Leisure Climb

This is fun and devious route which ascends the shortest section of North Chasm View Wall. It looks like a pile from the ground but has pretty good climbing and exposure on the first three pitches. The final pitches are very low-angled and loose but go pretty fast if you find the easiest line. Be wary of climbing beneath another party on this route, and also be aware that there have apparently been some bad accidents on the crux pitch which is runout and also easy to get off route onto harder climbing.

2022 Edit: perhaps the most common way to do this route these days is traverse into A Midsummer Night's Dream for its great 5.9+ third pitch, a long airy corner with good gear and lots of jugs and stem rests. Then, once on the terrace, do the 9+ direct finish, which is similar in difficulty, quality, and protection. Doing the route with both of those pitches makes for a reasonably protected outing that is one of the better moderates in the Black.

Go down the Cruise Gully, and find the route shortly after emerging from the second rappel. The first pitch is identified by a right-facing 5.8 corner with a wide crack up high (avoid the harder crack systems and roofs to the left). Access P1 by scrambling up and left on blocky third class to a ledge.

P1. Ascend the large corner, and belay on a grassy ledge at left.

P2. Take the obvious, acute left-facing corner above the belay (5.8). At its top, angle right on a ramp then back left to a small belay ledge below a flake system.

P3. This is the devious crux: go up a left-facing flake/finger crack, toward a triangular overlap/roof. Angle rightwards where the corner ends, and climb further up a thin crack past the right end of the overlap, to a sloping ledge. It is easier but scarier to place pro in the crack and then traverse a ways back left to turn the roof on bigger holds, then run it out on ~5.7 terrain to the ledge above. Staying with the crack the whole way as it dies out is the more obvious line, but probably 5.10-something and still a bit spicy.

Probably a better variation to this pitch (certainly better-protected) is to traverse up and left (easy but a little runout) into the large right-facing corner of A Midsummer Night's Dream's third pitch, which is great climbing. It's slightly harder than P3 of Leisure Climb but is better protected. It's also easier to stretch the rope a bit farther than on Leisure Climb proper.

P4. Go right up easy ground a short ways (to avoid a steep section) then back left up a long, broken and bushy corner. Belay at its top, or (some simul-climbing required) go directly up fun face-climbing for about 35 feet to another good ledge.

P5. Go easily along the base of a steep cliff on 3rd Class, then climb up a chimney to belay on the right end of huge, forested ledge (hard to see from the start of the pitch). If doing the Leisure-Summer version, you can just barely combine 4 & 5 with a 70-meter rope.

P6 (optional direct finish): walk left along the ledge 200-300, passing the Happy Ending and the huge corner of Kama Sutra. Around the corner from those harder finishes, look for a nice fingers to hands crack that leads up to a ledge with some blocky overhanging peg above. This 9+ direct finish has lots of climbing at the grade, but also lots of rests, and protects well--similar in those respects to P3 of MND. The climbing is great and shouldn't be missed if time permits.

Otherwise, continue walking along the ledge to the left (west) until an easy 5th Class low-angle corner/groove accesses the canyon rim.

A standard rack with micro-nuts and micro-cams for the crux pitch and a #4 Camalot with optional #5 (new sizes) for pitch one.