Mama (Free Voices of the Drown)

Mama is a truly wild climb. Come prepared for loose rock, lichen covered holds, and some offwidth. If none of those things scare you away, you will be rewarded with a truly adventurous, and incredible climb. This route reminded me of climbing in the Black Canyon. It is a relatively new route and does not see that much traffic, but once this cleans up it is destined to be a popular climb. The original grade is 5.12c, but you can take a variation on the 3rd pitch to change the grade to 5.12a. Oh yeah, All the gear is good so you can feel good about safely protecting this climb.

There is a topo of this climb in the new free climbing guidebook by Sloan, definitely very useful.

Pitch 1 (5.10c): Climb loose/lichen covered rock up to a splitter thin hand crack in a corner. Traverse right on the face clipping two bolts, extending the slings to reduce rope drag. Continue up and belay at bolts on the top of a pillar.

Pitch 2 (5.10c OW): Climb the squeeze chimney to offwith to the right of the belay. the rock on the inside of the crack is sharp so plan accordingly. #6 mandatory for protecting the crux. Belay at an old 3 bolt anchor.

Pitch 3 (5.12c or 5.11b): For the 5.12c, climb straight up and left into the thin layback roof and corner, this is the cleanest best looking line (there is a fixed nut in the upper half). For the 5.11b, climb up the thin crack then make a big reach to gain the sharp, flakey overhanging crack. Jam and use a heal to cam with your right foot. A truly wild pitch! Belay at bolts under the big roof

Pitch 4 (5.12a): Climb up into a insane stem box chimney, work your way out right to the lip protecting it with hand size gear. Pull the roof and lieback (short crux) with bad feet and a small crack. Belay at bolts.

Pitch 5 (5.11c): Climb straight up following cracks and face holds to a left facing lieback you can belay at the first set of bolts, or continue a little higher and link pitch 6

Pitch 6 (5.9 OW): Climb up and right through an ow to roof crack, pull the roof and go up to the anchor.

Pitch 7 (5.11c): Follow 4 Bolts right through a tricky traverse to gain a crack higher up. Build a gear belay with a #2 camalot and by slinging the big flake.

Pitch 8 (5.11b): This pitch is insane. From the belay traverse left following the high bolt line (5 bolts total) until you come to a huge, dubiously looking block. Mantle/grovel/heel hook/horizontal chimney your way to glory through a wild series of moves to be able to stand up on the shelf. A short 11a lieback guards the anchor.

Pitch 9 (5.8 Dirty): You could to this a couple of different ways, to get to the rap route up and to the right. the direct traverse was super dirty so the leader climbed up to the top, built a gear anchor, and the follower traversed right to the rap anchors and belayed the 1st leader down.

Descent: 2 Ropes mandatory. (60 meters work). Start from the rap station on the right. I'm pretty sure we made it in 5 raps, not all of them required a double rope. On the second to last rap (before getting to the end of P1, the rope line does not quite meet up with the rap anchor so start bouncing and pushing off the wall while you can to be able to swing over and grab the pillar, clip the ropes into a draw for your second.

See description for Wall of Ages, it is the farthest left base route past the Watchtower and past Yellow Corner.

We took a set of nuts, doubles from .2-4 and a single #5+#6 which are mandatory. The route is a little wandery so bring ~8 alpine draws for extending gear, and clipping bolts on the traverses. Bring extra chordalette incase you need to equalize an anchor (for the most part they were bomber.