Trail of Tears 

FA:  ? Type:  Trad Consensus:  5.9- [details] Length:  5 pitches, 700 feet Views: 123 page views Submitted By: Luke Clarke on Aug 17, 2009 Add Photo  Add Comment

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Pitch 3 is the best pitch on Trail of Tears, even ...

Description 

This is fine route with lots of slab climbing, jamming and liebacking. Guidebooks vary on exact route and difficulty -- 9 or 9 minus. This felt soft for a South Platte 9. It's a good route for someone breaking into the grade. The rock is classic S. Platte granite: hard and knobby.

Pitch One: Lieback and jam an obvious 5.7 dihedral or follow a crack system angling up and left in the middle of a face. Find a belay in a spacious pod at the base of a huge right-facing dihedral.

Pitch Two: Ascend easy ground up and right to a belay ledge about 100 feet up.

Pitch Three: Climb the clean, right-facing, right-leaning dihedral. The crux is a traverse to cracks at the end of the dihedral.

Pitch Four: Either take the sweet finger crack splitting the face on climber's left(as depicted in Peter Hubbel's South Platte The Rock Climber's Guide) or climb the wide chimney on climber's right (Ken Trout's South Platte Rock). The finger crack protects easily. The wide crack would take a No. 4 Big Bro if you have one but only where the crack narrows a bit and the climbing gets easier. Either way, climb to a cave under a large overhang.

Pitch Five: We traversed out right(east)and made a couple slab moves with ledge-fall potential before you can place gear. Continue up obvious cracks to easy ground and on to the summit.

Location 

The start of this route is hard to find. Traverse along the base of Wigwam far to the east of Hill Route and Ramblin Rose. Fight through brush and boulders about 40 feet up to a clearing on a wide ledge and walk back left until you see an obvious right-facing dihedral with a hand size crack leading to a bushy corner. There is probably a better way but that's how we got there.

Protection 

Double cams to 3" and at least one No. 4

Photos of Trail of Tears Slideshow

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The lieback, jamming option for pitch one, easy 5....	Starting the finger crack on P4. I recommend this ...	Chuck Graves steps up onto the slab. This start is...