Petit Grepon South Face: Reality check route recommendations

Looking for a reality-check route to climb two days before hitting the Petit Grepon South Face.

I’m visiting from out of state for the Petit Grepon South Face. I've got some time to hit the front country classics first, and I'd like to get a feel for Colorado grading before committing to the alpine.

I’m aware of the alpine factors involved: the long approach, alpine start, weather windows, altitude, and the descent. What I’m specifically looking for is a route in Eldo or Boulder Canyon that serves as a solid test for the technical climbing side:

Movement variety, crux difficulty, protection, and route-finding.

Would routes like Ruper, Rewritten, Yellow Spur, Bastille Crack, or Bitty Buttress be good benchmarks? Or is there a better "if you feel solid on this, the South Face should be well within your limit" type of route?

I'm not looking for something that will wreck me two days before the big day—just a realistic confidence check.

Ryan Abewrote:

Looking for a reality-check route to climb two days before hitting the Petit Grepon South Face.

Would routes like Ruper, Rewritten, Yellow Spur, Bastille Crack, ... be good benchmarks?

My vote is a "yes". If you do Ruper, Rewritten, Yellow Spur and Bastille in a day, you can handle Petit.

The Petit is easier climbing than many 5.8s in Eldo.  The crux for me was the rappels.
Ruper, Rewritten or Yellow spur would all be good multipitch, but Eldo climbing is pretty different in style to RMNP.  Bitty Buttress wouldn’t be a terrible primer, but it’s closed for raptor nesting.  Cussin’ Crack or similar on Castle Rock would be fairly similar to the Petit.  Climbing in the Twin Sisters area or Lumpy could also be fairly similar.  

IMHO, out of those choices, doing both lower and upper Ruper together would most closely approximate a day on the petit. It has steeper 5.8 climbing and some PG13ish runouts that may be similar to the alpine. If you really wanted to get a feel for what the day would be like, I’d add a fair amount of hiking as well.

The bastille crack and rewritten, though wonderful routes, are shorter and easier than the petit; and YS would have harder climbing than you’d encounter (though if YS feels easy, I think you’d be fine on the petit). For most people, the difficulty of the petit will come from the endurance aspect. Pulling moves at 12000’ after hiking several miles can make a grade feel quite a bit harder than it would otherwise, though most of the S face route is 5.7 climbing or lower.

The crux of the Petit, by far, was the hike back to the car

Petit standard has a lot of PG/PG13 face-ish climbing. I think Clear Creek (gneiss) gives a better feel for the rock, if not trad, with the incut face holds on easy stuff. 

Eldo is a good proxy, probably better than BoCan. Agree with full Ruper being good but slightly harder. Note there is an optional direct pitch below Ruper, plus Smoke and Mirrors above, which allows for more mileage to practice efficiency and route finding. 

Seeing that your location is Danville (VA?) I was curious and checked out your tick list. Looks like you've climbed quite a bit at Looking Glass and Rumbly... so I wouldn't worry too much about the technical "difficulty" if you felt solid at those crags. Many of the routes there are harder than equally graded routes in CO. Certainly more spicy than average here.  

What I would be most concerned about are the alpine factors you’ve already identified. You can practice some of those skills in places like Linville Gorge, but the altitude and longer hikes, not so much.

As someone already said, the Petit is gneiss, so in my experience it would most closely approxomate, style wise, Linville Gorge and Moores Wall. It's not like Yosemite or even the Diamond. So, if you have some time (presumably so, 'cause it's pretty snow covered in the Park atm), hit those spots as much as you can beforehand. 

To answer your original question more specifically though: I'd recommend going to The Crags in Estes Park to test yourself. It's a big area with lots of great semi-long, semi-alpine routes. Most routes are bolted, but being a gneiss, the area climbs a lot like the Petit. The elevation is around 10k, and the hikes a bit steep, so it'd be a good all around litmus test before going bigger in the Park. Bonus that it's also one of the best (and prettiest) climbing areas in the Front Range too.

Patrikwrote:

My vote is a "yes". If you do Ruper, Rewritten, Yellow Spur and Bastille in a day, you can handle Petit.

The Petit is not that big a deal and bro is not looking to "get wrecked."  Either the full Ruper or the Yellow Spur would suffice as a warmup. 

Do a Sundance route on Lumpy. That will get you a bit of a walk and a little acclimatization. 

Patrikwrote:

My vote is a "yes". If you do Ruper, Rewritten, Yellow Spur and Bastille in a day, you can handle Petit.

Haha, doing all four in a day sounds more like El Cap day-push training than a Petit reality check 

nbrownwrote:

Seeing that your location is Danville (VA?) I was curious and checked out your tick list. Looks like you've climbed quite a bit at Looking Glass and Rumbly... so I wouldn't worry too much about the technical "difficulty" if you felt solid at those crags. Many of the routes there are harder than equally graded routes in CO. Certainly more spicy than average here.  

What I would be most concerned about are the alpine factors you’ve already identified. You can practice some of those skills in places like Linville Gorge, but the altitude and longer hikes, not so much.

As someone already said, the Petit is gneiss, so in my experience it would most closely approxomate, style wise, Linville Gorge and Moores Wall. It's not like Yosemite or even the Diamond. So, if you have some time (presumably so, 'cause it's pretty snow covered in the Park atm), hit those spots as much as you can beforehand. 

To answer your original question more specifically though: I'd recommend going to The Crags in Estes Park to test yourself. It's a big area with lots of great semi-long, semi-alpine routes. Most routes are bolted, but being a gneiss, the area climbs a lot like the Petit. The elevation is around 10k, and the hikes a bit steep, so it'd be a good all around litmus test before going bigger in the Park. Bonus that it's also one of the best (and prettiest) climbing areas in the Front Range too.

I’ve done some alpine climbing at outside of US, but this is my first time to take some lead. I just don’t want to slow down for not be able to pull the move efficiently 

If you're specifically worried about the crux move on Petit's standard route, FWIW, I thought it well protected and relatively straight forward right above the belay. Off the top of my head, the fingery high step bit immediately after the Rewritten traverse, or say Eldo's Heavy Weather, would give a good comp. Actually, I'd throw Heavy Weather into the mix as an all around "if you can do this, you're good" route too. Can easily combine with Star Wars for more mileage.

Where folks sometimes bog down on Petit standard is on the easier 5.6-5.7 pitches above the crux where the route-finding and protection become a little more interesting. Again, not bad, but can cause hesitation.

FWIW, I thought the shallow corner of Werks Sup 1st pitch crux (5.8) was very similar to the crux of the Petit.  

The cruxes on Yellow Spur are way harder than anything on the Petit if you stay on route. Just make sure you can keep your head straight on the 5.7 runouts on the upper headwall with some serious air under you. It's spectacular climbing!

If you have a couple days, it might be just as worth it to take a hike up to 12k+ in the days before to help acclimatize. 

Seems the climbing equivalency is well covered. Dunno your timing but RMNP is full of wet snow rn, got 3' last week and with current weather is not re-freezing overnight. Probably gonna be pretty heinous hike to Sky Pond till at least end of this month. 

Nkane 1wrote:

If you have a couple days, it might be just as worth it to take a hike up to 12k+ in the days before to help acclimatize. 

This is probably the best advice given on this thread so far. Your home stomping grounds are proof enough the Petite is within your ability. Being acclimated will make all the difference at feeling strong on summit day.

it's a wonderful view atop. enjoy.

JCS