Mount Woodson Mega Thread

Wow, this is an awesome thread. I spent a year or so ditching class and schwacking around Woodson south looking for lost routes (and did a hammer ascent of K2s aid line along the way). Also had some forays onto the north escarpment of the main hill by myself; I'd love to go back there now given all the work that's been done since I was out there.

If anyone wants to go exploring... I'm pretty much immune to poison oak at this point. Not kidding.

Has Mystery Bolt always had two lead bolts, or was a second bolt added recently?

We've been wondering about this corner situated in the middle of the south slope for a while and decided to make the trek down to it from the summit the other day. We first check out this crack filled with dead poison oak vines at the summit antennas. We cleared the PO and it turned out to be a really fun little climb. 5.8 or so. Worth a quick lap if you're visiting the Crucible. Didn't seem like it had been climbed before but its right off of the road.

We then made the trek down to our destination and it turned out to be pretty cool but definitely not worth the major bushwhack it took to get down to it. Has anyone climbed this one before? We didn't see any evidence of prior climbing. 5.6 or so

 We ended up bushwhacking down to the Warren Canyon trail exiting Rexrodes and walked back to the cars via the road. A huge day that scratched the itch of whether this corner was any good.

Happy Woodsoneering!

I have a half a day. I'm headed that way for work. What should I get on? What's the first time at Woodson agenda? Top rope or boulder? 

I was thinking that Robbins crack looks like a good place to start. Robbins wouldn't put his name on it unless it was awesome. It looks awesome.

Woods goes to Woodie, haha. Welcome Tom!

For a half day first time visit you'll get more mileage climbing boulders in plain sight on the road. Rather than tromping through the bush.

I'd say bring a shortie rope and have some fun on some combo of crucible/the cave/digits delight/ maybe a quick boulder up big grunt (at least try the entry moves) and finish with a victory lap on robbins. You could also consider staying lower on the hill and trying big grunt, then just bop over to jaws and baby robbins before hitting regular robbins. Hope that word salad makes sense   

The day has a good flow when you hike to the top first then climb down the hill.

Had a nice lap up big grunt yesterday with the homies. It never gets old!

Yeah I'd say for the first time and a half day, stay on the main road and climb Robbins, Big Grunt and the Crucible. If it's a weekend, on your way up definitely check if Robbins has people on it and if it doesn't climb it right then. Otherwise, walking to the summit and then working your way down is pleasant.

Then if you have extra time you can hit up any of Out Of Sight, Jaws, Rockwork Orange, Mother Superior, Hard As Nails, depending on your style/difficulty preferences. If you like sharp/thin crimps, Uncertainty Principle is awesome but kinda involved to set up. If you want to climb something very unique, The Learning Cave Chimney is a full body bridge stemming chimney (but it is a bit out of the way from the main road, and this is also just me promoting my own climb, so take with a grain of salt haha). 

Other excellent climbs are Victory at Sea, Cat Crack and Hillary Step, but they are in different areas than the main road, so I wouldn't really recommend them for a first-time Woodson session unless one of them reaaally catches your eye.

Oh and also consult this map for the location of most of the more popular climbs (and many obscurities, many of which aren't on MP):
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1XhAJwMQ7dB3ITxPJQumZfRp7OZjuz1E&usp=sharing

 You should be able to load in the mobile google maps app

for a first timer on a solo outing, is it pretty easy to find stuff to top rope solo? any recommendations? thanks!

David Le wrote:

for a first timer on a solo outing, is it pretty easy to find stuff to top rope solo? any recommendations? thanks!

Took my first trip to Woodson about a month ago and found many routes easy to set up a tr solo. I spent the day on the north side on the Fry Koegel Trail and had a blast. Some highlights: 

Wide Robbins, everything at the Lighthouse, Chomp on This, 21st Century Schizoid Man 

David Le wrote:

for a first timer on a solo outing, is it pretty easy to find stuff to top rope solo? any recommendations? thanks!

Most routes at Woodson have walk-offs that you can use to get to the anchors and set a TR. The majority of the ones I mentioned in my post above would work for a TR solo, with the exception of 

• Robbins Crack (need to lead it)
• Uncertainty Principle (need to lead a 5.8 on the back to set up the TR)
• Big Grunt (this one is a squeeze chimney which you need to solo, but it is a quite secure solo)
  
  However, some of the "walk-offs" can be a bit of a heads-up. (For example the one for Hard as Nails is essentially a short 5.7 solo...)

I could also see The Cave being nice for a TR solo setup. 

Thanks for the advice! I let you know how it goes. Woodson has always looked good to me.