Pistola is a far better climb than its popularity indicates. This seemingly forgotten route is located at the relatively quiet Sno Cone Wall and would surely see far more traffic if it were located at a more popular cliff. As is such, it makes for a nice place to hang away from the crowds and enjoy quality climbing without a stack of rope bags piling up as you work out the moves. Pistola is located right where the trail meets the cliff and begins with a short choss scramble to the first bolt and the real climbing. Boulder through the first four bolts of crimpy terrain and gain an excellent rest. Continue up the dihedral, sidepulling, stemming, and attempting to clip some difficult-to-reach bolts. One last excellent stem rest is above and just before the second (and final) crux. Pull through this and scoot left to some great holds on the arete. Easier climbing leads to the anchors.
I thought this route was a lot of fun and deserving of two stars and perhaps one more star if the poorly (read scary-to-clip) placed bolts were moved more in line with the climbing (Rifle clean-up project, anyone?).
Location
Where the trail to the Sno Cone Wall meets the cliff.
Protection
11 bolts to a two bolt anchor that currently sports a locking biner on each bolt.
I agree this is a great route. With a little more traffic it would fully clean up (there is some loose rock if you climb to either side of the bolt line...which seemed to make the most sense to me).
Not sure what the deal is with the hard to reach bolts? It could sure use a retro-job as some of the bolts are pretty old, too.
If you place long runners on the bolts above the two hard to reach clips and skip the out of the way bolts, it climbs way better. Still you have to clip the bitchy bolts to place the gear for the red point attempts.
I think it was originally intended to climb the shallow, blocky dihedral on the non-existent feet but everyone follows the more logical line in the big corner.
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