Death by Chocolate 

Excellent job by Paul & Layne on this. It's fun, mostly easy, runout, and fairly adventurous... and what views! Wowza, purty dang fun! DBC seems to be the best looking and most prominent line of all the Reef climbs. If approaching from the East on I-70, you can see DBC before you even get to Green River.

The hike in is cool with some short narrows in the bottom of the approach canyon. After recent rains you may even have a couple of wades here though the pools should only be waste deep max. The route has been bolted well. Even though you may only encounter 1 bolt per pitch (or none), most of the climbing is pretty moderate. Natural pro is rare so the runout nature will keep your attention. Doing the 100'+ runouts on 5.6 or so keeps things interesting during your cardio workout on the slabs.

Please, do not add any more bolts on this climb. At the time of this writing all the belay/rap stations are nice double bolt anchors placed in the best solid rock available. Most anchors are right at 200'. Note that the webbing on these will need to be replaced soon as they are already aging.... bring extra and remove the old stuff. It doesn't take long out there in the desert for webbing to fry. So, no hammer or drill necessary on DBC.

For pro, there aint much. I placed a 1.5 & 2 Tricam and #1 Camalot in the flake about 15' below the crux on pitch 3. The Tricams seemed more bomber than a cam in this flake with the rock quality. Still, if you blew the crux moves, whether or not those pieces would hold is a bit questionable. (When we were there the rock was still a little moist from recent heavy rains.) If they did fail, you will be going past and onto the belay anchors. Kind of exciting as this is the steepest part of the whole climb. To me the crux moves felt like 5.9 and pretty "R"ish. Although following, Kat walked it making it look more like 5.8. Maybe it just felt harder on lead with the potential consequences... The only other piece of pro placed on this was a #2 Camalot on pitch 5.

From the looks of the summit register this was the 4th ascent of DBC (10/23/04). Pauls route description is a good one... Enjoy!

Rappel webbing appeared in fine shape as of March 15th. Approach was dry. Paul's description, and rack suggestions seemed about perfect (ratings seem pretty subjective on these slabs, except the final pitches are lower angled). Pitch 6 was my favorite. Worth scrambling to the higher west summit for the best lunch spot. The climbing is swell, and the views are as well.

Fantastic line. The rock on the first two pitches and on the fifth pitch is pretty sketchy... I kept thinking that the route name was given because if you stay on the chocolate rock "death" awaits. Either way, it is a great day out... thanks Paul and Layne. For the record, we were forced to wade through two waist deep potholes on the approach. But it adds to the ambiance... enjoy.

Climbed on November 10. Fantastic, weird climb. Feels kind of hairball for the leader at times, but is just a hike, sometimes literally, for the follower. We simulclimbed the route in 4 blocks, in about two hours. Seems like the sensible way. Rappelling takes as long as climbing this one, as the ropes don't toss very far on the slab. We didn't find any anchors on top of the formation (but did find Paul's little summit register), so we downclimbed top pitch. How did we miss them??? Beautiful area, spectacular geology on display. Admire the rocks in the approach wash. Needs some more ascents to clean this line up. Rap webbing was suspiciously bleached at certain anchors. We left some cordelette behind, and backed everything up. Take a camera - fabulous vista on top.

If you don't consider wading through the pools in the approach slot canyon part of the experience, you can work up gullies immediately right of the slot and find a bolted anchor that lets you rap into the slot just above the pools. I assume you can leave a fixed rope there for the return.

Not sure if the rain yesterday (Sat) did cause any pools on D by C approach but last week was very dry. The rap in way does not require to leave a rope as to climb back up this section is about 5.4. Of course less problem to continue down the canyon after the climb. Worst would be wet socks..

April 2009: rap stations need some more attention. We didn't have enough webbing to deal with all of them. Adding a second ring to these would make them even more friendly. Some of the hangers were loose.

A great route. The crux was the easiest part - right at the nice shiny bolts. The long runouts on 5.6 were the real crux - takes a little nerve! We didn't use any wires. No cams bigger that #2 camalot. I'd go for about 6 camalots (a couple of small ones, .5, .75, 1, 2). Tricams .5 - 1.5 help too.

Watch the end of the rope on the raps - everything is set right at 60m.

The rock was mostly good - the last part of #5 and first part of #6 were the only bad bits. #6 was probably the headiest lead.