Easy runout to the base of an obvious crack. The crux is right off the slab and is protected by a bolt. The difficulties begin with a sharp off-hands crack which gives way to strenuous hands and fists to the top. Addendum per guide book: Skirt right of the bolt and back to the crack on p1 to make it 10a P2: Climb a wide crack along an arch to a bolted anchors, 5.8 70 ft P3: Pull over a 5.9 bulge and belay after 100ft P4: scramble up easier ground and descend as for the nose
Location
Hike in as for the Nose and head downhill and north from the the base of the Nose. Walk past a large slab and find the obvious crack.
Protection
A single bolt at the crux. Wide range of passive gear. Multiples in the 2-3 camalot range. Rap the nose route.
There are two ways to do this route free. The original way, done by Bob Mitchell, went up to the base of the crack, did an undercling out right & then traversed back left to enter the crack above the first flared section of crack.
The other way is to climb the crack direct. This was first done by Henry Barber on his visit to Looking Glass.. Probably the way most folks do it these days.
Jamming the flared section proved to be really difficult for me. Look forward to doing the whole climb next time I am there. The hand crack after the flare probably isn't much harder than 5.8.
The first pitch was interesting, but the remainder of the route was not so good. I looked for quite awhile, but couldn't find any moves approaching 5.9 on the third pitch...just a bunch of low angle, very mossy slab climbing.
Very fun climbing. Crux move was not to difficult, but definitely should be approached as a lay back instead of trying to jam. I found the move getting into the actual hand crack above the crux to be more difficult.
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