooted. I wouldn't recommend setting a TR off of just the tree alone.
I did find a #3.5 and #4 Camalot to be useful and you could go bigger if you wanted. By climbing left side in, the climb is quite easy for 5.7.
Upper Infirmary Slabs
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