The Best Worst Classics

Midnight Lightning. Greasy, uninteresting moves, and an awkward summit. Pass.

Christian Mason wrote:

Are you trolling?  I thought every pitch on levitation would have been 3 or 4 stars as a stand alone climb.

Lev is pretty boring, mostly a hike on incuts.

Andrew Hewitt wrote:

Hahah I was thinking the same thing. It's mostly remarkable because all you can think is "John Otto was a crazy person to come up here in 1911 with a bunch of pipes" 

Otto's has a certain novelty that makes it classic.

The Pearl

Sam Rossabi wrote:

has anyone said ancient art? its a spectacular formation and the position is incredible but the actual climbing can't be considered classic

I don't know if anyone considers Stolen Chimney a classic. It has a very photogenic summit, but that's the only real reason to climb it. If you do climb it you have to walk the sidewalk and not butt scoot it. That's just embarrassing. 

John Wilder wrote:

 . . .

Eldorado: basically everything there. I wasn't impressed with the climbing there other than the proximity. It's a great local crag, but certainly not worth traveling for, imho. 

That's the spirit, but should be expanded to the entire State of Colorado, or at the very least, the parts that are in reasonable proximity to Boulder.  (Even our climbing gyms are substandard, although that may change with some new ones coming in.)

While Eldo has already been covered generally (and at least Bastille Crack and Rewritten specifically), let's add Yellow Spur--it's basically a few scraggly moderate trad pitches stacked on top of each other with an out-of-character sport pitch thrown in.

Branching out, lots of people think Prince of Darkness in Red Rock sucks--it's just climbing up a stupid sorta blank wall for a few pitches, and it hurts people's feet, and the bolts are too close so you don't even really impress anyone by climbing it.  (I actually liked PoD, but I apparently have terrible taste, also liking Monkey Traverse, Eldorado, Incredible Hand Crack, and I think virtually every other "worst classic").

Royal Arches - only 1/3 of the pitches are actually climbing (vs. scrambling) and the rappel is one of the worst experiences ever.

if a little bit of choss turns you off by all means go clip bolts  in the bushes at the new and leave  seneca to those of us who love the exposure ,the summits and the view ;)

Peter Lewis wrote:

Remission on Cathedral as a rock climb. Three kinda scary chimney pitches that smell like low tide at Spooge State Park, but with more seaweed. 

I honestly did not know that was a rock climb. 

I knew repentance and remission are rock climbs just did not know anyone actually bothered to climb them in the summer......

Jim Dandy on table rock, NC.  

Nick Goldsmith wrote:

I knew repentance and remission are rock climbs just did not know anyone actually bothered to climb them in the summer......

Locally it's considered kind of a masochistic-right-of-passage-classic (MROPC) that, well, most of us never actually do. First done by the amazing Canadian, John Turner, back when Eisenhower was president. 

Hobo Greg wrote:

Not sure why Toe Jam in J Tree is so popular.

Location, location, location...

One of my partners has done repentance in summer.....

Nick Hitchcock wrote:

Jim Dandy on table rock, NC.  

Who thinks Jim Dandy is a classic? It's good for a first lead, but I don't think anyone would call it a classic. That would be Mummy/Daddy/Prow which are awesome

Dylan B. wrote:

I haven't climbed it yet, but apparently the Great Arch on Stone Mountain in NC fits the bill.

It's a gorgeous feature that amounts to three pitches of lower back pain from constant lie-backs up a slab. 

You are not wrong! I specifically searched each page for someone mentioning it, and that's exactly how I'd describe it. Looks classic as all hell, but you might as well be trying to chew through your belay loop with how doubled-over you are the whole time. It's pretty, and a great feature to have climbed...but not something I'm itching to do again anytime soon, and that was three years ago now.

anything at wall street

Long Ranger wrote:

I'm going to second someone else on here Incredible Hand Crack.  All the good climbing is done before you start the roof.