The Empire Strikes Back  5.11b X

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Type:  Trad, TR, 1 pitch, 80 feet Consensus:  5.11b [details] FA:  Dan Michael and Debbie Middleton, 1979 Fixed Hardware:  1 Lead Bolt [details] Submitted By:  Paul S on May 25, 2007 You & This Route  |  Other Opinions (2) Your todo list: Your stars: Your rating: -none- [change] Your ticklist: [add new tick]

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Description 

The Empire Strikes Back is the obtuse dihedral to the climbers right of P2 of Star Wars. I loved this pitch, most of the moves on it are thought provoking, weird, and just fun, perfect Eldo climbing. The line goes up the dihedral, and as we climbed it, at the bolt near the top, it goes a bit right to meet up with the short steep dihedral that Home Free finishes with. Rossiter mentions that originally the line goes up left then "through a notch at the top". I wasn't able to see this line, but then again, I wasn't looking too hard for it....

Location 

Starts on the same platform as P2 of Star Wars, its the obvious obtuse dihedral to the right of Star Wars.

Protection 

I noticed one spot that would probably take a tiny TCU, that's about it. There's a bolt near the top, right before the crux, but right in that section of the climb, some of the holds seemed like they could pull off..so it'd be a pretty dicey lead with that small section of bad rock, and lack of protection. A TR can be set up in the steep dihedral above a small ledge by either doing P2 of Home Free or by traversing in from Star Wars. Just after the v-slot and before the short bulge move of that route, traverse right along the ledge to the dihedral (be very careful of loose rock!!).