[Hide Comment] I hiked up there once with a couple big cams and the intention of getting on Wide Thing. From the ground it looks kind of scary and super dirty. I think you also have to do a short and ugly approach pitch just to get to the start of the climbing.

We ended up sport climbing at the upper tier instead. May 12, 2014

[Hide Comment] I finally got around to climbing this. The upper portion of the route is awesome (and not that wide), but it's also pretty dirty and it takes a lot of effort to get to the good climbing. I think the most pleasant and safest way is to do it in two pitches and start on Best Bet Arete. Climb the bolted crack to a shelf with intermediate anchor, then traverse left about 20ft to another bolted anchor on a narrow ledge. From this belay, make some super burly moves (5.10++) up the steep crack past a piton to get into a left-facing corner. Follow the corner to a good ledge, then climb the obvious arching wide crack. The crack is actually all fist jams and only 10b/c, you just have to reach past some spots where it's wide. Near the top, the crack abruptly widens to a chimney above a small ckockstone and you have to sort of flop over into the chimney. The book calls this 10d, but it's easier; the crux for sure is those first moves off the ledge.

The starting variation we did I don't recommend, but it did allow us to do the route in one pitch. We started at the clearing underneath Final Cut. A short left facing corner leads to a ledge with a tree. Then another left facing corner with totally rotten rock and not the best pro leads up to the ledge with the intermediate anchor. Sucky.

You can rap with one 50m if you do two rappels. First person down might want to clip a directional so you can get back to the ledge because it's quite overhanging. One 70m might make it to the ground in a single rap? Bring some fresh webbing to leave at the anchors. I had a single rack from .3 to #6 Camalot which worked pretty well. Although I used the #6, you could easily do without it if you bring an extra #4 instead. Jun 30, 2016