Lance on the crux second pitch of Poseidon Adventu...
Description
Approach from the River Road (Hwy 128) by parking near the "Buffalo Chip Boulder" and finding the climber's trail. This boulder is on the river side of the road well before the Big Bend bouldering area.
The route follows the system below the notch left of the summit. The route can be done in 4 or 5 pitches depending on how you handle the easy traverse around the tower.
Pitch 1, 5.8+ : An awkward move involving an overhanging hand jam at a shelf gets you off the ground. Have no fear though, because this is probably the hardest move on the pitch. Climb through dirtier rock with GOOD pro to better rock with even better pro. The pitch involves stemming and jamming for the most part. A short squeeze brings you to a belay station. Better to belay here and not up higher because don't want to be forced into using any big gear for your belay.
Pitch 2, 5.10 : This is the crux pitch - a flaring chimney with an overhanging offwidth crack. Be sure and bring appropriate wide gear. Seems like two 4 camalots, one 4.5 camalot and a 5 friend would be fine. Fairly strenous climbing. The overhang becomes vertical again and turns to a fist and then hand crack. Move left to a huge ledge and belay.
Pitch 3, 5.8 : Make face moves outside of offwidth cracks to a ledge (good pro). Scramble up to a large hand crack but once again I made moves involving more face than jamming while leaving a 3.5 camalot in the crack. This takes you to the final squeeze before the notch. Squeeze and use the lip of the crack to arrive at a good belay in the notch. Not knowing what was next, I stopped and belayed here.
Pitch 4, 5.7 : From here a very easy, yet exposed "sidewalk" takes you around to the south side of the tower. There is one bolt to protect the technical move which brings you to yet another set of anchors on the south side. [ See notes below ]
Pitch 5, 5.9 : We thought this belay station was it for anchors, but we found yet even another set of anchors immediately below the summit block. Make fairly easy, but slightly dirty slab moves to these next anchors. We just clipped a sling to these though. The moves to the summit block are unprotected, although you CAN get gear in a horizontal crack just below the final moves. Wether this gear would hold your fall is questionable.... the gear gave me faith! The summit move is fairly easy, as is the unprotected downclimb. Bjornstad's book calls it 5.9 S, but I call it5.concentrate.
Summary of pitch 4 and 5: It ended up making sense for us to bring the partner around the traverse just to get us both on the same side for the summit belay and ready for the rappel. You could make the traverse at the end of the 3rd pitch, but then risk serious rope drag. You could conbine the traverse with the summit block pitch, but then risk rope drag and won't be able to communicate with your partner as well. Best done as we did it I think.
Rappel two 60m ropes to the south notch. This gets you to the ground on the east side. Make a short 50 foot rappel to the ground.
This is a very fun and adventurous route, but requires some groveling (and wide cams) up the chimney on the second pitch. I haven't done the Lonely Vigil route, but I suspect it's a little better in terms of overall quality.
Protection
We had about a set and a 3/4 of gear. Needed lots of wide gear for crux pitch (2), but ended up leap frogging. Two 4's, one 4.5 useful. 5 friend possibly too. Multiple .75 camalots useful for pitch 1, but once again back-cleaning or leap frogging helped me get by with only one. Good pro all the way, provided big gear included. Also, this doesn't count the summit pitch in which their is no good pro.
I just did this route last weekend and thought it was great. It is not that desperate and the rock for the most part is fairly good. There are however, some loose spots so be forewarned. The crux second pitch is awesome. It is very weird and you have to be fairly observant to make sense of it. Is it sandbagged? Maybe a little , but not badly. The climbing is just of a strenuous nature. For the crux pitch I would recommend bringing three #4 Camalots. Two work, but you need to do a whole lot of sliding. Treat the crux like a chimney and not so much like an offwidth and you will probably do better. The last pitch, described in the book as a run-out traverse and .9 S and then a down climb, is nothing to worry about. The traverse is literally a sidewalk and the mantle is perfectly described as 5.concentrate. Have fun and wear pants.
Just did Poseiden Adventure the other day. Pitch two gets my vote for the biggest sandbag in the desert. Most beta I read on the route say to stem the pitch, which is easier said than done. Bring knee pads.
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