The Bee Pitch climbs the obvious system which splits the Bumble Bee Wall, just right of Fowl Play (5.9 bolted route). The start is a bit hard to pick out. Look for two cracks which meet at a chockstone with webbing on it to mark the route.
P1) Climb the left crack through tough bulges up to the chockstone, then jam up to a chain anchors just left of the crack. 5.8 hard
P2) Make a difficult bulgy move off the belay, than really easy climbing leads to a ledge system. 5.7
P3) Scramble up the really easy gully to another ledge system. 4th class
Descent) Walkoff possible. Other options: rappel after pitch one (the 2nd and 3rd are not good), or rappel after pitch 2 (Fowl Play's anchors - 100 feet to the ground). I combined P2 & P3, but than downclimbed P3 to the Fowl Play anchors.
By Nathan Fisher Administrator May 26, 2005 rating: 5.8+
I agree with Peter on this one. Pitch 2 has a one move sequence and then degrades, and pitch 3 is obviously a waste of time. If you do pitch 2, there are still anchors to rappel off of, so it isn't too bad, but the best way is just pitch 1. There are 2 pitons on this route. 1st is where all the webbing is and consists of a good-looking angle. The second is off the ledge at the 1st belay station and is a relic. This route seemed harder than other 5.8's, mainly because of the constant leaning around the bulge. The jams were secure, they just didn't feel so secure, and the feet at the bulge seemed to disappear. All in all a good route with some nice exposure. If you wait til about 4pm, it is in the shade.
I'd say that this route is a PG-13, as there are a lots of places along the entire route to hit if you fell. Bring a some hexes, large nuts, knuckle cams and runners to go over the bulges. The cracks on this wall are dirty, and I didn't trust my cams to not slip if yanked. That said... get out vertical on the bulges (left leaning crack) and pull! I got up to a set of chain anchors on a 50 meter rope, and was able to rappel off of them to the ground. I'm sure that I would not have been able to lower to the ground through my gear.
Bumble Bee Wall
RSS Feed
