Graveyard Shift

Graveyard Shift difficulty can be either ~5.12a if done free, or ~5.10 A0 using aid on a few of the bolts in more difficult sections. The vast majority of the climbing is moderate (5.9 or easier).

** Pitch 1 (5.9, 9 bolts, ~70 ft) Mostly moderate slab climbing angling left to reach highly featured rock. A few thin (5.9-ish) moves.

** Pitch 2 (Skinny Sidewalk Traverse, ~5.12a or 5.10 A0, 12 bolts, ~70 ft) Thin slab climbing or aid by using slings and stepping on the bolts to reach the skinny sidewalk. As the sidewalk turns the corner there's a missing section. If you're attempting to free the route, this is the crux. Very thin friction or aid by pulling on a sling which is tied between two bolts to cross the thin section. From there the climbing backs off to 5.9 or easy 5.10 friction across the rest of the skinny sidewalk and up a short wavy slab to the belay ledge.

Note that because of the traverse, a rappel from the Pitch 2 anchor goes to the ground (and requires two ropes) NOT to the Pitch 1 anchor (I heard a 3rd-hand rumor that one party managed to swing around the corner and make a rap from P2 to P1, but I have no idea how they pulled off this magic).

** Pitch 3 (1st Wavy Slab, 5.9, 9 bolts, ~70 ft) Slab climb essentially straight up the fall line, past cool features, to a belay anchor at a nice ledge just above the obvious diagonal seam.

** Pitch 4 (2nd Wavy Slab, 5.9, 10 bolts, ~70 ft) Slab climb essentially straight up the fall line, past cool features, to a belay anchor at a not so great ledge.

** Pitch 5 (3rd Wavy Slab, 5.9, 15 bolts, 120 ft) Slab climb essentially straight up the fall line, up the left side of a short steep section, and past more of the cool wavy features. Joins with an older line (Potato Chip Flake) near the top of the pitch. Continue past the old Potato Chip Flake anchors to a new anchor at the very top of the lower Buttress. The Pitch 5 anchor makes up for the poor Pitch 4 belay ledge, by offering a nice sit-down belay if you like--but why sit down when you can lay down and put your feet up!

** Pitch 6 (The Escalator, 5.5, 5 bolts, 50 ft) After the last 5 pitches, Pitch 6 feels like riding up an escalator. Climb either over the top of a pointy boulder past a single bolt, or go around on the right, to reach an easy ramp/slab. Follow the ramp up, clipping bolts on the steeper slab above the ramp, to gain a large belay ledge.

** Pitch 7 (The False Summit, 5.10, 11 bolts, 90 ft) A thin move up onto the slab above the Escalator belay leads to interesting slab climbing on small features. The climbing makes a left turn near the last few bolts with another thin section to gain a sharp ridge. Anchor at a narrow gully near the false summit.

** Pitch 8 (The No Hands Traverse, 5.6, 4 bolts, 60 ft) Downclimb an easy slab past a single bolt, then take a leap of faith by stepping down onto a hidden ledge on the south side of the buttress. Traverse downwards past 3 bolts on the hidden ledge and a tricky(?) downstep off the No Hands Traverse ledge onto a larger ledge with some boulders and annoying shrubbery. Duck past the shrubbery to find the Pitch 8 bolted anchors.

** Pitch 9 (Easy Street Slabs, 5.7, 15 bolts, 150 ft) Climb up the right-hand slab past lotsa bolts, then switch to the center slab, and then to the left-side--the route follows the more solid rock and tries to avoid the dirt. A couple of the bolts are near small "roof" features and will need to be extended with standard slings or tied webbing to avoid rope drag.

The anchors at the top of pitch 9 were originally placed with the thought of pitch 10 going up the right edge of the arete pitch (which turned out to be pretty thin, but I think would probably go at harder 5.10 or 5.11-ish). Since pitch 10 goes up the left side, it might make sense to add a different belay anchor a little further left.

Also note that there is a really appealing looking heavily featured slab on the right side of pitch 9 (upper 1/2 of the pitch), but if you look underneath from the south side of the Buttress, that entire section appears to be a massive loose block which is teeter-tottering on a tiny block in the middle. It would not be good to be bolted to that thing when it makes for the river! So I avoided that tempting looking rock and ran the upper section of Pitch 9 on the less interesting but more solid left side of the buttress.

** Pitch 10 (First Arete Pitch, 5.10, 18 bolts, 120 ft) Climb up the massive flake on the left side of the arete, around a little roof section, and then up a thin slab to gain a ledge. From there lieback up to a more featured section of rock in a shallow gully and up through the gully to a large belay ledge.

Note, Pitch 10 is a long pitch and it might make sense to re-think this, add an intermediate anchor, and break it into two pitches.

** Pitch 11 (Second Arete Pitch, 5.11 or 5.9 A0, 9 bolts, 70 ft) Climb up a featured face on the left side of the arete, to a thin friction move (or an aid move on the bolt) to reach a ledge. From there angle right to the very edge of the arete, climbing past fun features to the belay where the arete starts to flatten out into the Dance Floor, a massive ledge near the top.

** Pitch 12 (The Dance Floor, 5.4, 3 bolts, 230+ ft) Low angle slab past two bolts and then up a short steeper section to the third bolt on the Dance Floor proper. Either simul class 4 across the Dance Floor, skirting a large boulder on the right and then up through a short, hidden chimney behind the boulder, and a short section of gully which leads to a pine-needle covered hike past a huge pine tree and finally over a short boulder to the two-bolt anchor at the base of Pitch 13 on the North (shady) side of the arete. If you're not comfortable doing this pitch as a simul climb you could also set up a belay at a pine tree.

** Pitch 13 (Summit Pitch, 5.9, 9 bolts, 80 ft) Fun featured slab climb up to the summit.

** Pitch 14 (The Broken Sidewalk, 5.4, 1 bolt, 70 ft) Airy class 4 across a "broken sidewalk" of blocks behind the summit tower leads to a short slab with a single bolt in the middle. Climb over the slab and down a short slab to a two-bolt anchor in the Pantry.

In dry conditions an exposed class 3 leads down from the Pantry as shown in the Ascent/Descent ramp photos--if it's wet you may want to rappel out of the Pantry to the ascent/descent ramp as there are some exposed sections and the lichen gets really slick when it's wet.

** Descent: walk-off down the Ascent/Descent Ramp as described on the "climbing area map"  "Approach/Descent from top of Main Buttresses"

     Highlights of Descent Route:

        1. Scramble exposed class 3 (or rappel recommended if exposed slab is wet) down out of Pantry to the Approach Descent Ramp

        2. Turn right, DOWN the grassy ramp, aiming towards a medium size pine tree. In this section of the ramp, the walking tends to be a little better on the right half of the ramp (descending climber's right)

        3. Switchback around the pine tree (Rest Stop tree). After the pine tree the ramp will make a right turn, heading down towards the Cherry tree. In this section the walking is better on the descending climber's left edge of the ramp (the right side is passable but brushy).

        4.  As you near the Cherry tree, there is a large boulder in the middle of the descent ramp.  JUST below the boulder, best walking leaves the left edge and moves towards the middle/right, stepping down through some talus "steps" just past the boulder.

        5.  The ramp turns left just after the Cherry tree, heading towards a massive Pine tree. 

        6.  Continue past the Pine tree and down towards the road. Note that the right edge of the ramp in this area is easier walking but is also crumbling over the edge of a cliff above the road.

        7.  About 1/2 way down from the Pine tree to the road, the slab with Solar Wind is on the descending climber's left. Just below this slab is the beginnings of a switchbacking trail which is starting to be developed.  In order to take advantage of this trail (and continue to improve it by walking on it) traverse left to the base of Solar Wind when you reach that point.

Route finding on the descent will be pretty challenging if it's your first time on this hike and it is dark when you finish the climb.

** SPEED Record:

1.  Carson Sloan (solo), 5:19:19

2.  James Findlay, 7 hours

3.  Jenna B., 7:15

4.  Johanna Ludwig, 7:30

Note, there are four times reported, top is reported as solo the other two I believe were teams but I don't know all party names.  As far as I'm aware, no one has really made a concerted effort at setting a record, so these aren't remotely close to the limit of what can be accomplished.

Speed record rules are:

A) Party may preclip the first bolt of pitch 1 prior to the start of the climb

B) Time starts when the leader begins climbing pitch 1

C) Time stops when ALL party members reach the Pitch 14 anchors

Note, this is NOT a car-to-car record, as we don't want to encourage high speed descents down the walk off ramp--this would be dangerous and encourage erosion.

Just left of obvious dihedral/roof feature near the road. A short trail (same trailhead as The Phoenix) leads up to a belay ledge where there's a single bolt anchor to protect the belayer.

Note, the Graveyard Shift start is shared with a much older line which goes straight up. The older line has an assortment of appallingly bad looking 1/4 in. compression and 3/8 in. bolts which can also be seen from the Graveyard Shift P4 anchors. With some heavy duty cleaning and bolt replacing the older line might be revived. The first Graveyard Shift bolt was a 3/8 in. plated 5 piece from the old line and was badly wallowed out when originally drilled. I replaced it with a 1/2 in. stainless 5-piece. My experience with bolt replacement at Manning Crevice leads me to believe that many (if not all) of the 3/8 bolts on the old line will have the wallowing out problem if one of them does.

Stainless 5-piece bolts with stainless Petzl bolt hangers (~163 bolts total). Bring lots of quickdraws and a few extra standard slings to extend the clips and avoid rope drag in a few spots where the bolt is out of line or under a roof. Having some of your draws as longer "alpine style" is a good idea.

I've put bolt counts, approximate pitch lengths, and difficulty ratings in the pitch descriptions, but take that with a little grain of salt. Please send me a message and let me know if I've got them wrong and I'll edit them.

Bailouts:

It's possible to bail out from the lower pitches but the existing options all require a double rope rappel for at least some of the pitches.

From the Pitch 2 anchors it is about 140 ft. to the ground going down the fall line. It's not possible to rappel to the pitch 1 anchors because of the traverse.

From the Pitch 3 or Pitch 4 anchors rappel down towards the Pitch 2 anchors. From Pitch 3 it's also possible to rappel to the Pitch 1 anchors and this is probably the best setup for working on the traverse if there's any cleaning or anchor changes needed.

From the Pitch 5 anchors you currently have to either rappel down the Graveyard Shift or the Potato Chip Flake lines. The best option is probably 3 double-rope rappels down the Potato Chip Flake line.

In the future I think it would be possible to develop a shorter bailout from near the Pitch 5 anchors going the opposite direction, rappelling East down the gully instead of West down Potato Chip Flake or Southwest down Graveyard Shift. This would get you to a little Class 3 ramp accessible north from Moon Crazed. However, this has not been explored and will likely need some additional anchors (perhaps two rappels or a double-rope rappel to get to Class 3 hiking).

From the Pitch 6 anchors it's possible (barely) to rappel sidehill across/down the Escalator to either the Graveyard Shift Pitch 5 or Potato Chip Flake Pitch 3 anchors.

From the Pitch 7 anchors you can rappel to the Pitch 6 anchors, however your rope end tends to fall over the North side of the buttress, so there may be some risk of sticking a rope with this rappel.

From the Pitch 8 anchors it's possible to make a double-rope rappel down the south face and reach (difficult) class 3 terrain after the rappel (East Gully bailout). This hike leads down to the base of Moon Crazed.

Above Pitch 8 it's possible to still rappel down the Graveyard Shift line, though the rappel on the upper Arete (fin) structure is slightly dicey, taking care not to take a swinging fall around either side. At this point though, in most scenarios it will be easier to climb to the top and walk off than to rappel down.