PRINT: Rock Climb Puckered Starfish, San Francisco Bay Area

Puckered Starfish

5.10a, Sport, TR, 30 ft (9 m),

Avg: 2.2 from 125 votes
FA: Brad Watson (Flash) 9/25/91 Bruce Morris RT
California > San Francisco B… > Castle Rock Area > Indian Rock

Access Issue: Trails are closed from sunset to 6:00 am. Details

Trails close at sunset. Give yourself enough time to be back at your vehicle (or campsite if you're staying at one) before dark, or the rangers will fine you.

Always visit the Castle Rock State Park website parks.ca.gov/?page_id=538 for fairly current official information.

Access Issue: Covid-19 Closures! Details

Visit Bay Area Climbers Coalition for an up to date list of closures due to Covid-19:

bayareaclimberscoalition.or…

Description

Climb the middle-right set of bolts on the south face. The crux is an interesting bulge move right before the second bolt. Kind of a one move wonder route, as the climbing is the easiest on the face (5.5ish) after the second bolt.

Protection

2 bolts to a 2 bolt top anchor.

Photos [Hide ALL Photos]

Pulling through the crux

Mike Arechiga on, Puckered Starfish. 5.10a

Dave McAuley starts out puckered starfish.

Getting ready to pull the crux

Comments [Hide ALL Comments]

Anonymous Coward

Layback the big pocket, then highstep to get to the first bolt. much more secure. good crimps Aug 19, 2004

Blitzo

Cool rock! Sep 12, 2006

Daniel Trugman
Austin

5.10a

A purple (.5) BD C4 worked really well for the initial crack. The first bolt is a ways up there, so this piece is nice to have. Sep 25, 2009

Quaid

We top roped it yesterday kind of sketchy scrambling to the top and getting to the anchor but totally doable. The crux to me felt like the start with the lie back and high foot hole but after that super fun and short great for warming up Dec 2, 2016

Eric MC
Oakland, CA

The first bolt hanger has a crack all the way through it, below the bolt. Sep 12, 2017

tr di

5.10a

no rappel rings at the top of this route just FYI Dec 16, 2017

Raffaele Saposhnik
San Francisco, CA

5.10a

Stick-clip definitely nice for the first bolt (15-20 feet) with a sketchy landing. Sep 16, 2019

John F Kim
San Jose, CA

I set then cleaned a TR anchor on this route and I think the anchor has chains with quick links but no rap rings (Oct 2019). I was able to do two variations of the start but couldn't pull the crux so ended up climbing around the crux to the left. Nov 8, 2019

Ricky Harline
Angel's Camp, CA

The route now has quicklinks for rappelling/lowering, it didn't used to. It had carabiners on the anchor to lower off of for a few weeks. Every now and then someone tries to make this a modern sport climbing area and then inevitably the carabiners/mussy hooks disappear after a short while. At least the quick links have been left in tact.

Moral of the story: don't donate carabiners or mussy hooks to routes in the Castle Rock area unless you would like to make a personal contribution to the types of crusty assholes that disapprove of the modern progression of safety and convenience and take it upon themselves to make sure that everyone will have the same inferior cleaning and lowering experience as themselves. Aug 11, 2020

Brody W
Campbell, CA

Smaller mussy hooks at the anchor. I'm not sure when they were added, but the route to the left has it too.

First 10a onsight/flash! Dec 25, 2020