Yellow Brick Road 5.9+
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| Type: | Trad, 3 pitches, 300 feet |
| Consensus: | 5.10- [details] |
| FA: | Smith, Clark, E. Laeger, 6/76 |
| Submitted By: | ttriche on Oct 17, 2006 |
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First pitch of Yellow Brick Rd. The climber in ye...
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Description Face traverse (somewhat exciting) into a handcrack splitting the obvious streak of yellow lichen. You will come across the remains of a salad oil bottle as the handcrack widens into an offwidth (lieback this, lest you need a similar bottle), terminating onto a huge ledge. (Rap anchors for a Brian Jonas sport route are at the left end of this ledge if you need them for some reason -- you do not want to be on top of the Wizard in a storm, for example.) The next pitch is the business -- thin dihedral to an exciting overlap. Rap off of some nasty slings (can also do a short rap to massive chains which may reach the deck), then 4th-class out of the notch to top out on the Sorceror and rap from there; or, with two ropes, you can rap the Demon and end up below the Sorceror's Apprentice. Classic route at the grade; I've climbed this route with several different partners of varying abilities, and all were amazed at its relative obscurity. Even among the many fine routes at the Needles, this is a gem.
Location West face of the Wizard. The route starts at a large bush which is reached by descending a gully from between the Charlatan and Djinn formations; the start of this gully is reached by chimneying through a notch with a somewhat beaten footpath to it. If you screw up and go too far west, you can rap in from any number of points and rejoin the gully. A line of bolts going up and left from the bush is the aforementioned Jonas route, rumored also to be fine climbing. The "Yellow Brick Road" is a huge yellow streak of lichen visible from the lookout, split by the crack system which you ascend.
Protection Cams to 4" (#4 or #5 C4 size is useful in the 30' offwidth section); nuts small to medium are crucial for the dihedral. Aliens are helpful for protecting the initial face traverse and the smallest may come in handy when protecting the pie-slice dihedral, especially if you run low on small to medium size nuts.
Rob Beno following the beautiful P2 tips dihedral
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Rob Beno nearing the top of the crux corner on P2.
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| Comments on Yellow Brick Road |
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By Murf
Oct 19, 2006
| I vaguely remember bringing a #4 Camalot and not using it, the climbing seemed easier than I expected ( any face holds around the crack ). I do remember feeling like the second pitch was very continuous. |
By J Smith
Jul 9, 2010
| I found a #4 and #5 useful. A short rap from the summit leads to a chain anchor. With a single 70m rope you can just barely rap into the gully where you started. Be careful when pulling the rope, there is a rope-grabbing constriction. |
By Richard Shore
Oct 17, 2011
rating: 5.10-
| Unless you are confident running out 30+ feet of 5.9 fists and OW, do yourself a favor and bring a #4 and 5 cam. Plan on walking them a ways up too. There are face holds, but it doesn't really bring the grade down.
The second pitch dihedral is classic! Sustained stemming with a tips crack. I placed a #1 tcu, 2 x #0, a #00, and my three smallest nuts in the corner. |
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