The Glass Menagerie 

Not all free lines are worth aiding. This one is.

The vision of climbing this route free was Jeep Gaskin's in the Mid 70's. The iconic hardman of that era, Henry Barber had been out visiting & recently freed Cornflake Crack. That really opened our eyes to what was possible & might be possible from a free climbing perspective at the Glass.

Shortly after Barber's free ascent I managed to lead the second free ascent of Cornflake Crack with Jeep & some other friends. That was a quantum leap for us & inspired us to believe we might be making some headway in our own free climbing efforts & abilities.

After our own free ascent of Cornflake, Jeep was really fired up & told me he had been working on freeing the first pitch of Glass Menagerie. It was an abandoned Brad Shaver, rainy day, aid project called "Rubber Ducky" at that time. This uncompleted aid route went up about 100 feet on some of the steepest climbed rock at the Glass. To think of free climbing up there was a wild idea! Jeep had already freed most of the pitch & encouraged me to go give it a try.

I was skeptical that this would go free but decided to give it a go and to my suprise and delight was able to completely free the first pitch up to the big ledge. This was done with Randy Mann probably @ 1976/77 and at that time was probably the hardest free climbing pitch at the Glass. We thought it was an amazing pitch and was atypical of most of the climbing at Looking Glass. It was very steep climbing with some very hard climbing around some kind of questionable pro. Not much like it had been done in the state at the time. We thought of the first pitch as a free climb in itself & named it "Contemporary Insanity" and thought it was probably 5.11.

Later, we tried pushing more free climbing up a second pitch from there & Jeep & I, on different attempts, freed most of the next part up to the original belay in the dihedral. Sounds like this might have now changed some from the above description. Jeep later went on to complete the route to the top as an amazing aid route. We really never imagined back then that this "whole climb" would actually go free some day. I sure wish I had the strength & ability to do this one free to the top. Maybe in my next life. What an awesome route!!

Killer bit of History there Bob. Thanks.

This is a spectacular route indeed--a beautiful weakness up the steepest granite face I've seen. My partner and I freed it in May 2007. A couple of comments to the description above:

Pitch 1: If you're hauling, put your bag behind the big, rooty tree where the trail meets the cliff. The first belay station is directly above. After the short right facing corner, move up and slightly right on amazing edges to a long, slopey move and a bolt. Then head back left, doing cool technical moves on slots and crimps past manky fixed pro. This takes you to a small roof. You'll be inclined to place a #1 or #2 Camalot in the back--use a 4-foot runner if you choose to do so, or skip the cam, do a couple more moves, and clip the good bolt over the roof. Pull the roof and gain the rotten band. Here, you will traverse hard RIGHT for 40 feet or more, past a rap station. The rock here is some of the worst I've climbed on, but the climbing's easy (5.8) if you take your time. Gear is sparse, but you can get a yellow TCU in the back of the little cave just right of the rap station. Surmount the bulge and you're at the belay station at the base of the 12+ corner.

Pitch 2: We never touched the corner itself, but stayed on the face to the left (where the bolts are) for the entire pitch. I think this is the standard beta. This pitch has great climbing, but the rock is a little friable. We broke fist-sized chunks off of both the lower layback flake and the upper crack. I think the lower flake has now stabilized; can't comment on the upper crack. It's difficult to hang a draw on the third bolt. Cams aren't really necessary on this pitch. You can place a .75 camalot when you come around the arete just before the belay, but you'll probably only do so the first couple of times up. After that you'll know where the jugs are.

Pitch 3: As described. A really interesting pitch.

Pitch 4: We only placed once piece of gear on this pitch, a #1 Camalot just off the belay. The rest is fixed. Above the roof, climb straight up and a touch left to a long horizontal feature and a two or maybe three-bolt belay festooned with tat.

Pitch 5: Classic funk pitch traversing a horizontal butt crack. After we had both redpointed the roof we thought the route was in the bag. Then we ran into this sucker. It was rather dirty when we encountered it, so we had to spend a day scrubbing lichen with a wire brush to unearth the grips. The moves are somewhat cryptic, but basically you work your way down and left off the belay on slopey moves where it's hard to see your feet. The feet (eyebrows) are the key. We linked this pitch with the next short vertical crack to a fixed-gear anchor--didn't stop at the bolted hanging belay (the one accurately described above as "20 feet above the lip"). It was a rather scary pitch to second because of the downward traverse followed by a vertical crack.

Pitch 6: Another funky traverse pitch characterized by smeary feet and sloping slots for the hands. Bring 2 purple TCUs. We built a gear belay with hand-sized pieces at the slight overhang below the crack.

Pitch 7: A really nice crack pitch. Thin hands to OW, but, as Croft says, "this is nothing you need to freak out about." At the top, claw right past the slabby finish to belay below the final crack.

Pitch 8: A water groovy crack leads to a poorly-protected 5.7ish slab. Belay at the bolts on the sloping ledge or continue to the rhododendron.

To descend, we walked uphill into the rhodos until we found a path heading approximately east. We then picked our way down the east shoulder. We ended up at the base of another climbable face (the Hidden Wall?), then cut back west to get back to the base of the North Side. A little slippery and dirty, but no raps necessary.

Hope that helped.

Josh

One more piece of crucial beta: do a lap through Brevard College just before the final push. If a white squirrel crosses your path, you'll know that the send is near.