In the rain, poor Jonny prepares to bail off the c...
Description
The route begins just left of the white recessed wall that is left of the start of Black Orpheus. The route is also to the right of the large black arch that is the left side of Black Arch Wall. There are no fixed anchors on the route and I suggest taking all your gear with you instead of leaving any in Oak Creek for later retrieval.
p1 Begin at the base of a yellow 180' pillar with black knobs on the face that leans up against the wall. Climb the face to the top. 185'.
p2 Climb up to a left facing corner, then up corner to a belay ledge. 90'
p3 Straight up 15-20 feet of face climbing leads to a +/-2 foot thick left facing dihedral that looks like an backwards "s". After an awkward move, you should get to another belay stance. 80'
p4 Climb left to a face with many edges and up a thin crack to a ledge with some loose boulders. Try not to kill partner with boulders and here you have a choice. Go immediately left and up to a ledge with some bushes and belay from there (80' and the way the route is supposed to go), or, go right up a left facing corner and then into a right facing dihedral that leads to a ledge (150' and pretty fun). If you go the second way, your next pitch will go left to an obvious crack on black rock and up for 20' and you're done.
p5 head up and right to an overhanding crack that is libacked and jammed up to a ledge (top of 4th pitch if you went right at p4 choice) then up the crack on black rock to an eventual ledge and belay spot. 110'
From the top of the route, head up and left, then down and left, into the painted bowl. Keep looking left for the vegetated area with a pine tree. Once at the pine tree, keep scrambling until you see the bolted rap anchor. Two 60 meter rappels will get you to the slabs. Walk down skiers right to a gully, then to Oak Creek.
Protection
The beginning of Pitch 3 has a 15-20 foot runout section that may bring protests from leaders, otherwise, protection is adequate.
Awesome climb with a variety of features and moves.Keeps you interested the entire way!. I'm surprised it doesn't get more traffic. We climbed it in 4 pitches.
The beautiful hike and scramble to get there took us about an hour and ten minutes from highway 159 , at average hiking speed.
Why do you suggest taking all your gear with you? It sounds to me like the descent goes right by the base, or am I missing something? Obviously you're going to take all the climbing gear, but why not leave a few liters of water at the base?
Sounds like this climb might make a good approach to "Chicken Lips".
We caught this route on an unseasonably sunny day and look like lobsters as a result. You could stack a Painted Bowl route on top of this one, but I'd rather go up the slabs, climb a route, descend and add on Underhanging Overhang or Catwalk. The route is more 'old school' than I expected-pro on the third pitch was hollow and/or well spaced; don't put a newbie on this lead-my partner leads 5.12 and took his time *on toprope* on the slab off the belay. The loose rock on all ledges pose a serious hazard-DO NOT climb this route if someone else is already above you. I nearly got crushed before I had climbed 50 feet; helmets and paying close attention mandatory. The route is aesthetic; a nice contrast to the less committing routes nearby.
One of my all time favorite climbs. It made me so happy. It's funny how the mind works. I led the third, and fourth pitch as one long pitch, and wasn't at all scared on the runout section off the belay, and I was a 5.8 climber when I led it. I thought it was pretty easy. Although I was a little sketched on the upper face stuff upon linking pitch 3 & 4; it's where I dropped a precious HB offset out of my mouth, when fumbling for a nut placement; so if anyone finds it at the base somewhere.... ; ) Thanks for bringing back a good memory for me, Killis. :)
By vegastradguy From: Henderson, NV Dec 14, 2007 rating: 5.8 R
a good route, but definitely not a beginners 5.8. I found the belays to be....inadequate for the first two pitches, but the stances are huge, so it worked out.
the corner on the second pitch looked harder than 5.7, so i climbed the face to the right at 5.7/5.8ish...not bad, but no gear!
the third pitch was fun, but definitely run-out- link with the fourth for extra fun.
the fifth pitch was amazing- from below it looked much harder than 5.8, but ended up being a joy to climb!
the next person who climbs this route should take....20-30' of webbing up with them to replace the last rap station on the rap route to the left- that thing is total junk and needs an overhaul!
A not-bad route in a great location. Every pitch had something of interest, but it is not very sustained.
We left gear at the base and rapped right back to it.
The rap route could use some sprucing up. We replaced a wad of old webbing at the second station (the top of p2 of the route that now climbs up through here) on the little oak shrub. I feel sorry for the oak - this might be a good place to put another bolted anchor? Or there is a third station farther down, but we didn't look at that very closely, since our 60m ropes put us back on the ground from the little oak.
Black Orpheus Amphitheater
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