Andrew Gomoll styling the delicate moves of the Sh...
Description
This route is a beautiful line with a several spectacular pitches. The most notable is the shamrock roof pitch with goes out a huge roof. The pitches above the roof in the groove have similar rock and climbing feel as the wide pitches on Crimson Chrysalis minus the bolts. There are no bolts or fixed anchors on the route. The time to climb the route itself is probably an average grade III but with over 1000ft of approach pitches and a very involved descent you will probably be getting a grade V type of effort.
The R rating comes from the wide upper pitches. Anywhere the climbing is difficult the protection is good.
Pitch 1: 5.9 170ft Begin climbing the right side of a small red pillar moving past a small roof on the left. Move right out of the mini-roof into the tan rock and up a mossy crack. Follow this crack up to a small ledge with a bush for the belay.
Pitch 2: 5.8 120ft Move up and left from the belay and climb to a long ledge. Traverse on the ledge to the right through bushes to reach the base of a large dihedral with the spectacular sweeping Shamrock roof above. Belay in cracks.
Pitch 3: 5.10a 80ft Climb up the corner using the crack and features on the face. Pass one small ledge and belay at the second stance on another small ledge.
Pitch 4: 5.10d 90ft The Shamrock Roof. Climb up the corner and out the spectacular sweeping roof. Move out a few feet left from the roof to a small stance and good cracks to belay.
Pitch 5: 5.9 200ft Climb straight up past a bush in a dihedral. Just past the bush move up and right on a slightly overhanging wall with big holds turning the outside corner and climbing onto a featured face (5.9). Continue climbing up and right on the face until you meet up with a crack that widens into a chimney (5.6). Belay in a notch.
Pitch 6: 5.8+R 195ft Continue up the chimney/OW and belay at a stance.
Pitch 7: 5.7+R 175ft Climb another long pitch up the chimney/OW to a nice large ledge (a bush can be seen about 25ft above through the crack)
Pitch 8: 5.7+ 205ft Continue up Chimney/OW again until it tops out as a finger crack.
Location
Climb any of the numerous climbs to reach the ledge system atop the slabs.
The route starts just to the right of a striking off-width in red rock. It begins on the right side of an attached red pillar.
Descent: Scramble down the opposite side of the formation into a gulley using a few easy 5th class moves. The gulley requires one single rope rappel from slings on a tree and lots of 4th class scrambles. Once you reach the bottom of the gulley continue east and head down the 2nd obvious gulley to your left or north. Scramble down generally trending left. This will lead you to a narrow gulley with a huge block wedged in it. Squeeze under the block and slide down an unlikely but easy offwidth. You will come out on a ledge with a large forked tree. From here traverse west (left) along a ledge system until you are at large dead tree very close to the wall with rocks stacked around its base. Just before this dead tree carefully scramble down to a medium size pine tree on the left side of the gulley with yellow rap slings. Take a two rope rappel back down to the ledge system (there might be other possibilities for a few single rope raps that would be worthy of exploring). Traverse the ledge to the left (west) to reach the base of the route. Descent from this ledge requires scrambling down the gulley to the east of the sunset slab route and either 2 single rope or 1 double rope rappel from close to the top of Rising Moons.
Protection
Standard rack of nuts and a double set of cams up to #6 Friend! Extra cams in the large sizes or a few big-bros could remove the R rating for the upper pitches.
By J. Thompson From: denver, co Mar 9, 2008 rating: 5.10a/b R
A very good route. I found the rating to be 5.10a/b, with several very good pitchs. Several with varied climbing that required me to really think them through. I'd par the rack down a bit as well, here is what I'd suggest: Nuts: 1.5 sets. Cams: Single's from Green Alien to Red Alien. Double Camalots #.75 to #3. 1 Each #4 and #5 camalot. Also EITHER an extra #3 or #4 camalot, the pitch you need it on would allow for either.
By vegastradguy From: Henderson, NV Mar 9, 2008 rating: 5.10b R
Very nice route- thanks to Karsten and Drew for finding this gem up on that monster wall.
Interesting, varied climbing- well protected where its difficult, and while run-out in places, its never so much so as to be unnerving.
I'd call it .10b and agree with Josh on the rack- although if you're not an experienced wide climber, a #6 camalot may relieve some stress in a couple of places- but its certainly not necessary if you climb comfortably at the grade of the route.
Labyrinth Wall
RSS Feed
