Winter Wall 

There were three routes (and one started) on this wall when Tom Wezwick and I came to the wall during the later 90s. The Original Face Route existed, there was a sling in the crack we called Old Sling, the crack now called Highway to Hell and the start of an arete to the right of Highway (about three bolts up).

If you do happen to establish new lines on this wall, cool. But please clean as much as possible before you actually install bolts and call it done. Be patient with it and do a good and thorough job. Don't just assume that it will clean up with the climbing of others on lead. This puts not only the climber, but the belayer in real danger. I have always believed that the helmet was a mandatory piece of gear at Diablo, especially the Winter Wall. Nuff' said.

Karl,
I don't remember a sling on Highway To Hell when we did it. You must be thinking of a different line. I know there was a sling on the offwidth left of Sun Devil. And the arete to the right had four bolts on it with a biner on the last one. That section was 5.7. I don't know who pt those in.

Great point, Scott. As one that has recently established a new line on the winter wall and spent a great deal of time cleaning it, I know this to be true. Even after quite a bit of time cleaning it, I still heard a lot of people complaining about loose rock.

A winter or two ago a large chunk of rock pulled loose on a leader on the very popular Post Moderate route resulting in a couple of broken ankles for the leader. This goes to show just how bad the rock can get due to its location and aspect (and relatively poor quality to begin with.)

In addition to new routers cleaning the routes as they put them in, I believe all climbers that climb on this wall should not just always wear a helmet but adopt a new attitude about climbing...the rock is dubious...tread lightly, lower expectations and bitch less about the route developers cleaning job. The rock is constantly "evolving".

Highway to Hell had slings on the anchor bolts. We replaced these with chain later. The Old Sling Route uphill was named for a single sling in the crack. We wanted Bradshaw's guide to name the trad route right of Roid Boys.

To whomever is stashing their tarp near the Winter Wall:

Please consider NOT stashing your tarp in the bushes below the wall. While I understand that Diablo is dusty and tarps are nice (I have used them in the past), stashing them in the bushes is problematic for a number of reasons.

1) It makes the place look trashy. I know that the NM climbing community is relatively small, but if everyone stashed a tarp, the place would look like crap....and no, just because the locals occasionally dump a sofa in the desert doesn't mean that we shouldn't treat the place better than they do.

2) Rodents can and will chew apart your tarp and leave litter EVERYWHERE. This is what happened to your tarp. Huge chunks of it were spread virtually all over the base of the crag making an absolute mess. I picked up what I could and hauled it out to the trash.

In the future, I won't wait for the rodents to destroy tarps; I will simply be taking any tarps I find at the crag with me when I leave. If anyone posts up that they are missing their tarp, I would then be happy to return it to them.

Cheers.