Avg: 3.9 from 57
votes
The Thorn sits conveniently to the right, and uphill to its sister route, The Rose. This classic finger/thin hand crack climb is quite the gem that packs some very bouldery and sustained climbing into its short length.
The route begins easily enough on juggy flakes that jog up and slightly right to a vertical, thin hands section that widens slightly at its top. at the top of the crack, break left on a hard boulder problem that guards the final, short fist-sized crack.
Top out on semi-insecure moves to mantle with a tree directly in front of you. Whether you use the root to finish or not is a question only your heart can answer.
Bolted anchor with rap rings, be sure to keep your rope from getting stuck in the crack after rappeling.
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elmore, vt
Salt Lake City, UT
Gear is there for the whole route, some sections the rock sounded a bit hollow--not having taken many falls on cams in schist I wasn't sure how trustworthy some of the placements were, but the pro rating is a G for sure. gear available at every stance so just sew it up if you're scared like I was (first 5.11 trad send). A good route for breaking into the grade with positive locks, good jams and clean falls. 10d/11a?
GEAR BETA SPOILER ALERT: Climbed this on a mostly single rack, I brought/placed extra 0.5 and 0.75 BD Camalots (sewed it up) though with more nut placements I'm sure it goes on a single rack to #3. Sep 25, 2014
Burlington, VT
Old broken anchor bolt: youtu.be/tqGqymr7jgE
Old anchor location:
Richmond, VT
If it was a spinner and a wedge bolt (which it looks like in the video) the hole probably wasn't cleaned enough and debris clogged the sleeve/cone interface. Maybe the bolt wasn't torqued properly either and the load/unload cycle of lowers/raps loosened up the expansion collar. Those would be typical causes of a spinner for such a new bolt. It would be interesting to know if the bolt ever tightened properly or was a spinner at installation. Regardless, it's an academic issue at this point. Thanks for that.
The fact that the bolt has all the tensile play is interesting. That makes me believe that the expansion sleeve is stuck and the stud is what is moving. Maybe a lot of causes there. Old drill bit maybe. Fixe supposedly sent out a batch of 10mm bolts to people who ordered 3/8" bolts (9.5mm). Maybe that was one of the bad batch. Hard to know without more info that is really all irrelevant now that it has been replaced.
I can give you some stainless links and rings for the new bolts if you want. PM me. Oct 5, 2015
Albany, NY
Thanks for cleaning that anchor up, moving the bolts up and back is the way to go IMO. As you said, solves both issues while providing relief to the tree. Glue-ins seem logical as well.
BTW-Psyched to check out the October Wall routes.
Interesting thing about the spinner is that when I removed the bolts on the Rose, one of the bolts was indeed spinning and had a decent amount of lateral wiggle in the hole. Surely could have been caused by a variety of things. Guess we will never know for sure.
What's up Greg!
I appreciate your insightful comments and believe they are very relevant!
Again, very glad these were removed and replaced
Big Thanks to you both for your efforts at the local VT crags and beyond, greatly appreciated! Jan 25, 2016
vt
Burlington, VT
Burlington, VT
To that end I once threatened a climbing partner that I would cut the root if he used it on his redpoint and he said he would take to Mountain Project to accuse me of "chipping" a classic.
Frankly it's hard to argue he was wrong. May 28, 2021