"Space Invaders" to "Shot"  5.10c X

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Type:  Trad, 1 pitch, 140 feet Consensus:  5.10c [details] FA:  Jeff Achey, 1980's Season:  Faces West Submitted By:  Tony B on Oct 10, 2006 You & This Route  |  Other Opinions (1) Your todo list: Your stars: Your rating: -none- [change] Your ticklist: [add new tick]

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Subject to Seasonal Closures MORE INFO >>> The following crags are typically closed 1 February to 31 July: The Goose Goose Eggs East Ridge Mars Block Nebel Horn Tower of the Moon Jamcrack Spire The Pyramid Incognito Crag Devil's Thumb Shadow Fax Isolation Rock Sunset Wall Devil's Wing (W. Face) The Matron Lost & Found The Sibling Toddler Rock Sphinx Medusa Details. In addition, Mallory Cave, Harmon Cave, and Seal View Cave are permanently closed to human use to reduce the chance of introducing white-nose syndrome. This information is a public crowdsourcing effort between the Access Fund, and Mountain Project. You should confirm closures, restrictions, and/or related dates. Keeping climbing areas open and conserving the climbing environment Flatirons Climbing Council Preserving climbing access in the Flatirons

Description 

It might be a little hard to say exactly where this route is, as Shot, Space Invaders, and one other route are a little confused in the Rossiter guidebook. The topo and the photo are in disagreement, and neither correlates well to the text. As well, the first pitch of Violator appears to be a retro-bolted line of one the other trad lines, if anything makes sense at all.

But this will correspond to the ascent I made. If anyone has other info, please chime in.

This route would get more stars if it were more solid rock and gear, but unfortunately, both the rock and the gear go bad at once, in an area of very high potential consequence.

The route starts with a shallow left-facing corner with a very thin crack, goes to a ledge, then up further in an even thinner crack to a small Knifeblade (spook!) and then left over some flakes and onto a low a angle section, then left through a very thin and brittle flake (2.5" cams will go deep enough to hold) and then up left into a right-facing corner to the roof JUST RIGHT of P2 of Violator. Pull up through the roof protected by a #4 Camalot (new or old style OK) and finish on a few less scary moves.
This route is pretty dangerous and has some loose rock. Best left to stonemasters and not for everyday use.
If you were to continue DIRECTLY up past the pin a and not pull left, you would end up at a thin left-facing corner at the roof (Small ball-nuts or RPs?) after a runout through bad rock. There is a single open spot below the roof, maybe 5" wide, but this fails to meet the description in the book of "A fist crack through a roof."

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?

Location 

To the left of "False Gods, Real Men" and slightly right of the heavily bolted first pitch of "Violator" about 250-300 meters uphill from the creek on Nebel Horn Ridge.
The route starts with a shallow left-facing corner with a very thin crack...

Protection 

Well, not so great. The first part is good rock and thin gear- Small stoppers, RPs and a ball nut. The second section is worse, for 20-30 feet of the ledge you get a ballnut and then a 20+ year old rusted, somewhat loose, under-driven Knifeblade, then some cams behind a thin crumbling flake... 30' off the deck. If you fall and the pin pulls, you are dead meat. Take a hammer and whack it in. My second drove it part way in with a rock in his fist.
After that, continue up on a .5-.75" cam, then a few 2-2.5" cams or #1 Camalots (take 3 in all) and a #4 Camalot at the lip of the roof. Lots of longer slings.
The route looks like a multi-pitch route, but it has nothing worthy of a belay until the top.