Zenyatta Entrada 

As a variation, a fingers to fist crack system to the right of the normal first pitch can be climbed to the same belay ledge. The lower section is great and A1, but the upper 20 feet of the pitch wander through nasty loose blocks(best to free climb them at 5.9 or so). I have no idea if this is named or not, but wear along the crack indicates it has been climbed before we did it.

My friend Sean and I climbed it free to the large blocks. Lots of wind and lack of guts forced us to decend. It would be fun to aid. Guess I'll check the web site before I try a route next time.

where it says bolt ladder it means a couple of pieces of fixed pro and then empty drilled pin holes that are now too big for pins. be ready for some scary hooking (especially when its windy) and tricam placements. Other than that we used small BD nuts, HB offsets and brass offsets for all those pin scars (maybe an alien or two).

I soloed this route in the spring and this is what I thought would be a super rack:

two full sets of nuts smallish to big w/ small hb off-sets(especially green) no tiny rp's

one full set of aliens with an extra green and yellow (offset green/blue would be super)

one set of camalots .4 to #3.5 with two extra .75's

one #4 friend or 3.5 camalot

one red and one blue tri-cam

bat hook, 2 cliff hangers, grappling hook, many tie-offs, big kahunas. screamer.

cheers! aaron

Grappling hook ??? do you mean a Pika Ibis hook ???

Yeah, when I first put this description on here all that hooking on the second to last pitch wasn't nearly as scary. A lot of those holes had big angles in them, and the route hadn't gone clean yet, so I was using sawed off bongs up there and it was bomber. Now hooking all those holes is a little bit scary, but only because the rock is kindof sandy. All the placements are good though. I went back a couple years ago to do it clean, and it was mostly the same except for hooking in those holes up there. Pretty fun.

How long does this route generally take...

Great route with lots of spice. Has anyone freed the hooking section? I was surprised at how low angle it was. It's pretty sandy though and it's not like you look up from that bolt and see the end of the difficulties.

ALSO- My thanks to Rick Poedtke, Matt Schutz, and the ASCA for replacing the bolts at the belays!

More Pictures and a TR at http://www.piquaclimber.com/past/towerofbabel/towerofbabel.h>>>>>

We are in the process of cleaning up and strengthening the anchors in arches. One of the most visually obtrusive climbs is Zenyatta Entrada so we are beefing those anchors up and changing them to brown heavy-gauge chain. We will also replace the bolt ladder, so that it is back to the way it was at the first ascent. Many of you have gotten up it since the first ascent via harder aid moves, probably stacking pins in the rounded over blowouts that were left where the bolts once were. Much debating could be done about this, but most peoples opinions have been that the route needs to be what it was for the first ascentionists. Bolts should not be added to existing lines, but they also should not be taken away if those bolts were needed in the first ascent. Also, the rules currently in Arches (and Canyonlands) make it illegal to bang pins into those scars. So some of the techniques presently used to get up the old bolt latter are not permissible. Some might have done it via hooking in the blowouts, but this won't last long. The blow outs will eventually not take the hooks, either, and then we will have a rebolted set of anchors that end at a bunch of blown out scars.
If you made it up Zenyatta without the bolts, you deserve full credit for it. Please understand that this replacement is being undertaken solely to assure that future ascents will still be possible and legal.
Sam Lightner, Jr.
Arches Task Force Coordinator
ASCA Eastern Utah Coordinator
The Access Fund

My wife and I climbed Zenyatta hammerless in March 2006 and found the climb to be in pretty sorry condition--in definite need of some maintainence. When the park ruled against hammers and bolts I thought "Well, there goes Zenyatta Entrada." I'm glad to here that you are going to be allowed to replace the anchors and some of the bolts on the route. I hope there has been some discussion about moving/replacing the fixed pendulum point. It appeared that there used to be fixed gear much higher than there is currently at the pendulum.

Arches Task Force Update
Over the weekend we went about fixing up Z.E. It was, as Tyson says, quite a mess. It is clear that many ascents have been made using the old blown-out drilled-angle-holes with more pins and hooking. SOme of these are still hookable, but not for long. You can see where the hook placement is getting closer and closer to the lip, eventually blowing it out and forcing another hole to be drilled. This is a waste of a resource.
So, we replaced many of the original bolts on the upper bolt ladder. Not all as they are not all necessary... you can high step, get other gear in, and even do a 5.4 free move here and there to get by them. In other words, the second to last pitch is not an A0 bolt ladder but something more like an A2 mixed pitch, but it is climbable now without using pins (illegal) and the eroding scars don't' have to be worked over any more by hooks and more drilling.
As for the so called pendulum point, I didn't use it. With a couple of larger (3 1/2 -4 friend) came you can just do a move or two in the horizontal and skip the pendulum... this leaves the route cleaner as well as the pendulum point was gathering nasty wads of tat ( I personally didn't even realize there was a pendulum point til Tyson pointed it out... i just aided right on some of the best placements of the pitch)
We are not quite finished, but should be by February 20th.
Thanks are owed to the Rick and Matt for adding bolts to the anchors before. We incorporated these into the chain anchors.
More thanks to Eric and Seth from Pocatello for assisting on the last pitch and helping getting ropes higher.
The route will now be able to be climbed clean and without leaving webbing behind. This will make the Park Service much happier about its most prominent rock climb. Please do everything you can not to add webbing to the route... even brown webbing fades in the sun and then stands out.

Sam, perhaps you and I are talking about different pitches--or I had some serious blinders on when I climbed the thing. I've uploaded a photo of the third pitch (as described in the description above) to clarify the part of the route I was talking about. As you can see I've indicated on the photo both the lone fixed pin sticking out or the rock and the obvious hole above that I'm assuming was used as the original pendulum point. Are you saying a pendulum isn't necessary here? If so I must have really missed something when I was up there.

Ahh Yeah, that.
OK< my partner got an HB above the pin (now a half inch bolt) that he very gingerly pendulumed on. It was not pretty. Having heard now that there was a pin above that, I will llook for the scar tomorrow. I assume you are right, and if I concur, then another pendulum bolt will be added there. If they had it, it should be there.
Glad you filled me in on that.
The point I was thinking of was on the 5th pitch... You aid up the face in a thin crack with some pods, then traverse right to the bolt ladder. 5 feet above the point you traverse right there was a really old pin with about 3 miles of whithered tat on it... that was the one that seemed superfulous.
A point I'm proud of here: I managed to get the words "concur" in "superfulous" into a message about banging fancy nails into a rock.

Glad to hear that I wasn't just losing it up there! Take a look and see what you think. I know there is a line of scars leading up a thin seam above the existing pendulum point--what condition these scars are in I do not know. Hopefully they are in good enough shape that they can be climbed with clean gear. If so, I am almost certain there is an old hole where there used to be a drilled angle just above where the seam ends. This would put one in a much better position to transition into the dihedral to the left.
As it is now, I thought the pendulum was the sketchiest part of the whole climb. (Either that or I just became numb to the danger by the time I reached the final pitches!) At any rate, it was definitely a fine line between lowering out enough to be able to reach the corner versus lowering out so much that you would end up below it.

So with the rebolting taking place, does it still climb at C3?

The C3 roof pitch is still C3. The bolt ladder pitch, which was C3 after all the bolts fell out, is now probably C2.
It is still a very physical route. If you are tall the reaches are easier to the better aid placements. If not, you need to top step. The upper portion of the route is overhanging.
A number of bolts were not repaired because modern gear makes them no longer neccessary. This is the case on the crux pitch where the traverse can be done on large cams. The large cams, like 4 and 5 friends (2 X#4, 1 X#5), are also useful on the very last summit knob pitch where there is no bolted anchor to begin from (you traverse away from the rappel anchors on a large ledge before starting the pitch).
Tyson, I concurred with your pendulum point. Its back to its original.
In general, I think its important to note that the placing of drilled angles, and then the removal of those drilled angles, on the first and subesquent ascents, IS REALLY BAD FOR THE ROCK. I have to admit I did this once on a F.A., accidentally (the rock was too soft to hold the pins or bolts). All of us should refrain from it in the future. It really does wear out the rock. Also, hooking in the pin scars is short lived... it doesn't take long before the hooks scrape out the base of the scar and then its unusable.
Please note that this climb is the most prominent in the Park. Please try to not add webbing to the anchors... we need them to blend in. All anchors are chained together and incorporate at least two 1/2 inch by 4 inch bolts.

On pitch 3 the high pendulum point never was really needed. My notes from 1991 mention this hole, and that we did not use it back then. Barely a pendulum as I recall, just tension to a ledge by a large loosish block. The block looks to be gone now, from the photo.

No biggie either way. I guess the hole was used on the first ascent.

Thanks for fixing this route up Sam.

Sam, thanks a ton for making a great route better and more accessible for more people. It was fun to hang out with you and it was my pleasure to help the access fund/ASCA even if it was a small amount of help. However I still can't figure out what that smell was; there's no way that was produced by a human! Nasty dude. If you ever need someone to help on a route look me up. Peace, Eric Barnard; ebarnardus@yahoo.com

Eric, thank you for helping me out... no telling how long it would have taken without you guys there. I want to point out that though the route is "more accessible" now, cus the anchors are solid and the bolt ladder is not a rotting hook-line, it is by no means a give-away. The roof pitch is C3 and the so-called bolt ladder pitch is still real C2 with a fall possibly dropping you 15-20 onto a ledge.
Crusher, Jason and I also did the pitch without the pendulum point, but with serious consequences. I decided to replace it when I found the obvious scar at the top (on the face and above) the crack... this was clearly an angle at one time. It did make that pitch safer, but no safer than it was for Charlie and Eric on the FA.
The main reason for the re-equipping of this route was NOT to make it easier. The goal was to change the anchors over to chain so they dont' stand out and to replace the equipment that was originally there. This made it easier relative to those few ascents done when the equipment wasn't replaced... however, its still an aid climb with serious consequences in a few spots.

I've uploaded a topo of this route based on photos I took a year ago when my wife and I climbed this route. I would love to update the topo to reflect the current condition of the route. If those of you that have been up on it recently doing repairs could contact me with information on any new hardware, I would certainly add it to the drawing.

The only thing I would add to your topo are that there is a bolt at the top of the pendulum and about 5 more bolts up on the second to last pitch where you show all the old banged-in-pin-holes.

Thanks for updating the anchors on this route. I've been wanting to finish it for a long time and now I"ve got no excuse!

Anyone care to update the rack recommendation? Thanks.

Could the next person going up this do me (and everyone else) a favor? Could you be so kind as to take a tube of thread lock up the route and lock the bolts in. SOme of the olbts are strike anchors, which work really well in soft rock and have a nut that has a built on swivelling washer. They are not suppose to twist off easy, but I'm rethinking it and thinking that a little lock-tite would solidify the system.
Sam

vertical pano with unknown party on ZE:

Just did this route yesterday...Thanks Sam for fixing it up. Great climb. This thing eats up offsets(aliens and HB's). Large Aliens make blown-out boxes very managable. Did not use any hooks and could have done without tricams (only placed one).

My wife & I did this line this past weekend (very windy). A GREAT outing! Many thanks to Sam for the huge amount of work in fixing this line up! Also, Tyson A.'s topo was great - thanks. For what it's worth, what took me the most time to figure out was a move 10 feet below the intermediate belay on P3 (maybe a mid-sized tricam would've eased my stress there?).

Climbers in above photo are Eric Barnard and Seth Casebolt