Heart of Darkness  5.11c

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Type:  Sport, 5 pitches, 350 feet, Grade III Consensus:  5.11c [details] FA:  Shamick , Mathues p2 in 99, Tom Zappe, Shamick remaining pitches 2000 Submitted By:  Clay Rardon on Dec 28, 2007 You & This Route  |  Other Opinions (6) Your todo list: Your stars: Your rating: -none- [change] Your ticklist: [add new tick]

A great multipitch route full of tufta, stalagtite...

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Description 

Classic Thailand. Steep climbing on wild tufas and stalactites with a bit of adventure as well. Sustained pitches with mostly nice belays. Sees a lot of ascents but difficult enough to keep it from getting polished.

Start: Climb the rock just right of the fixed lines that go up and left to the ledge routes. You will be standing under a large orange and black overhanging wall.

P1. 6c+ - 25m - Climb on big holds through the steepest part of the entire route. Belay on a ledge. Very overhanging, a fall will put you far away from the wall. Weaker seconds should know how to prussik up the rope. Great pitch!!

P2. 6c - 20m Head up and right on a gentle overhang, pull a small roof with tufas and belay.

P3. 6c - 20m - More of the same.
P4. 6c - 15m - A really fun pitch with a lot of stemming in the lower half and a surprise at the end. You 'thread the needle' and then the belay at a ledge.

P5. 6c+ - 35m - Long pitch nearly topping out the wall. Gently overhanging rock with a bit more technical climbing than the rest of the route. Very nice! Just left of the oval shaped cave in the picture.

DESCENT: Maybe the crux! This wall is very steep and needs to be back clipped all the way down. Much easier with two ropes, or at least a 70m to rap the top pitch. Rappel from Belay 5 to belay 4, back clip, watch for sharp rock. Rapp from B4 to B2 if you have two ropes, back clip. You must "rethread the needle" at B4. Rap from B2 to the ground with two ropes.

Route is in the shade starting between noon-1pm.

Location 

The route is right at the top of the approach trail before the knotted rope to go left at the wall.

You'll need to back-clip several pitches to get back to the top of pitch 2 where a double rope rap drops you right on to the approach trail.

Protection 

12-15 quickdraws, something to ascend the rope if you fall, maybe a few slings to beat the rope drag. Two ropes makes the rapping much better. The glue-in bolts are aging. Should be RB in 2011 w/ Titanium... stay tuned! (May '10)

Photos of Heart of Darkness Slideshow

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Finishing up pitch 2 of Heart of Darkness	Rapping the last two pitches of Heart of Darkness	Finishing the back-clipped rap of pitch 3
Charlie Andrews on pitch 1 of Heart of Darkness