Unintelligible Groaning

Unintelligible Groaning climbs the conspicuous cleft to the left of Ginger Cracks, on the prow of Ginger Buttress. Awkward chimney groveling and a thrillingly bolt-free crux headwall make this route the ultimate antithesis of its neighbor, Unimpeachable Groping.

This feature is identified as "obvious right-curving chimney" in the Handren guide, and "large off-width chimney" in the Brock/McMillen guide. We passed a series of bail anchors on the way up. The highest one was partway up our third pitch, immediately before the route started to get steep and spooky. It didn't feel like anyone had climbed the top half of our third pitch, nor the subsequent crux pitch.

We've chosen to bestow the crux pitch with a PG-13 safety rating in its current state. Careless route-finding may find you in R-rated territory in a hurry. The leader will be perturbed by both the friability of the crimps and the marginality of the gear placements. The follower faces the prospect of a wild swinging fall into blank space where the route traverses horizontally to join Ginger Cracks. This pitch would eventually clean up with traffic.

Pitch 1 (5.8, 110'): Climb the first 30 feet of Ginger Cracks up to the vegetated ledge. Branch left around a tree and proceed up cracks in a recessed corner. Belay from a comfy seat atop the pedestal.

Pitch 2 (5.7, 150'): Follow the thin left-facing corner up and left. Skirt around the left side of the shrubbery obtruding the entrance of the chimney. Move up into the massive chimney and belay in a cool nook with a worrisome constriction looming just above.

Pitch 3 (5.9, 150'): Negotiate the constriction (no spoilers here) and continue up the cavernous chimney. Halfway up this pitch, the wall steepens and the rock quality deteriorates. Heave over a choss bulge and engineer a belay anchor at a crappy stance using cams in pockets and a nearby 4-inch crack.

Pitch 4 (5.11a PG-13, 120'): Extend all draws on this pitch, and remain mindful of minimizing rope drag at all costs. Grunt and groan up the heinous squeeze, raining potato chips onto your belayer, until at last reaching the top of the chimney. Ride the diagonal anti-splitter onto the exposed vertical face. Charge 40 feet upward on flexible crimps, keeping a watchful eye for gear placements in the pathetic vestiges of the anti-splitter. When upward progress becomes totally unreasonable, execute a wild 20-foot horizontal crimp traverse to reach the security of Ginger Cracks. Cruise up the short jamcrack (backcleaning gear until higher up, for follower's sake) until reaching the two-bolt anchor at the top of the 4th pitch of Ginger Cracks.

At this point, you have completed Unintelligible Groaning and are on Ginger Cracks. Make a decision on whether to continue to the top or rappel to the bottom.

Standard approach to Ginger Buttress. This is the conspicuous chimney to the left of Ginger Cracks. Shares the starting moves with that route before branching off left.

Double set cams to 4"
1-2x 5" cams
Single set nuts
12 alpine draws
Two 60m ropes