PRINT: Rock Climb Up and Coming, Seneca Rocks

Up and Coming

5.4, Trad, 130 ft (39 m),

Avg: 2.3 from 63 votes
FA: June Lehman, John Christian, Sally Greenwood - 1970
W Virginia > Seneca Rocks > S Peak - E Face > Lower Broadway

Description

Interesting route for "up and coming" trad leaders.

P1: Climb up and right to a couple of small, left-facing corners. Use the face and inside corners to continue moving up and right, passing a pine tree after the real difficulties. At this point you basically need to traverse pretty directly right and aim for the large ledge at the base of the south end of the Cockscomb. The route finishes up near the P1 belay for Old Ladies Route.

A good alternative is to break the route into two pitches, stopping at a comfortable ledge with a smaller birch tree and vertical cracks in the blocks for gear. On P2, either step back down and right to continue on Up and Coming or work up and left and climb to the top of Humphrey's Head to rap off Humphrey's Head to Luncheon Ledge.

Location

Lower Broadway Ledge, about even with the right edge of Humphrey's Head.

Protection

Standard Seneca rack

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Up and Coming

Start of "Up and Coming"

Comments [Hide ALL Comments]

Kristan Markey
Washington, DC

5.5

We went a full 165 feet up to the intersection of Old Ladies Route. Jan 20, 2013

Travis Senor
Morrisville, NC

Great climb, and the corner stemming is fun. Good gear throughout and far preferable to A Christian Delight just next door. Oct 6, 2013

Joffrey Peters
Lebanon, NH

I managed to get off route left, ending up by Humphrey's Head near the end of A Christian Delight. This is not advisable, and is a little harder than 5.4. When the route description says "trend right", they mean pretty hard right, not the continuous corner system that flows up and gently right toward Humphrey's head. Jun 11, 2015

Brendan Maguire
Manassas, VA

If your climbing around a lot of trees your doing it right. Kind of awkward to climb Nov 26, 2016

Chad Silva
Napanoch, NY

5.4

I also got off route left, but that was mostly by design. I knew I wanted to rap off HH, but built my anchor at its base (instead of somewhere midroute). Nov 5, 2018

Doug S
W Pa

This is a good, easy route. Get from east face to west face by climbing straight up to Humphrey's Head through some easy ledges and belaying at the base, then down-climbing to Luncheon Ledge. This variation feels more like a 5.3 Dec 31, 2018

Ethan Zorick
Reston, VA

5.6

There is one hard (for the grade) move fairly low on the route. Standing on a good size ledge after the trees. It doesn't have lot of protection options, but there is a spot to climber's right that will take a smaller nut up above your head. Oct 20, 2019

Thomas Wilson
McMinnville, OR

Found that with a full 70m, one can rap off the back of Humphrey's head from the webbing on the top. We left two biners on there to rap off of. Hopefully, they get left there for others to do the same with, but it's not likely. But, a full, uncircumcised 70m rope will get you from the top of HH to the base of Up and Coming - just make sure to tie those knots because it's pretty close. Watch out for some fragile rock on the face below HH. You'll also get fairly acquainted with the various tree branches along the way. Cheers! Nov 6, 2021

TJHussey
Winterport, ME

Here are a few anchor details that would have been useful when I climbed this the other day:
- The optional P1 trad anchor location (6' vertical cracks) now has a stuck green cam; I continued up and right to the base of the Cockscomb which resulted in a lot of rope drag. Extend your protection more than you think necessary!
- There are exactly ZERO bolted anchors at the top. Don't waste time looking for a rap station at the base of the Cockscomb. I belayed my group up to me there on a comfortable trad anchor (watch out for loose blocks) then we traversed south to the top of Humphry's Head. There is a rope sheathed by tubular webbing around the top with a pair of rings to rappel the West side, but our hiking packs were down on the east side. So I added a second nut, redundant sling, and pair of biners in order to safely come down the East side. (The only alternative seems to be finishing on Old Ladies, which adds a 2-pitch traverse to the South Peak Summit.)
- Rapping down two 60m ropes from atop Humphry's Head down the East side gets you to Lower Broadway just 20' right of the start to Up and Coming. Traverse south about 60' to the pine tree to find the other rap anchor (Bee Sting): look over the lip to your left and clip in before swinging over onto the narrow ledge. Another two-rope rappel gets you to the cliff base at the start of Skyline Traverse. Oct 29, 2024