Type: Trad, 180 ft (55 m), 2 pitches
FA: R. Hardwick, G. Parker, P. Gleason, 1972.
Page Views: 1,897 total · 19/month
Shared By: Trevor Bowman on Feb 29, 2016 · Updates
Admins: Greg Opland, Brian Boyd, JJ Schlick, Kemper Brightman, Luke Bertelsen

You & This Route


14 Opinions
Your To-Do List: Add To-Do ·
Your Star Rating:
Rating Rating Rating Rating Rating      Clear Rating
Your Difficulty Rating:
-none- Change
Your Ticks:Add New Tick
-none-
Use onX Backcountry to explore the terrain in 3D, view recent satellite imagery, and more. Now available in onX Backcountry Mobile apps! For more information see this post.

Description Suggest change

A great, old-school outing with clean climbing and good rock, but you had better like wide climbing. This was one of the best old-school lines I've yet done in Sedona, but seems to go surprisingly neglected. With an easy approach, two quality pitches, some crazy positions, and a great summit, it deserves more attention.

Although south-facing, this is mostly shaded since it's tucked right up against the South Mesa. It is fully shaded in the afternoon.

Pitch 1--Belay for the first pitch in the comfortable notch between the tower and the South Mesa. Start up splitter fingers in a slight flare, which widen quickly to good, steep hands for a ways, with a couple big reaches past wider pods. The hero hands end beneath a 15' OW, smooth-walled and in a flare. Burl up this with arm-bars, heel-toeing, and whatever else works...this is another good example of just how hard 5.9 from the 70's can be! Take care with some loose debris in the back of the OW. At the top of the OW, burrow horizontally through a wild hole into the middle of the tower for the "room" belay. Belay off of hand/finger gear. (5.9++, 80')

Pitch 2--Tiptoe toward the light (north, toward the Middle Mesa and the Mace) out a sloping ledge to the outermost edge of the imposing chimney above. Take care not to trundle yourself off the ledge into the bottomless chimney below! Breath deep and start wriggling up the incredible chimney above, which maintains a fairly constant width for the whole pitch, and offers micro-features for the lower 1/2 and some larger pockets and edges up high. The guidebook says this is runout for the first 30', but I didn't see any cracks anywhere in the chimney, and only found one marginal TCU about 2/3 of the way up. It's secure chimney work, but approach this pitch as essentially a solo. Belay off of slung shrubs and a small juniper on the summit. (5.8 R/X, 100')

Location Suggest change

The summit anchor is about 20' below the actual summit, above the south face. It is two 3/8" Bandito bolts that are decent, but a new bolt would be nice. We swapped out the crusty tat with some rope. Chains would be a great addition!

You can double rope rap to the notch, or do a shorty rappel past the buldge and then pull the rope and rap to the notch. Works with a 70m, and likely a 60m with stretch or 1 move down. Not a bad idea to leave some cord or something to the intermediat anchor to help with the pull, but not mandatory.

Protection Suggest change

(1X).4-.75 (2X) 1,2 (1X) 3,6 C4 Camalots, slings. 1 70m rope. Bring another #2 if you want to sew it up, and another #6 if you really don't like bumping cams up OWs.

Photos

loading