Cracking the Emerald 

WOW - this looks great. Kudos guys.

Yeah, sounds/looks like a fantastic route. Nice work!

Cool guys, wish I was there! Can't wait to check it out.

Ben Williams recently free climbed this route at 5.12-

3 pitches were 5.11 and one, the 5th was the crux...Great job!

Note: One of the bolts at the top of pitch 5 didn't tighten down well. It could use replacing.

Climbed the first four pitches of this on 4/9/2010.... and here is how it went down.

Quick summary - cool mix of aid and free climbing, mostly good rock but still plenty of bombs waiting to explode as you'll see. Given the short approach, I suspect this will become a popular route - at least the pitches we did.

Approach - follow the signs to the Middle Pool, and after the slot between two huge boulders hang a right on the trail back to the Groto. Go about 100-200 yards and look for a long open area up to the rock. Follow this to the base and then traverse left to get to the route. Almost no bushwhacking is required! 30 minutes tops from the car.

Gear - The topo gear list is right on the money, at least for P1-P4. I didn't use the sliders but they're probably required on P5. I also had a set of medium to big offset nuts that came in handy, but weren't required.

Pitches

• P1 - Straightforward C1. There is a bolted anchor now at the belay, even though it is not indicated on the topo.

• P2 - Classic pitch. 5.10 seems about right. Mostly tight hands to a big rest and then a final layback finger crack. The crack is SHARP and the right wall is covered with razor-sharp calcite. Good luck if you don't tape. Bolted belay.

• P3 - Fun 5.8 crack climbing to an fun C1 roof. Belay takes yellow and red alien size cams (look up and right in the good rock, not the crappy cracks on the left).

• P4 - 5.9 chimney/squeeze. And this is where things got interesting..... The "unique hollow crack" is cool, but it doesn't take gear very well. About 2/3 of the way up it I was able to get a small cam behind a chockstone. The climbing isn't terribly hard fortunately and it is cool. Next up was the start of the squeeze chimney, and as I was worming in I reached up for a big hold up to the left... and next thing I know I was falling amidst an explosion of rocks. I think the rock that pulled off must have been at least the size of a small microwave. Fortunately the pieces that hit my wife were small. Amazingly, a large piece remained trapped between my shoulder and the wall when I finally stopped falling. SCARY! I was able to throw it to the side - I hate to think if it had continued falling as it would have hit my wife smack on. And to top it off, a sharp edge severed a good portion of the sling that held my fall.

You're welcome. Way to get off the beaten path!

I don't think it'll be off the beaten path for long. With the short approach and good climbing, I suspect it'll become quite popular!

Forgot to put this in my description, but in April the route came into the sun around noon - it is in a west facing corner. In the depths of winter, I suspect Lady Mountain might hide the sun for much of the day.

didn't look good after the first 4 pitches. sick roof moves at .11c/d! .11d moves 10' off the deck too, thin!