Thinking about leading Open Book @ Tahquitz

Since this post has gone silly... How about we just petition Royal Robbin's estate for permission to turn it into a sport climb? Better yet, we can just install auto belays on each pitch, so people can lineup on the weekends to top rope it.

Jon Hillis wrote:

Sorry we all just like to flex that we didn't carry big gear. #4's will be nice, a yellow alien? I think protects the start in a horizontal pocket. Like was said earlier if your first climb is scary don't try OB. But it is easy to sew up and easy to rest on if you know how to jam OW.

For sure! if Coffin and Tratior are scary, I'll probably work on some milder climbs until I'm more comfortable to lead OB.

Camron wrote:

For sure! if Coffin and Tratior are scary, I'll probably work on some milder climbs until I'm more comfortable to lead OB.

Sweet! Have fun! I learned to Trad climb there, so many moderate long routes. Impossible to leave there unhappy no matter what you jump on.

Cole D wrote:*photo removed*
Mandatory Shopping Cart for Open Book

1st rule of pro purchase...

Chris Owen wrote: For people who think it's 5.9+ or 5.10a - it's THE STANDARD 5.9 in the YDS. Every other 5.9 needs to be graded in comparison to The Open Book.

And yet the first moves on OB would be at least 5.10c in most climbing gyms.

The OP is pretty short on details.  Have you ever led 5.9 trad before?  I don't know your background but your post says you're going to do one 5.7 and one 5.8 as prep.  Am I missing something? Sure the climb is the standard for YDS 5.9, but that doesn't mean it's easy.  Although the first pitch is the crux, I got more pumped on the second, 5.8 pitch.  

As far as the #4's go, I say, smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Liebacking is for SURE the easier/smoother way to approach this climb.  Jams here and there will be helpful when placing gear, but approaching the climb with the intent to jam your way up it will be much more taxing than liebacking the whole thing.  Just my two cents!  

Also, the 3rd pitch can be a bit funky, and there is a very short run-out slabby section just before you reach the final crack/chimney.

Sloppy Second wrote:

And yet the first moves on OB would be at least 5.10c in most climbing gyms.

Gym grades have no bearing to outdoor grades. #endofstory

The opening moves are a little heads up and at least one #4 is nice for the second pitch. I have led the whole thing twice; once I was in shape able to onsight hard 10/easy 11 at Tahquitz and the other time I was flabby and the 1st pitch crux fingers and 2nd pitch OW felt gaspy. I would say do Traitor Horn, Long, and Fingertrip before giving it a go. Also, I am surprised that no one mentioned the pants loading 3rd pitch where you do a squeeze chimney for 25 feet and have to make a weird transition to a slab traverse with no pro and certain ledge fall. That's the part that gets me going.

Fat Dad wrote: The OP is pretty short on details.  Have you ever led 5.9 trad before?  I don't know your background but your post says you're going to do one 5.7 and one 5.8 as prep.  Am I missing something? Sure the climb is the standard for YDS 5.9, but that doesn't mean it's easy.  Although the first pitch is the crux, I got more pumped on the second, 5.8 pitch.  

Click his profile and you can see from his ticks and comments that this isn’t his first rodeo. My understanding is that his confidence is low coming off an injury.

Greg Opland wrote: It's been 25+ years, since I did it, but I recall being sort of surprised that the start felt a little sketch at the time.
Don't remember anything shocking about the rest (after the start bit), just good fun crack climbing.

Exactly my memory of the climb having climbed it  29 years ago, 

Cruiser route go have fun only brought one number 4  The wide part is big fun.  I’ve done it three times.

The first time I brought a #6. I've done it 15 times.

Beta:
Pink Tricam at start. Then 15 feet in to the corner place a #1 at an overlap. Then 15ft higher clip the pin. Then 10 ft higher, gray BD in finger crack to left, pull crux on to flake (heel hook), belay in alcove with old piton and a .75. P2, climb 15 ft and place a #2, then to obvious stance as high as possible to place #4. Layback for awhile and place #5 at small rest, just before end of corner place #3, don't belay in alcove! Traverse right to crack system, one gray, one purple BD for the belay. P3, climb back to corner for 25ft, place #1, then before overhang place a #2 on the right. Then go 25 ft into chimney, traverse right at faint black dike, up thorough wide crack to bolts. Yer done!

Sam Cieply wrote:

Click his profile and you can see from his ticks and comments that this isn’t his first rodeo. My understanding is that his confidence is low coming off an injury.

Ok, took a glance at it.  Doesn't look like he done any trad harder than 5.7.  Sport yes, trad no.  My point is that he should probably get more than one 5.8 trad lead under his belt before trying a 3 pitch 5.9.  Lots of good 5.8s out there.  Great to have goals, but what's the rush?

Tradiban wrote: The first time I brought a #6. I've done it 15 times.

Beta:
Pink Tricam at start. Then 15 feet in to the corner place a #1 at an overlap. Then 15ft higher clip the pin. Then 10 ft higher, gray BD in finger crack to left, pull crux on to flake (heel hook), belay in alcove with old piton and a .75. P2, climb 15 ft and place a #2, then to obvious stance as high as possible to place #4. Layback for awhile and place #5 at small rest, just before end of corner place #3, don't belay in alcove! Traverse right to crack system, one gray, one purple BD for the belay. P3, climb back to corner for 25ft, place #1, then before overhang place a #2 on the right. Then go 25 ft into chimney, traverse right at faint black dike, up thorough wide crack to bolts. Yer done!

Can you put that on flash cards?

Fat Dad wrote:

Ok, took a glance at it.  Doesn't look like he done any trad harder than 5.7.  Sport yes, trad no.  My point is that he should probably get more than one 5.8 trad lead under his belt before trying a 3 pitch 5.9.  Lots of good 5.8s out there.  Great to have goals, but what's the rush?

I don't tick all my climbs on Mountain Project. I would say the hardest crack that I've lead to date was Room to Shroom (5.9). However, that was before I got comfortable jamming. I've done plenty of other 5.8s and 5.9s on trad. The last two climb I did at Tahquitz were El Whampo & Fingertrip. Both of which felt pretty relaxed, but this was prior to my injury when I was climbing more. I figure Coffin Nail is probably a good test piece to see if I'm ready to move up to harder climbs at Tahquitz. Like I said earlier in this thread, if I struggle on Coffin Nail, then I'll work on some other routes until I'm more comfortable to lead Open Book.

Chris Owen wrote: For people who think it's 5.9+ or 5.10a - it's THE STANDARD 5.9 in the YDS. Every other 5.9 needs to be graded in comparison to The Open Book.

No, it WAS the standard 5.9 in the YDS.  With all the mileage it has had, it is polished quite a bit.

Doug Kinsman wrote: The opening moves are a little heads up and at least one #4 is nice for the second pitch. I have led the whole thing twice; once I was in shape able to onsight hard 10/easy 11 at Tahquitz and the other time I was flabby and the 1st pitch crux fingers and 2nd pitch OW felt gaspy. I would say do Traitor Horn, Long, and Fingertrip before giving it a go. Also, I am surprised that no one mentioned the pants loading 3rd pitch where you do a squeeze chimney for 25 feet and have to make a weird transition to a slab traverse with no pro and certain ledge fall. That's the part that gets me going.

SPRAY ALERT (available for printing on flashcards if you DM me):
That portion protects with a #4 in the back of the squeeze chimney to climbers left, it just needs a double length runner. There is also a chockstone a few feet above the #4 placement that can be slung for mental pro. Staying in the chimney for a while you can actual just squeeze up to the really good feet on that slab. Then you do a couple traverse steps climbers right on great feet and you are at the low angle shallow crack in the right corner that marks the end of the difficulties. 

Matt Himmelstein wrote:
I have not done Coffin Nail, but Traitor Horn is not a warm up or gauge for Open Book.

Traitor Horn is just for fun. I've already done Jenson's Jaunt, so I figured I would do something different after doing Coffin Nail.

Fat Dad wrote:

Ok, took a glance at it.  Doesn't look like he done any trad harder than 5.7.  Sport yes, trad no.  My point is that he should probably get more than one 5.8 trad lead under his belt before trying a 3 pitch 5.9.  Lots of good 5.8s out there.  Great to have goals, but what's the rush?

Can we get OP to pass a psych eval to make sure he is up to this climb? Also I don't think he has up to date physical test qualifications. OP pls post a video of you crack climbing and we will evaluate and then you know if you're allowed on OB yet... 

This forum cracks me up, everyone is so busy looking out to keep others "safe". Go climb and have fun. Good luck OP!