Blackbeard's Tears
5.14c YDS 8c+ French 34 Ewbanks XI- UIAA 35 ZA E9 7b British
Avg: 3.8 from 4 votes
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 |
Description
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!!!
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