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Chossiest routes ever?

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Seth Bleazard · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jun 2018 · Points: 714

What's the chossiest route that you've ever climbed and did you like it? Stories please! Anything from dirty, loose, 5.13 sport limestone to alpine kitty litter! 

Tim Stich · · Colorado Springs, Colorado · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 1,516

The climbs in Cheyenne Canyon in Colorado Springs are uniquely shitty and chossy. The decomposing granite is some of the worst you have ever seen. The first fifty feet of pitch three of Army Route is so full of loose kitty litter, that the routes is scoured out by climbers passing over the rock. You can pull pieces off with your fingers. It's like a trough of Legos that you can pop off with the right pressure. But at least it's not covered in bird shit. For that you need to visit Garden of the Gods.

P.S. I am not even in the ballpark with some of your alpine choss offerings.

Roy Suggett · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jul 2009 · Points: 9,325

This was the worst...
https://www.mountainproject.com/route/113870279/moondance

Will Wright · · Washington · Joined Jun 2014 · Points: 2,337

Anything on Camelback Mountain in Phoenix is a top contender; it takes a large population of climbers with little alternatives to resort to bolting such blatant choss. Nearly anywhere else in the US, people wouldn't even consider climbing it.

Rob WardenSpaceLizard · · las Vegans, the cosmic void · Joined Dec 2011 · Points: 130

Zion? If it aint choss its sand

Nick Votto · · CO, CT, IT · Joined Jul 2008 · Points: 320

Never climbed it, but have heard this is pretty damn chossy.....
https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106090216/northwest-ridge

Charles Vernon · · Colorado megalopolis · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 2,759

Maybe not the chossiest routes ever, but there was a great thread on "American choss classics" some years ago:
https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/107975204/american-choss-classics. Worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the subject of choss!

Chris Duca · · Dixfield, ME · Joined Dec 2006 · Points: 2,470

The Bird.  Period. 

Michael Hall · · Winston-Salem, NC · Joined Jun 2019 · Points: 11

Climbed Dolphin Head at Moores Wall in NC today. So much dirt and lichen on it that there wasn't a hold you didn't have to brush off with your hand before you stepped and bomber cracks were too sandy to place gear. Lastly while belaying on it the leader pulled a 10-inch rock off and it landed point down and went a couple of inches into the ground. Luckily it missed me and I was wearing a helmet while belaying. 

Jerry Handren · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2005 · Points: 10

I am reminded of an ascent of Tarrant Buttress on Odaray Peak.

The guidebook stated " A good introduction to the harder routes, on excellent rock"

The lower 1000ft consisted of blocky, vegetated quartzite, choss but at least there was some decent gear for belays. The quartzite then degenerated into another 1000 feet of the usual shattered limestone where decent anchors were almost non existent. Connecting the lower buttress to the main mass of the mountain was a completely tottering and unbelievably exposed knife edge. At the other side of the ridge was a 300 foot long, 60 degree mudfield studded with occasional large blocks of dubious stability. The stuff of nightmares.
In many ways the route saved the best for last. I remembering looking down at my partner as I climbed the last pitch, he was sitting with no anchor astride a steep knife edge of mud with huge gullies dropping on either side. I was clawing my way up a vertical corner, about 100ft high whose walls consisted of an endless stack of tiny rock fragments, imagine a corner whose walls consist of stacked dominos and you get the idea.

Chase G · · Salt Lake City, UT · Joined Jun 2017 · Points: 169

Not the chossiest route by any means, but has a feature called "kitty litter pillar" and it's exactly what it sounds like

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/109196914/the-girl-next-door

Alex Fischer · · Albuquerque, NM · Joined Jun 2018 · Points: 864

West Ridge of Forbidden Peak in the Cascades was several thousand feet of pulling on shifting death blocks. Terrifying. And that's supposed to be one of the more solid climbs in the Cascades! I shudder to think what the non-classics are like.

A month later I did the Whitney Gilman Ridge in New Hampshire, a climb notorious for having lots of chossy garbage, and I remember thinking the rock was bomber compared to that of the West Ridge

YOLOLZ Bicarbonate · · Unknown Hometown · Joined May 2020 · Points: 5

I've never done it but I've read that the north face of Mount Morrison is extremely loose. Possibly why one route is called the Death Couloir?
The Black Kaweah is a super ominous looking choss pile. And it's located way out in the middle of nowhere like it's a leper or something.

Drederek · · Olympia, WA · Joined Mar 2004 · Points: 315

Smith Rock - welded tuff. Fossil Rock - poorly welded tuff.  Pinto Rock - barely welded tuff. From pictures I suspect Coethedral just as bad as Pinto Rock. 

Long Ranger · · Boulder, CO · Joined Jan 2014 · Points: 669

Colorado.

Ty Gilroy · · Great White North · Joined Feb 2018 · Points: 10

Its in the canadian rockies for sure! I love the rockies but there be some choss! Climbing loose rock is an art form

hifno · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Feb 2006 · Points: 25
Ty Gilroy wrote: Its in the canadian rockies for sure! I love the rockies but there be some choss! Climbing loose rock is an art form

This. We did the East Ridge of My. Whyte and it felt like climbing unmortared bricks the entire way up. Also total sandbag, gotta love the 5.10 section on a 5.6 rated route.

https://www.summitpost.org/east-ridge-perren-route/538512
Curt Veldhuisen · · Bellingham, WA · Joined Jul 2012 · Points: 1,363
Artem Vasilyev wrote:...scree piles caked together with dried mud - standard for Oregon volcanoes...

True and I could add my own Cascades nightmares (rockfall on Thielsen sent me to the ER), but I expect they would pale in comparison to the sketch-fests of the Canadian Rockies and desert SW   

Redyns · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Apr 2011 · Points: 60

all "routes" at Birdsboro.  total chosshole.  

Matt B · · Boulder, CO · Joined Feb 2017 · Points: 492
https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105759645/civic-minded

Same rock as Rotwand Wall, but without the view in Eldo. When handholds crumble in your hands as you touch them, that's indicative of chossaneering. A bomb route if ever there was one. The bummer is that it actually looks pretty good from 100 feet away. Don't sneeze or the arch might fall on you, haha!

Jim Bouldin · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2020 · Points: 0
YOLOLZ Bicarbonate wrote: I've never done it but I've read that the north face of Mount Morrison is extremely loose. Possibly why one route is called the Death Couloir?
The Black Kaweah is a super ominous looking choss pile. And it's located way out in the middle of nowhere like it's a leper or something.

Super ominous is the right description for Black Kaweah--that N face directly below and to the right of the summit strikes me as probably very dangerous (also the SE face, which you can't see in that picture). Secor gives some good attention to the Kaweahs in general, but mentions nothing at all on the N side of the Black, at least in my (first) edition.  It's a haul to get in there too, as you say.  A  similar thing is the NW face of Mt. Goddard.

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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