Eco Challenge 

DO NOT CLIMB!!! I RED TAGGED this climb yesterday after pulling about 4 tons of rock off, Extremely dangerous and could have easily killed climber and belayer. I will update after a group of frusty locals finish the cleaning the route.

Onsite yesterday...looks like someone decided to reroute The Dead Terrorist to avoid the horrendously frightening (sarcasm) second pitch. In doing this, they sent down several thousand pounds of boulders and plenty of dirt debris to make everything below it quite unfun to climb. I did not examine Eco Challenge, Expedition, or Unnatural Act, but they may have been damaged/altered via this behavior.

Maybe the "new variation" to avoid the 5.7 p2 can be named "Un-necessary Act?

Sometimes this place gets out of hand with all the drilling...

Ive been a frusty local for coming on three years now, and I don't think it is "un-necessary" to pull off DEATH BLOCKS that could fall and injure or most likely kill our fellow climbers,All of the material came off with not much effort and in just a few hours,the biggest death block was in the middle crux and was ready too pop at any time. Instead of the criticism, how about a thank you, Too all of the true locals that care about frusty, and the safety of all climbers who climb here. As for all the "out of hand bolting", If you dont like it dont use it, we are the reason you are climbing and having a fun, and safe climb. It also is really a bummer when someone cuts the last 20 feet of our project ropes ?????????????????????

Sam: If "death blocks" were on the route as you say, then how did they get there? Perhaps from careless behavior above? I can assure, they were not there after the FA. How do I know? Because it is my route and I spent more than a "few hours" cleaning it. Read the previous comments.

I am all for locals maintaining local areas, ironically enough I am going to do some crag maintenance myself tomorrow at Auburn, but common courtesy is still an expectation. I am on the site and frequently in SoCal. A quick PM / email would've been nice before this was proudly claimed "red tagged". There is PLENTY of room / new ground for the next generation to have a go at FA's. IMO there is no need to mess with other's routes unless you ask.

Think about it, Eco-Challenge has been an established route for over 16 years. This new "action" could hardly be justified IMO especially since I last climbed this route about a year ago and these death blocks were nowhere to be seen. So, sack up if you don't like others routes and move on to your own unless you have the common courtesy to at least attempt to reach out to the FA'ist.

So instead of attitude, how about a thank you to those who did the ground work before you showed up 3 years ago...

ROUGH , i climbed your eco challenge the day before all of that loose rock came off, and it was loose.And many times over the past few years. the whole route was falling apart, literally, every time we climbed your route a hold would break or a chunk of the pink rock would break out,but we loved the climb so much we did'nt want to have to clean and red tag it, we knew it would never be the same, but it became too danderous. I am not saying your eco was"nt clean and awsome thirteen years ago, Im sure it was tight.. But You can't tell someone who is at the crag "alot" that they can"t red tag a dangerous route, and you can't tell anybody they can't pull off Rock that is Naturally loose,and NOT from rock being pulled off the dead terrorist route. Eco challenge and the routes to the right are slightly overhung and it is not possible for material from above to hit any of them, it is very obvious.There is and always will be material coming down at frusty, it's natural. Helmets are advised. By the way I loved Eco. I would encourage every climber to pull off any naturally loose material or rock off ANY ROUTE if it ENDANGERS others lives, Oh , and you don"t need to try and contact the climber who put up the route.Just think, if all that loose rock would've fell on a climber while you were trying to figure out who put it up and try to E-mail them so they don' cry. any true route setter would've been stoked to not have anyone get hurt on there line. And I think i am "sacked up" after climbing on eco, and then seeing a block the size of a stove come off with the slightest pry. see you at the crag

Thanks for the reply Sam, it is what should have been done proactively before any action was taken. The loose blocks everywhere exaggeration is exactly that. Eco Challenge has been probably climbed 2-3 hundred times by now and everyone before dealt with the nature of the route which is both reflected in the name as well as made clear in the route description.

I am totally open to other's thoughts on my routes, but you are wrong with regards to communication. You do need to contact the FA'ist of other routes if you propose to mess with them. Save yourself some heart ache. I am pretty mellow when it comes to this stuff, but others will be likely to have much more intense reactions if you and Matt start messing around with their routes.

Put it like this, what if I came and shifted bolts, cleaned off holds/ what I subjectively determine to be "loose blocks" and/or redirected 4th Wiseman or Dead Terrorist? You and Matt would be up in arms. It is exactly what you have done in regards to Eco-Challenge. The bottom line is contacting the FA before actions is:

- Historically an expectation in the climbing community
- It is common sense
- It is the right thing to do

Click on my blue name and look left, it says "Contact Rough" for a reason.

A fun and varied route through steep, blocky terrain with interesting crux moves over small roofs at both the 4th and 6th bolt. It's really quite amazing what trundling a few thousand pounds of rubble off a route can do for it's quality.

hey chris who bolted this route?

Myself and my brother-in-law at the time (Chris played a role as well though for the life of me I can't remember exactly what his role was? / Sorry Chris!). Eco Challenge turned out to be completely that from the get go and was not what we thought it would be. From the sketch ball climb to get to the anchors, to the before mentioned 2 tons of loose rock all over the route, it was quite the handful. After 3 days of cleaning, yes 3 days, the bolts were placed where the rock was solid not necessarily where they were ideal for clipping, which considering how loose a lot of the Lower Buttress is, we thought was a good idea. The name was chosen on purpose to reflect the "style" of the climb, a little bit chossy and a little bit adventurous from a sport climbing perspective.

I always wanted to bolt the line to the right of it, but moved out of the area before I got around to it.

Huge healthy poison oak just to the right of this route, so there must be some oil mixed into the dirt on the ground. If you are sensitive then use technu & clean everything after climbing this route.

Fun route and long compared to the rest on the lower tier. I only counted six bolts as I clipped them.

Poison Oak is gone! someone ripped the whole thing out so there is none by this route anymore. Thanks whoever did it!

i pulled out a crux hold today. i havnt tried the climb since its gone, but it looks like it might raise the rating a letter grade or two.

Just climbed this route again today, and the crux is certainly a bit harder than it was. It's at least a solid 5.11a now (it used to be a bit soft), and may be 5.11b. Also someone added a new first bolt to the route which is pretty pointless since it's too low to keep you from decking long before you get to the old first bolt.

What's going with the route Matt? Being that it is my route, I'd appreciate a PM or email.