Locate the wall to the right of the classic Swiss Cheese. Manic Depression climbs up past four bolts on the left side of the wall. The route is steeper than it looks from the ground, and it's a bit less tweaky than other routes in the area.
Stick clip the first bolt. Start with difficult, thin balancy moves to gain a stance on the right below the second bolt. Then move slightly left, past a cool sequence up to the third bolt. Continue straight up to the top past another bolt en route to the anchors.
The left crack/weakness is definitely off, though when climbing the bolt line, these holds don't seem that tempting.
Special credit should also be given to James Schroeder for the original vision of this line and to Kayte Decker for her massive cleaning effort. The wall was less than pristine when we started, but thanks to Kayte's dualing brushes and her cloud of dust, it's clean now.
Years ago when I was a student at Stevens Point, we worked this route on top-rope a couple times. I'm not sure if anyone ever did it, but great work on cleaning and bolting the line guys. It was a ghost crag for a long time, so its really great to see people climbing in the area again.
I beleive this is the same climb I just posted a few days ago as "Manic Depression". I will have to check it out when I get down there to be sure. If it is the same climb the rating of 5.11b seems a bit low.
I borrowed your photo of Manic Depression, and overlayed a line showing where Trundle Pete goes. I had always assumed your TR line was to the right of this, going up through the overhangs, etc.
Trundle Pete makes a quick dash up for the pocket, on somewhat thin climbing. Next it traverses the bulge heading left on relatively easy climbing (although exceedingly height dependent) and then heads up into the scoop at the top, finally finshing with a dynamic move from the upper patina to the horizontal.
From the sounds of it, Trundle Pete and Manic Depression are the same route. I spent a while trying to TR a way up this face, and Trundle is the only line I saw. The line to the right would maybe go, but it would be very hard. Plus, that conspicuous jug is very loose and would need to be pried off. This might make the route way, way hard.
I thought 11b seemed accurate for Trundle, but maybe it's a bit harder. The best way to figure this out is to have a bunch of people do the route and get a consensus going. To me, though, it seemed similar to ABM and Black Rib at DL.
Manic Depression and Trundle Pete are the same route. The route further right has been sessioned many times and seems to be extremely difficult and I beleive no one has made it further than say 10-15 feet from the ground. I beleive that Manic Depression is at least in the 5.12 range, but then again I am only 5'10" and when I did the last moves I did them staticly vs dynamicly.
I think the debate over the grade of Manic Depressive could be related to beta. I'm 5'2" so slapping up either side of the bulge was really hard for me. Jay used an undercling to bypass the last two slap moves before the top of the bulge. That beta made the crux considerably easier. With that beta, I would probably would put this route at 11c, as it was quite reachy for me. I'd say it's less sustained than Pagan Rituals. I think the cruxes of the two routes are equally hard, albeit different styles.
By TravisMelin From: La Crosse, WI Jul 22, 2007 rating: 5.11c
well! let me be the first to add to the consensus....i went with 5.11c. Thought it was very technical and balancy, .11b felt a little low.
Hillbilly Hollow
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