The Stranger Within

Climb easy, featured corners 10 feet to the left of Telegraph Crack until a leftward traverse along a foot rail takes you to a small bulge. Pull over with crimps and seams and continue up the steep slab on small features. The crux comes after the lone bolt and involves an extremely tenuous rockover to the left on minuscule crimps. Easy featured slab (dirty!!) to the top.

The Horniak guide shows a bolted anchor lower on the face, but we did not find it. Instead there are two very rusty cold shuts on the ledge at the top of the wall. I would recommend traversing right to use the better anchor for Telegraph Crack about 6 feet lower. The author also suggests 11c/d for the grade, but that seems like a hefty sandbag. Go up there expecting a 12- with spicy gear, friable footholds, and lots of lichen. In its current state, the route seemed like a harder onsight than Bell Bottom Blues.

With replaced anchors, a heavy cleaning, and--dare I suggest--another bolt or two, this route could become part of the typical Snowshed circuit.

An emphasis on cams in the 0.1-0.4 range and offset nuts should see you through. Many of the placements are suboptimal, and there's usually a variety of dubious choices--a real engineering challenge. The crux bolt seems to be on the older side but held several falls (much better than the anchors at least).