Requiem for a Tadpole is located about fifty feet to the right of Armatron on the north side of Brownstone Wall in Juniper Canyon. The first pitch starts at the last crack to the right of Armatron before a gully appears.
Description
This route on Brownstone Wall features a variety of features and runs the gamut of rock quality from sugary, rotten sections to unbelievably awesome, bullet-hard varnish.
Pitch 1: Climb up face holds to access a small crack. Belay where the crack widens and is surrounded by large huecos. Belay takes #.75-#2 Camalots. 120 feet, 5.6
Pitch 2: Continue up the crack into red rock. When bushes block the crack, climb around to the left or right on face holds. Climb another 20ft above a brush filled ledge to another clean ledge with a great stance. Belay takes finger size cams. 120 feet, 5.7
Pitch 3: Continue up the finger crack which quickly widens to hands, passing to the right of a large knob. Belay at another ledge with a black arête stretching above. There is now a bolted anchor here. 150 feet, 5.7
Pitch 4: Traverse horizontally left on thin cracks to access a large chimney. Move up the chimney protecting in good horizontal cracks. Above, traverse right onto the face just before bushes choke the chimney. Continue up a steepening slab. Move up on the left side of the arête and to the right side of the chimney protecting with small nuts. Belay at an obvious ledge above the arête. 165 feet, 5.9+
Variation Pitch 4: Climb straight up from the belay and climb the exposed arete on stellar brown varnish. Seven bolts with some gear to a bolted belay at Humerus Ledge. Exhilarating and classic. 150 feet, A little sandbagged at 5.8
Pitch 5: Walk left on 3rd class ledges to a short black wall with a small crack splitting the black face. Climb this crack to a large ledge. Climb one of many options up another black face above for 35ft to another large ledge. 125 feet, 5.10a
Variation Pitch 5: From Humerus Ledge, climb the right side of the final block past 2 bolts. 125 feet, 5.6
Descent
Apparently it is possible to rappel from here using two ropes on a adjacent route (Armatron?) To walk off, carefully climb down from the sub-summit and scramble up to the top of Brownstone Wall at Juniper Peak. This scrambling route is exposed but marked with cairns.
From Juniper Peak there is a nice descent route to the north that will bring you back to the base in about twenty minutes. Look for cairns that lead through a tunnel and then swing around to the north and follow the scenic and mellow path down to the base of Brownstone.
Protection
Standard rack to 3" with a few brass nuts. If you do the chimney on pitch 4, bring wide gear up to 6".
I was on the first ascent with Anthony Anagnostou in May of 2006. On our original ascent we placed no bolts and did pitch 4 traverse into the chimney. I agree with John in saying that pitch is harder than 5.8. The bolted arete is much more fun and definately the way to go unless you want to see a bat in that dark chimney.
Anthony and I had been going up to the Brownstone alot that summer. We had noticed tadpoles in the pools formed from seeps in the rock on this approach. Slowly as the days got hotter these pools got shallower and shallower. On the day we went up to do RFTP the tadpoles domain had gone, hence the name of the route. Probably one of the better route names I have ever come up with.
Brownstone Wall
RSS Feed
