By Walt Haas From: Salt Lake City, UT Mar 28, 2007 rating: 5.5
| This is the climb where a rank beginning climber learns to look around for places to put their feet. I've seen a guy try to do the whole route as a series of chin-ups. I had to lower him after he was exhausted ;-)
A good route for someone learning to lead trad pro, since there are a variety of placements in the crack. Just below the overhang you can thread a couple of long slings through a non-obvious hole behind a flake to protect the overhang move, which in my opinion is the funnest move on the pitch. It's no more difficult than the rest of the climb, but a lot less obvious.
There are now some anchor bolts near the top, but they are offset north (climber's right) of the correct rope line for Storm Mountain Stupor and seem better placed for the top of Layback Crack. If you use these bolts for Storm Mountain Stupor your rope runs over rocks to climber's right of the pitch, and there is even a rope-sized crack in those rocks to jam it. On the other hand, since this is likely to be one of a beginner's first trad pro leads, maybe this is a good lesson :-) A couple of large cams can be used to build an anchor on a better rope line at a point higher up and farther from the top of the pitch. |