Everybody, Just Be Cool

This route follows the most prominent continuous slightly c-shaped crack on the North face of Table Mountain to the West of the descent gully. The crack system is continuous from bottom to top with each pitch offering different climbing—slab, layback, undercling, chimney, stemming, steep face, and straight crack—making for an overall enjoyable climb.

The climb is probably best done in six long pitches, but can be split into 8 with optional belays. All belays use natural ledges or alcoves using gear anchors. There are no bolts on this route and none are needed.

P1 - Climb easy but polished slab following a low angle crack filled with dirt. Clean the crack for needed holds or pro. Belay in funnel where crack opens up and is filled with loose rock, large flakes can be used to build an anchor. (5.6 or 5.7, 120')

P2 - Climb up and left to gain a sloping ramp that enables you to move left about 30-40 feet, past some vegetation, to gain a prominent right racing corner. Pro can be placed to protect this easy traverse. Climb the right facing dihedral with a mostly discontinuous finger crack or smaller up until it ends. It starts easy and gets harder until you reach the crux about 3/4 of the way up. There is an opportunity to step left over the dihedral onto a small pedestal and have a no hands rest a few moves below the crux. Once you reach the top of the dihedral move up and left on easy ground (with some vegetation, be mindful of loose rock here) to a tree in a corner beneath a small roof system where you can belay (somewhat awkward and cramped). The dihedral takes great gear, small cams and nuts, with a few placements for larger pieces. (5.10+ or 5.11-, 130')

P3 - Climb up and then traverse right to escape the roof above you. Good small gear and nice underclings bring you beneath another small tree. Climb up and past the tree to gain a large ledge (optional belay). At this point the main crack system, that dramatically widened below at the funnel, now begins to narrow. Traverse right on the ledge to rejoin the main crack system and then follow it up until it narrows completely. Just past this point there is a very nice belay ledge in a left facing corner that is part of the main crack. A small fern with sharp blades marks the ledge, but it has been trimmed back. The anchor takes medium cams and nuts. (5.8 or 5.9, 120’)

P4 - Follow the broken crack system up, at times moving left or right of the crack, as the rock becomes dead vertical, and with some 5.8 R climbing in the first half of the pitch. About half way through the pitch you will enter an alcove with layers of large flakes on your left. One could potentially build an anchor in this alcove, we did not, however. The flakes do not inspire a great deal of confidence, but none budged when hammered and whaled on with a crowbar. Continue up, stemming to exit the alcove. Continue straight up, following the broken crack system, to reach another alcove that has a few towers of guano inside of it. Belay here, building an anchor with medium cams and nuts utilizing a horizontal crack to the left of the alcove and a vertical crack in the alcove as well. (5.10+ or 5.11-, 140’)

P5 - Chimney and stem straight up and out of the alcove, careful not to pull or stand on the guano as it will break. The crack is continues, widening at times, and is now situated in a large open book. Move between the crack and the face to the right, passing a small protruding ledge with a tree out to the right, and then up until the entire system narrows again into a chimney capped by a Y-shaped tree trunk jutting out horizontally from the cliff in the center of the chimney. Above the Y-shaped tree trunk is a large ledge with a flake system to build an anchor with large cams (#2 and #3). (5.9 or 5.10, 140’)

P6 - The chimney continues above you but is ugly with poor rock, instead exit the chimney to climbers right (or when facing away from the cliff, to your left). Walk out from the belay ledge and around the corner and traverse right with easy feet about 15-20 feet to gain a left facing dihedral with a continuous vertical crack. Follow the crack to the top. The crack includes everything from fingers to fists. Nearing the top, the crux is overcoming a large bulge where the crack flares but is wide hands or fists. When you reach the vegetation at the top, move right and up to top out and then back left to belay from a large tree with the rope running over a smooth, thick branch down to your partner. (5.10, 100’)

Retreat: As there are no bolts on this route retreat would be very difficult without leaving a lot of gear, and extremely difficult with a single rope.

Route Condition: The route was cleaned over four days in 2020 on rappel with a significant amount of vegetation and dangerous rock removed. Dozens of toaster to microwave sized blocks or larger were trundled. Although the route is not pristine, as of Dec. 2020 it is relatively clean and free of dangerous rock. The one exception would be the first pitch, which was just out of reach on rappel. As anything that falls from above collects on the first pitch, there is a lot of loose rock and vegetation on this pitch, but it's fairly easy to avoid knocking down on your partner. The rock is generally of good quality, with some crumbly rock at times, however, there are ample features for solid gear throughout the climb. The route was climbed for the second time in Dec. 2021 and found to be in a similarly fair to good condition.

Same approach as for Modern Day Warrior.

Pitches are long and require a good deal of gear and runners to protect. Not sure what the ideal rack would be, but our rack consisted of roughly doubles of BD cams from .2-#3, a single set of aliens from black to red, a wide selection of offset, HP, and regular nuts, a dozen runners and dozen draws. We brought a #4, #5, and #6 with us but only used the #6 in a few places, but was not required.

See also Jon R.'s comments below from their ascent.