Type: Trad, 120 ft (36 m)
FA: Matthias Holladay; FFA: Ethan Pringle, 2016
Page Views: 11,095 total · 54/month
Shared By: Matthias Holladay on Oct 31, 2007 · Updates
Admins: Rick Shull, Lurk Er, Mike Morley, Adam Stackhouse, Salamanizer Ski, Justin Johnsen, Vicki Schwantes

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Description Suggest change

The 1st route done on the cliff, an obvious stunning black crack surmounting a severely overhanging wave of stone. 

Originally solo aided by Matthias Holladay with wired nuts, cams, hexes, some C1s C2s, a few baby angles and a yellow Tri-cam in the middle, and then some C3 pieces, pins over the "wave," and near the top out, a variety of knife blades, LAs, stacked blades into the bushes.

After years of me trying to get someone to free it, Ethan Pringle did the the FFA in 2015; according to many, it may be be one of the hardest traditional routes in California, if not the world.

A First Free Female Ascent is still waiting for one of the many hard women out there who might be interested.

As a free climb, Blackbeard's Tears logically breaks up into 3 sections.

P1: 5.10+, 30', gear to 2", new titanium glue-in anchors. Crux comes pulling a small roof about 10' up.

P2: 5.13c, 80' (from the ground), gear to 1" (mostly 0.2-0.3, many 0.3s), new glue-in anchors. A beautiful, steep finger crack that is a testpiece worth travelling for on its own. Amazing.

P3: 5.14c (?), 120' (from the ground), anchors. Boulder through the roof immediately after the 5.13 anchors (crux) and finish on a short but committing 5.12 exit sequence.

Get some!!!

Protection Suggest change

Singles from 000 - #2. One single Gold DMM offset sized nut for the very top.

Doubles 0.1, 0.2, 0.75, #1

Quads in the 0.3 range. 

An initial inspection / aid rack might be larger and may include up to #4.

Photos

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