Directly north of End Pin lies an easy to get to area that houses one of the best little crack climb in the Ten Pins area. Start in a sandy area and make a fairly committing step up move and start plugging in small to medium sized nuts and cams. Leave your bigger stuff of the ground, but be sure to bring up small nuts, TCU's aliens all attached to medium sized quickdraws or slings to minimize your rope drag as you do a heady combination of crack and face moves. The crack looks short from the ground, but for some strange reason, seems to stick it to you about fifteen feet off the ground, and doesn't want to let up in terms of physical prowess, and mental stress, until you reach the knobby slope that sort of resembles the finishing moves on Tent Peg. When the crack ends, make sure that your small protection, whether it be an alien or a small nut, is backed up and secure, because the run-out to the anchors can cause your hands to get a bit sweaty with anticipation. The chain anchors are located on a nice ledge, and a one rope repel will get you down, as long as you don't get your rope stuck in the tree across from the landing zone. Repel down a face with some old, rusty bolts on it. I don't know the name of this climb, but I have found that top roping it can be done easily if you extend the chains with a couple of locking beaners. Or better yet, make your own anchor system by locking off a sling, or cordelette with locking beaners from the anchor bolts. I Gotta Take a Crack is a great workout for someone with who is aching for a great trad climb but cannot commit to the time it takes to do other Needles classics.
Getting There
When you arrive at the dirt pullout, just get out of your car and take a few steps east, and get on the trail you would take to get to the PoDunk Pinnacle. Look directly to your left (north) and you will see a lichen covered rock formation with a crack that appears to stop right below knobby slope.
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for High Point:
Brent, I apologize, but it's not like we all have a copy of "Touch The Sky" lying around the house. It's pretty hard to do the homework when the textbook has been out of print for decades. The route (which might be Flight 714) was shown to me by two reliable needles climbers who have been in the area for years, they called it "I Gotta Take a Crack". The information about how to work the route comes from the fact I have climbed it many times and was simply inspired to tell other climbers who will never be able to meet legends like Paul Piana, yourself, or anyone else who has intricate knowledge of classic routes. This is why we have sites like Mountain Project, to share our stoke with others. And yes, details are important, but let's be more concerned with getting locations, beta and protection correct rather than dwell on things like route names that get lost in translation.
The route is definitely not Flight 714. This route is not in any guidebook that I know of, including Touch The Sky. It's a crack on a small blob of rock next to high point which I believe is unnamed or considered to be part of high point. That's the best I've got for ya.
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