Purblind Pillar 

Thanks to Karl and Joanne for putting up this amazing route!
I'm sad to say, I liked it better than Tunnel Vision, and Group Therapy.

The views from this climb are beautiful, and all of the pitches were a blast! The descent is straightforward, and makes for a nice, but somewhat long walk off. You may want to bring your approach shoes up.

Note: With a morning start, we were in direct sunlight for the entire climb. My tongue was hanging out by the time I reached my pack. The route gets shaded in the afternoon, so a later start would be better this time of year if you are desperate to do this 4 star route on a hot day.

This is really a wonderful route! The climbing has a lot of variation with hardly a foot of it that is boring. The views are spectacular. I absolutely agree with Gigette about the water on this route. I had 3 liters in my Camelback, and, even though I thought i was conserving it, managed to go through all of it by the end of the fourth pitch. It made for a very dry finish and walk off.

Just one note I would add to the description: On the sixth pitch, when the beta says to go up towards the bush and then clip a bolt to the left, the bolt is at least 2-3' below the bush and quite a ways, 8-10', to the left of the crack. I knew it was supposed to be there, and, even though I was looking for it, almost missed it because I wasn't looking nearly far enough left and was looking for something directly in line with the base of the bush.

This deserves to be a real Red Rocks classic climb. In my mind it has it all over Tunnel Vision any day of the week. Thanks Karl and Joanne.

I climbed this in a 3-man party last weekend and had a great time. A very fun route with some great climbing. A couple suggestions I noticed compared to the route description:

P2- The flat ledge seemed much closer than 85 ft. This led our group to climb higher to determine if the ledge was further up.

P4- I found it hard to protect the wide crack, which led to some long runouts. I missed the horizontal fissure, obviously.

P5- I believe that it was this pitch... there is a small roof as you near the end of the crack system that provides an option of going right or left. The chalk led me to the right, which eventually rejoined the crack line but resulted in A LOT of rope drag. Our third climber was ascending a fixed rope and took the left variation. We agreed that both variations seemed of equal difficulty, but going left resulted in less drag.

This is a wonderful line, and the descent was also very straightforward and enjoyable. Follow the cairns, and bring your hiking shoes!

MM

I enjoyed this route for the beautiful exposure and the solid rock at the moderate rating. I thought pitch 3 was only about 100 ft. no where near the 150 ft stated to the belay. Also you could easily use up to a # 4 Camalot on picth 4. It took three of us 9 hours car to car. Over all I'd say it is probably the best climb on the Angle Food Wall:)

A good route- especially if Tunnel and Group are packed.

Couple of notes:

Bring a #4 Camalot- its good to have. We didnt have it and i certainly could have used it, esp on the 4th pitch.

The route is run-out in many places, so be prepared for that. The climbing is not necessarily difficult, but the route is new, so the rock is still a bit sandy in places.

The second pitch is 50', not 85'.

The crux of the fifth pitch could get harder over time as the footholds are somewhat suspect. I tried it by just smearing and found it to be decently hard for 5.8.

We completely missed the last pitch because we forgot to turn right and instead climbed a beautiful varnished crack on the headwall to the left of the dihedral- it was quite fun and after a few ascents will clean up nicely- it's probably 5.8 or 5.9, although its a bit loose in places right now.

Fun route! Needs a bit of traffic but generally pretty clean. As John said, we missed the last pitch but the crack on the black headwall at the top is great fun (I was hoping he would decline the lead but he cruised it instead!).

Notes: pitch 3 is 80 feet, not 150. I ended up about where one of the climbers is in one of the photos (about 50' up the next pitch just below the overhang) before realizing that the pitch length was way off and I had better set an anchor where I had any pro at all.

The sling anchor on top of pitch 1 is pretty good, but not super bomber. I didn't find any really good backup pro either.

After doing the traverse around the corner on pitch 3 (after clipping the bolt), you gain the groove and go up it a few feet, and then there's another bolt back over left that is easy to traverse to. It protects a fun steep move or two before stepping back right to the flat ledge.

Good route, I liked it more than Group Therapy, but I think Tunnel Vision is higher quality.

I thought the start of pitch 5 after the bolt was pretty hard and spicy for 5.8! Before the bolt I didn't dare use several knobs out of concern that I'd snap them off. But I've been climbing a lot of granite lately so maybe I'm just paranoid about sandstone!

Just did this route yesterday; my third route on Angel Food Wall and by far the best.
I agree the anchor at the top of pitch 1 is less than inspiring; bolts would be nice. I backed it up with a #3 Camalot in a slot just above the slings.
The friction crux at the bolt on pitch 2 was, for a Joshua Tree slab climber, barely 5.7. Perhaps because I wasn't fully warmed up yet, I thought the first pitch was harder.
I got lost on pitch 3 (my fault). The 5.9 variation goes up from the left side of the ledge. I went up the crack/gully off the right side of the ledge, then thought I was on the 5.9 variation, came down, went right some more, realized I was wrong, broke a foothold coming back, then my partner spotted the bolt and all went well after that. I too wondered about the second bolt on that pitch.
On pitch 4, yes a #4 Camalot would be very nice. I had used our #3.5 at the belay and #3 in a pocket low on the pitch. A couple of hexes kept it from being a complete solo!
On pitch 5 I used the knobs (the bigger ones) for footholds and thought the crux was one 5.8- high step move from the position of the climber in photo #16 above.
The climbing between the bolts on pitch 6 was easy but absolutely spectacular! A great finish to a great route!

A classic route which I enjoyed tremendously. Part of its appeal is that it has a couple of traversing sections. My favorite pitch was probably the 2nd, which I suppose is the crux pitch - a smeary traverve above a huge amount of exposure. I put a #4 Camalot to good use on several of the pitches, and for a belay on P2.

I found this route fun with no bad pitches. But I still think Tunnel Vision is the best climb on this formation, at least the most unique. I've not done Group Therapy.

The third pitch now seems to have two bolts. There is a second bolt 10 feet above and to the right of the first. It is easy to climb past it on the right and miss it. You can move back left and clip it, but it is in a strange place. The fifth pitch involves stepping on some large knobs which seem about to bust off, but I suppose they are solid. It is easy to belay too high at the end of this pitch and miss the sixth pitch. You need to move right immediately after reaching the first large ledge (after 100 feet).

From our fifth belay, we couldn't see the notorious shrubbery, but moving down and right it soon came into view. The first bolt on this pitch can't be seen until it is in your face as it is right above an overhang. This bolt was actually about 20' directly above the belay, but not visible. The second bolt is about 20' above the first. This last pitch is pretty cool and the walk off is easy.

If you start early, this route is in the sun all the way. A later start would be shadier ...

don't want to sound like the black sheep of comments, but i think you could get by just fine with a doubles rack to #3 camalot. really want to do the two variation next time for sure.

This route takes a great line up the Angel food wall and was a lot of fun. The two cruxes are both face moves that required a little bit of thinking but nothing exceptional. Careful leaving the 4th belay, the knobs are sketchy and if you break one off before reaching the bolt you will most likely land on your belayer. I agree that there were a few run-out sections so keep that in mind as well.

The first pitch is great. The 5.9 variation was good, not the best rock though. We toped out on the fun crack to left of the actual route and a large boulder filled corner.

Great route. We started at 11:30 and had NO sun all day. It's pretty north-east facing, so don't expect much this time of year. Although pretty protected from wind.

All the pitches were fun and had their unique challenges, from chimneys to cracks. Definitely some runout in P6 (think I placed 2 pieces of pro only!).

We topped out in the dark (nice views of Vegas!). I'm sorry, but who ever said the walk-off was easy is WRONG!! Talk about scary. Very sketchy and very steep. Never did find the rap bolts. Took just under 2 hours to get back to the car. Only thing that saved our butts was the cairns. Thank you, thank you, thank you to those wonderful people that placed those.

"Easy descent" in daylight does not imply "easy descent" at night, especially if you've never done it before. Any descent can get much harder in the dark and/or when you are off route. The descent is easy in the daylight by RR standards, anyway. We didn't do any rappels.

Debbie-It's a walkoff, what rap bolts do you speak of?

"Debbie-It's a walkoff, what rap bolts do you speak of?"

I think the guidebook mentions a bolted rappel and my bet is that its the rappel off the big ledge to the looker's left (climber's right) part way down the "walk off". Its the big ledge marked with cairns (and you walk across and around to the left on, to an airy location with a rap anchor, one I'd noticed on a prior climb). Not sure what the rappel leads to. As mentioned, its a fairly easy and straightforward descent, and one I'd not care to do in the dark (!).

I think its a grade II route (not a III as mentioned in the description). The cruxes are short and not sustained for the grade and the climbing goes very quickly, with little route finding. This is really a "less than half day" type route. Most capable climbers should be able to knock this out, car-to-car, in under 6 hours.

We also backed up P1's sling wad with a #3 camalot. Rack: I'd suggest a single rack from 00 TCU through #3 camalot. We took and placed the #4 (once, on p4, just to justify using it) but its not really required. Missed the first bolt on P3, and didn't bother clipping the second (no need as a good cam to the right in the crack protects that area and it would have added rope drag unless a long sling was used). On the P3 traverse, found good horizontals for small TCU's (00 and 0 I seem to recall). The P6 first bolt is just visible from the flat ledge belay in profile over a bulge. Knowing to head left from the corner when it gets steep helps (Handren guide nailed the description for this pitch).

Strange, given the comments above, but, I thought the P2 crux was kinda thin and at least 5.8 (sandy soft rock too), and, the P5 crux 5.8 pretty light (ie, more like 5.7).

Great route. Every pitch was fun and memorable.