Monoceros

Challenging climbing on bolts in an AMAZING position on a part of the Chief that sees little traffic? Sign me up. While all of the hardest climbing is bolted, this is not a sport climb. There are some decent runouts and heads-up moments throughout.

P1. Climb the first pitch of New Life. 50m, 5.10b

P2. Walk right to the end of the ledge until you can traverse right and move around a corner (crux, exposed!). Once around the corner, keep traversing on poor crimps, good underclings, and smeary feet until you can stem across the cavernous chimney and reach the belay station on the other side. The end of this pitch is pretty gripping to follow; the first ascensionists recommend clipping the first bolt of P3 to protect the second. 5.11d, about 15m.

P3. What you came for. Move up and right from the belay around the corner to the face (an alpine on the first bolt will help reduce rope drag. Then get ready for what feels like an eternity of techy, sustained climbing that weaves between the face and the arete. The first crux comes about halfway up, when the angle of the face kicks back to slightly overhanging. This is followed by an easier section (5.10a-ish) of crack and face climbing which is protected with gear (you could also set up a gear belay here). The second (in my opinion, much harder) crux comes immediately after this section. BETA WARNING: it involves slapping between a lefthand vertical rail and a righthand arete until you can get a high foot and pull a delicate rockover move to clip the next bolt. After the second crux, a couple more bolts bring you to the huge belay ledge. Look up and left for the anchor. 50m, 5.12- (the first ascensionists claim 12a, but that's a bit of a sandbag)

P4. The final pich follows Nanook's rappel route. Although there are some beautiful cracks and cool movement, as of writing, this pitch was dirty and overgrown, and very out-of-character with the quality of the rest of the route. If you arrive here and this is still the case, then rapping is reccommended. If you choose to continue, then head up a crack choked with sketchy, horrible treestumps until you can get in a fist sized cam. A few grunty moves past a wide section get you to some hand jams, then an alcove where you can chill out. Move up right from this along a cool, detached flake, which brings you to a horizontal, leftward finger traverse (save that black totem for this). From here, climb a tight hands to fist crack (0.75 to #1 camalots) for about 8m. Clip the anchor which is hanging in space, then mantle the ledge to the actual belay station. 5.10c, about 35m.

Notes:

- Apparently the rappels are real rope stretchers with a 70m. Tie knots.

- The average bolt spacing is 3-4m on pitch 3. They get closer together for the first crux, and you can pull on draws to bypass some of the difficulties. For the second crux, this isn't really possible, you have to actually climb the thing.

- If you bring a pack, bring a tagline to save the second on the hard pitches. The hauling is straightforward everywhere except P2; here, you can haul the pack around the corner by tying the pack off on a bight mid-rope, and having the leader haul it up while the second pays out rope.

Up the North North Gully trail, take the right fork towards Nanook, then head left to get to the left-facing 5.10 corner (New Life) below the huge, hanging chimney feature (where you're going!)