Mountain Project: Climbing Boulder Canyon

See description and topo on pages 30 and 31 of the Mark Rolofson Boulder Canyon Sport & Adventure Climber's Guide.

I thought Schizofrantic is way better and way harder than other 11a/b Boulder Canyon sport climbs I've done recently. The difficulty I experienced may have been due to the multiple cruxes, some strenuous, with no warm-up. I ended up hanging at all cruxes except the first, but I later did it clean on TR. Rolofson rates the cruxes as 11a (off the ground), 11a bulge, 10d dihedral (trad), 11b bouldery moves off the optional belay, 11a.

In my opinion Schizofrantic earns a few demerits for some unnecessary bolts (you are carrying a decent trad rack, so might as well place gear at several of the bolts), and for just barely skirting obvious trad variations. I'm surprised there isn't a trad climb in this area. Only the headwall above the optional belay is lacking in trad opportunities.

Approach: Schizofrantic is on the east face of East Blob Rock. Hike up the main Blob Rock trail and walk east along the base of Blob Slab. Head left up the gully along the base of the east face of East Blob. You will pass a large standing dead tree (Young and Rackless), and then the wall starts to overhang. The large right facing corner with a wide crack is Nighthawk, 10a. Just right of that is the trad finger crack, 12a Mile High Comic Crack. Right of that is the bolted finger crack The Enlightenment 13b/c. Right of that is a left facing corner and a large log across the gully. A few feet right of that 2 bolts lead over a bulge right off the ground. That's Schizofrantic.

Climb the initial bulge (11a) to a ramp, place some gear, and step left onto a steep wall to a rounded ledge (11a). You can more easily step right a move and bypass this section. The next section is trad. Reach right and then follow a crack left and up to a right facing dihedral. Finishing the dihedral to the optional belay ledge is 10d.

It doesn't make sense to me to belay at this ledge. There is a good 2-bolt anchor and another bolt a couple feet higher, but you'd be doing the 11b crux moves with hardly any rope out. So continue...

Some hard technical moves lead to a tricky short traverse left. You can get a small cam in the crack above. There is a bolt straight up. You can use the crack on the left in combination with holds on the right to move straight up to the bolt, or easier, just move left low and reach back right to clip. The final easier moves continue up a crack on the left until you can step back right onto big holds and then up to a ledge and the anchors.

Descent: CAREFUL. This really is 100'. Our rope hung short of the ground unweighted, but reached with rope stretch.

Protection

11 bolts plus 2 sets of anchors (there is an optional belay 2/3 of the way up). Plus trad gear: double cams from micro to 1", singles above that to hand size. The Rolofson guide suggests nuts, but I didn't place any.

Comments on Schizofrantic

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By Joe Collins
Jul 26, 2004

I'm not sure I would call this a "sport" climb. The mantle out of the trad section is pretty heady. Call it "mixed", and one of the best mixed climbs I've done in Boulder Canyon at that. I didn't think it avoided any obvious trad ground at all. The route does cross an established 5.8 trad line, but this is far from any of the bolted sections.

There's a little bit of everything on this pitch. A boulder problem start, steep flake pulling, a trad corner with a spicey mantle, then thin face. Each of these sections is separated by a no hands rest. The gear listhere and in the Rolofson guide is a bit much. I placed 3 or 4 medium stoppers and 2 cams. A single set of cams from .75 to 2 inches should be fine.

By Ivan Rezucha
From: Boulder, CO
Nov 6, 2005

Did this again today. Great climb! But I did something pretty dumb. I left the remains of my trad rack hanging from the anchor bolts at the optional belay. About 15' higher I regretted that. Fortunately I was climbing on doubles and was able to stretch left and clip a bolt on the adjacent climb with one of my ropes.

I suspect I've done the top wrong twice now. Above the thin face upper crux I've moved left using a diagonal hand crack rather than continuing straight up to the next bolt along a thin crack. Moving left seemed logical and led to a welcome rest. Rolofson's topo shows the route jogging left and then back right in this vicinity, but maybe it moves left after climbing the thin crack?

By John Korfmacher
From: Fort Collins, CO
Nov 20, 2006

TR'd this 11/19/06, with A. Wiedmann and Steve ??. The opening move eluded me until Al pointed out that the left hand jam/fingerlock can be augmented with arm friction if you jam it with the palm up. Then it was merely very difficult!

This is an interesting route though. A little bit of everything--jams, fingers, slopey face, awkward in places, straightforward in others.

Schizofrantic

5.11b

Description

Protection

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