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Exodus

5.10b PG13, Trad, 500 ft (152 m), 4 pitches,  Avg: 2 from 1 vote
FA: Jay Smith and Gary Anderson (Aug '83)
California > Yosemite NP > Yosemite Valley > Valley S Side > P. Cathedral Area > 6. Middle Cathedral Rock
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Description

This is a longer route on the right side of the Apron. It's not as good as Freewheelin' and has a bit of shattered rock, but overall it's still a great route with bolts where you need them. Flake out your ropes at the top of the pedestal (more like a "mound" of ledges) which is between Cat Dancing and Tapestry. The first bolt is visible from the ground.

Pitch 1 (160ft, 5.9+): Straightforward climbing up past two bolts. After the second bolt is a desperate section of smearing on glassy rock (5.9+). I thought these were some of the hardest moves on the route, but it's very well protected. Trend right to a right-facing corner/flake and follow it up, placing a couple pieces of pro. Then angle slightly left across the face for the anchor with some runout 5.7 near the end. One of the anchor bolts was chopped by rockfall, but you can either extend out the good bolt and place a couple small cams in a crack about 3 ft below it, or maybe get a micro cam in the crack just to the left of the bolt.

Pitch 2 (80ft, 5.9): Climb straight up from the anchor to a crack system which takes good pro. At the top of the crack I traversed right to gain easy terrain and then traversed a long ways back left to the anchor at the end of the pitch. The topo shows the route climbing directly to the anchor, which is maybe harder.

Pitch 3 (160ft, 5.10b): Start just right of the anchor and climb straight up on easy terrain to a high first bolt. After the bolt is a tricky sequence on fairly steep rock. This felt more secure to me than some of the other cruxes on the route because you actually get stuff to crimp on. There's a bit of whipper potential here because the climbing stays sort of difficult until about 5ft above the bolt. After the second bolt is a shorter crux section. Then it's runout climbing on sort of loose rock to the anchor (5.7 R) which seemed to be some of the more dangerous climbing on the route.

Pitch 4 (100ft, 5.9+): Traverse left from the anchor then climb up to the first bolt. After the bolt is another really blank smearing section, but it's well protected. After the second bolt climb up a small left-facing flake system to a ramp and then traverse right to the anchor which is in some orange/brown rock.

Rappel the route with two ropes. You can skip the single-bolt anchor on the first pitch by rappelling all the way down to the 3rd class ramp (start of Orange Peel) and butt-scooting back down to the top of the pedestal.

Protection

Pro to 1.5" with a few extra cams from micro to "tips", quickdraws, and shoulder length runners.

Photos [Hide ALL Photos]

Some shattered rock on pitch 3.
[Hide Photo] Some shattered rock on pitch 3.