Plutonian Shores

Recently discovered this climb and I have to say I enjoyed it way more than I thought. The entire time I thought about how no holds seemed to be terrible choss or cracked and everything felt really solid. Nice new bolts and well spaced to feel sporty but not run out.

A good pdf can be found at banffrock.ca/pdfs/RavenCrag…

P1: Welcome to Texas, 5.5

Opening pitch, very interesting. Slab moves but nothing is hard as there are a lot of jugs to help the slab. No friction moves really.

P2: The Battle of the Bulges, 5.7

Things start heating up a bit where you have to start thinking. Long pitch, would not try to combine with the other pitch unless you had a lot of draws and they were doubled.

P3: The Castling Move, 4th
P4: Left Left Right, 5.8

We combined these two pitches as the 4th class is direct and can easily be extended with one draw on the anchor. However, a fall if you do this may land you on the ledge so YMMV.

P5: A Murder of Crows, 5.8

Great! Starts into a corner and becomes really exposed quite quickly. Great fun at the grade.

P6: Billy the Destroyer, 5.9

I would tend to agree this was the 'hardest' pitch, which is pretty subjective. To me, it felt like the hard bit lasted a short move and was just about finger strength. If you can pull on a good crimp you should be okay. Very fun and somewhat committing as you are more in a sustained flow than the other pitches.

P7: The Cooler, 5.8

One hard move up a big step leads to very easy climbing. A friction slab can easily be avoided by avoiding one bolt. Overall, nothing great but a fun quick end.

To do it again I'd bring more draws and perhaps link these piches:

2/3, 4/5, 6/7 with a 80m rope or an uncut 70. However, may have to start climbing as a second if you run out of rope.

At the base of raven's, follow the trail far left and down from the sport climbs.

Bolts. bring 20 or more quickdraws if you want to do longer pitches. Bring 35 if you want to link all the pitches and clip all the bolts.