Mescalito - Original Route

The first recorded technical route in Red Rocks, the lack of information regarding the route and relative position near so many other popular routes put it on the list of things to do. There are a few options, I will recount our path, and I tried to follow what I thought was the "5.5-Regular Route". If you were looking to practice route finding and adventure climb skills, this one I thought was pretty good.

P1 220' Begin on the right side of the tall rectangular pillar topped with bushes. Go up, passing a belay in a smooth varnished chimney with a rap station on the left. Continue up and eventually belaying in a alcove on the right face filled with a chockstone with inumerable amounts of old nylon and a locker. Back it up with a small cam.

P2 150' Go up over whichever path you chose, mostikely going over a bulge on white rock above your gear and run over easy ground to the top of the bushy ledge. I slung a large shaggy tree passed a nut, rings, and inordinate amount of slings, as continuing around the tree and rope drag was somewhat annoying with all the traversing.

P3 140' Up the face to a crack and then mostly right, to a wrist-sized tree with old slings. You can build a belay under the flake ahead. Here you will find out why all the slings are probably here.

P4 50' To your right is a white rock chimney, with a classic RR hard start then unsustained climbing up past bushes. Above the aforementioned belay flake, there is a peculiar and awkward set of moves off the ground to surmount the bulge to traverse left. Well protected, just remember to put a piece in so your follower doesn't swing if they get cold feet. Traverse 30-40' left and up to a right leaning crack. Belay on finger sized pieces.

P5 +-300ft go up the face/crack with sparse gear on easy terrain to a wide white crack. Odd, off-balanced and fun. It's easy, but you're 15' a bit run out from your gear here. A few sandy-smeary moves and you can place a #4 above you to feel good about going around the loose pillar. Be careful. Go right to keep the rope from pulling on the block, and get ready for some unprotected terrain. There might have been gear around there, it just seemed like I would have needed to wander for sub-par placements. Up to a 4th class chimney, some gear and up past a long sling and fatty rap ring. Why would anyone try to rappel from here? Belay where available.

P6 -+200' Unrope and make your way up to the Red Cap and final chimney.

P7 120' Climb the chimney to rap station, and wonder why you're covered in black ants. They are everywhere!

Make your way up and around to the summit.

Follow carins to either the walk off or rappel slot chimney to the south. As of 5/27/15 the rap stations in said chimney looked good, chockstone rap is still annoying as usual. Single 70m worked great.

Single to 4". Didn't bother with anything too small, Green C3 was sufficient, extra passive pieces were nice. Would reccommend pink/red tricams and several hexes as doubles. Some of the placements do not like cams, and are of the "hex only" variety. Big nuts. Stoppers are good, too.