A fun three pitch line, unfortunately it seems that only the 3rd pitch gets climbed frequently.
The first pitch starts right of the cunning stunt area, it goes up a large block and climbs to the golden flake(obvious). Climb the left side of this until you can traverse right to the gm belay. (5.10)
The second pitch climbs a crack to the left of the dihedral, that is the 2nd pitch of gm. Climb the crack to a stance at the base of the arete. From here you traverse right to the gm belay via two options. Shorter folks will want to traverse low protecting this crux traverse with a solid black alien/grey tcu. Taller folks may want to climb up the arete to a fix pin before traversing right. Doing the higher traverse maybe wingspan dependent.(5.11-)
The third pitch tackles the classic heart of the country splitter hand crack, reaches a ledge and boulders up another short classic hand/thin hand crack. (5.10)
You can bypass any of the pitches by climbing the gm route since both routes share belays.
If you follow the guide books way of doing this route the first pitch is "10a-10d reach" PG...I tried it this weekend, it's hard for the grade and well covered in moss and lychen(only the crux, the rest is clean)...though a little bit less dirty now. The crux is really reachy, I'm almost 5'11" and was completely tipped out at the crux. At the very start, do the right side of the first pillar, it's a 5.8/9 chimney that's pretty fun.
i have been on this route a couple of times and have to say that a medium small nut(#3 WC rock is a perfect fit) works much better that any cam could in the seam/pod at the crux of the second pitch. it flares open inside so to get good camming action you have to pull the cam near to the edge of the crack causing the solid stem just before the axle(alien) to rest over the edge of the crack, back farther is no good as the cam is fully open. take some smaller nuts, fish them in on the right hand side of the pod and set them to the left, now you have bomber pro for the crux! this is a good pitch that deserves more traffic
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