Home - Destinations - People - Partners - Forum - Photos - What's New
 ADVANCED
Shortoff Mountain
Show routes:
Select route...
Appalachain Chuffer 
Appalachain Runt 
Big Arete, The 
Built to Tilt 
Construction Job 
Dancing Outlaw, The 
Dopey Duck 
Early Times 
Energizer 
Finders Keepers 
Footloose 
Golden Rule 
Humdinger 
Julia 
Just Another Pretty Face 
Little Corner 
Lost and Found 
Maginot Line 
Paradise Alley 
Paradise City 
Paradise Lost 
Straight and Narrow 
White Corner 
White Russians Gone Bananas 

The Big Arete 

5.11

   

FA: Big Arete~ Nathan Brown 2009 Original Tall Order (last pitch) ~ Doug Sword, Nathan Brown spring 2005
New Route: Yes
Type: Trad
Consensus: 5.11 [details]
Length: 3 pitches, 300 feet
Season: fall & spring are best, but it gets AM and late afternoon shade
Views: 294 page views

Submitted By: nbrown on Jun 11, 2009


Add Photo  Add Comment 

You and this route  |  Other Opinions (1)
Your todo list:
Your stars:
Your rating: -none- [change]
Your ticklist: [add new tick]
 Printer Friendly View

BETA PHOTO: The red is the original "Tall Order". The green i...


Description 

This is a direct route up the arete feature from the ground to the top. The exposed last pitch follows part of the older route "Tall Order", and is one of my personal all time favorites. An alternate pitch one is to climb "Help Mr Wizard" to the large ledge about 190' up.

P-1 5.11 Start underneath the arete of The "Big Corner", and below the left end of the block/ledge feature where "Armed Robbery" starts. Climb easy terrain to a short grungy chimney (extreme left side of "block") which leads to a 3 bolt line. Crank through this wild crux to better holds that eventually lead onto a pumpy 5.9ish face/arete. Continue up this to the large ledge about 170' up. Pro: #1 camelot down to #00 TCU's. Extra green & yellow alien sized pieces useful.

P-2 5.8 Climb the vertical wall with a seam, eventually wandering out onto the arete before moving back left to gain a nice ledge and a 2 bolt anchor. It is 190' down from here, not that you'd actually wanna go down...

P-3 5.10+? Move back over to the arete to gain a sloping ledge and a large block feature. Climb the left side of this feature to the short section of rotten rock that gains a small ledge atop the block. (Note: The original route comes in from the right and climbs the right side of this block). Clip bolt (pay attention to potential rope drag here) and start up into some of the best and most exposed climbing around. Keep your eyes peeled for a tricky shallow horizontal nut placement just above the last cruxy roof feature. This helps take the sting out of the funky mantel move, but is not neccessary and was not found originally during the FA. Continue up steep but more moderate climbing to the top.


Location 

Starts on "Help Mr Wizard" and climbs the large arete left of the "Big Corner".


Protection 

Standard shortoff rack. Extra slings usefull on last pitch. Maybe an extra 2 inch piece as well.



Comments on The Big Arete Add Comment
Show which comments
By Ben Sachs
Jun 12, 2009

This looks rad, thanks for posting.

By Tim Snyder
Aug 24, 2009

If anything will get people to come back to Shortoff, it will be this route. Absolute classic.