By brucy Apr 22, 2010
| In it's present condition, this 5 bolt route is at best but one star. The 1st two bolts are fun with the bouldery crux between 2 and 3; but, here's the rub- the route was most likely pink not redpointed on the 1st ascent with prehung draws on 3 and 4. If one attempts to hang their own draw on 3 they will find it not very much fun and much bolder then if a long draw is pre-placed on it allowing essentially a top rope crux. Clipping 4 is totally easy- if you're 6' tall, any less, and you'll likely have to do an additional move or two to clip. The climbing above 5 is fun too (albeit with friable stone), but, here's another problem: one clips the 5th from a big old no hands ledge, but the route designers decided to build in an "committing" ego based run out above it! Result- fall or break a hold and- you, might very well get "broken" (excellent engineering guys). The anchor is probably 4' higher then it should have been (unless you don't care about rope abrasion issues). Final tally: this is a route that "could" have been 2 stars (3 if a permanent long chain draw was installed on the 3rd bolt and another bolt was placed shortly above the 5th), likely to happen- not.....sad. |