Choose Joy

Choose Joy lives up to its name. This fine piece of Sierra Granite is a product of 2 years exploring and linking the remaining fun features on the tallest zone of the Incredible Hulk. It shares 100ft of other climbs with some reversing of sections making them feel novel. Another 2 years were put into cleaning and protecting the final line. What we have now is a safe, no-grovel, endurance route characterized by sustained 5.11 to 5.12- crack and face between nice belay stances. Oh and a 13- thin crux that is one of the hardest true crack sections on the hulk (can be bypassed at 5.11). You can stack a rope on all but 3 of the 10 belays and rap straight down from the top with 1x 80m.
Pitch Breakdown:

P1: 5.11c 40m- 

Start with your right hand in the hole in the flake and romp up the L facing corner to the roof and prepare for the warm up… (beta alert) knee bar above your head and layback to locks (11b?). You got the most uncomfortable part of the route over within the first 20 ft, congrats. Then crank through 4 bolts (11.c) to 5.9 terrain shared with lenticular. Take the bolt out the roof to the left (11.b) to anchors.

P2: 5.11b 60m-

Head up the layback dihedral clipping bolts and placing gear when available. Climb out the nice roof and up a clean prow passing a rappel anchor then go up left through a little layback crux with a bolt (shared with EOTS) to a nice pedestal 2-bolt anchor. 

P3: 5.13a 35m- The Question?

This pitch almost put a ? On the end of Choose Joy? It turned out to be a ton of fun and not painful. Protect up and right from the belay, boulder through the first bolt, clip the second then try hard through an intense seam of amazing holds and sequential feet with several possible placements at several strenuous stances. 5.12 to a hand jam pod then enjoy 5.11 splitter to a final bolt of 5.11- to the chains shared with lenticular. So good!  You can bypass the crux pitch by taking the crack to the right to link into lenticular and the next pitch if you want to keep it at 5.11. 

P4: 5.10c 15m-

Undercling right then layback down to some face features out right (5.5) that link you to some good protection. 5.10 crack takes you up and right to a nice belay ledge. 

P5: 5.12b 40m- The Green Flame

80 feet of engaging crack climbing to a 5 bolt seam through a beautiful green panel.   So good!

P6: 5.11b 60m-  The Improbable Pitch

Take the furthest right vertical dihedral from the anchor and follow intermittent moderate crack climbing in a long right angled pitch to a section of really cool locks before the ledge with high 2-bolt anchor. No bolts needed in this pitch despite looking blank from the ground.

P7: 5:12- 30m- The Believer

Quest through 5 bolts of difficult face climbing up and left to intermittent crack. 2 bolts up and right take you to the 2-bolt anchor on a ledge. This is 12a when it’s cold and a lot harder if hot. One of my 5’1” wife’s favorite pitches and the hardest micro crimping of the route.

P8: 5.10b 30m-

Head right past an old pin and climb the left facing dihedral until it is too small for fingers at a stance. Place a few great cams then bust out onto the arete out right. Quickly merge back into the dihedral where it opens back up to fingers and continue up to the 2-bolt anchor. Os GU by Peter Foster. 

P9: 5.12a 30m- 

Climb the cleanest crack above the belay up to a  double hand crack roof to the right of a hanging block. It’s been jumped on and pried and doesn’t move. Stand on the block and clip bolts left and high. Clip bolts underclinging and sloping to a really nice double arete, shallow dihedral. Intermittent gear up and left to 2-bolt anchor. 

P10: 5.12a 15m- Wide Asleep

This pitch was definitely a motivator for this route. The obvious undercling wide roof easily visible from the valley floor. Climb straight left and reverse the exit from the Eye of the Storm and quest out the wide flake. Intimidating but easy climbing and gear placements take you to a 3-bolt pump exit to a stance and chains. 

P11: 5.12b 40m- Epic

I’m so glad this wasn’t harder.  It’s a journey of a pitch through 5 bolts above the belay into linking intermittent thin crack climbing and bolts trending up and right. A sit down rest gets you prepared for a final tough few pulls past a bolt and gear at the top of a nice pillar. Classic. 

P12: 5.11c 45m!- Cherry on top

We moved the belay up a bit to a nice flat spot to chill before this one. Head up the easy layback to the 3-bolt crux off a ledge. Surf the intermittent thin cracks up and right to where it joins the final pitch of EOTS and tops out the ridge in grand fashion. This pitch is 45m so rap to the ledge and easy scramble back to the raps.  Enjoy the view!

Descent:
After rapping from the slings at the top of P12 and scrambling back to P11 anchors rap 40m to P10 anchors. From here you rap to the base of the Astrohulk dihedral (new full size bolt and rap rings). Rap into and down 2 stations in lenticular and go to a new 2 bolt (both 1/4” bolts) station on the Macedonia/ trade winds. From here rap to the top of P5. From there, two raps down put you on a big lenticular ledge, then rap climbers left to the anchor you skipped on p2. Rap to the top of P1 then to the ground. Knot your ends throughout. Sounds complicated but just stop at every anchor with nice rap rings. 12 raps from the top.

Notes: 

It took 4 years of hitting dead ends and scrubbing by Bishops JV team to make this happen. We really got called up to the big leagues for this one. Credit to the following:

Monica Jones, Josh McClure, Chase Leary, Peter Foster, Louie Allen, Brendan Cathcart, Sarah Shaw, Allen Higginbothom. Big thanks for all the help friends!

Start at essentially the lowest middle spot of the hulk, to the right and below the shared start for Venturi, Eots, and Lenticular and 30 ft left of tradewinds. Joy is the independent dihedral with 4 bolts leading into it at 20ft up. The route parallels to the right of EOTS until the eye then crosses it underclinging left out the eye at pitch 10.

Single set nuts, single cams 000 or micro green z4 to #2. Double up on .2 to .75 with optional #3 (we dropped ours on p2 and didn’t need it for easier runouts). The most common piece is .3 cam so triples in that size is fun. All permanent lead hardware is 10mm or 3/8” stainless with the exception of 1x quarter inch bolt in easy stuff on p1 with other gear nearby. Anchors are typically 1x 1/4” bolt and 1x stainless 10mm… bomber. An 80m rope is mandatory for rappelling the route.