The Grack, Left - 5.7

My friend Auggie and I took our mutual friend Paul on his first multipitch adventure. Auggie led while we followed. Definitely knot the ends of your rope on the rappel.

Lead the whole thing (Terri followed). I agree the most fun pitch was P2; It looks like went past the belay station for P3 and was almost out of rope (60m rope) so I had to build my anchor on a finger crack (not my best anchor ever but it looked solid w a nut and two small cams). We did the rap with two raps w 2 60m ropes. Tie knots on your ends since the ropes did not reach all the way down to the bottom. We all had to climb down for about 10-15 ft.

I've climbed the grack center 3 or 4 times now so I decided to give the grack left a go. The first pitch of the grack left is a lot more interesting than the grack center in my view (of course the money pitch for the grack center is the pitch 2 perfect hands splitter). There appears to be a handful of options regarding the first pitch -I went up the grack center line and stayed left at the point where you transition right for grack center - then went up a little 5.6 crack - and then into a more offwidth groove to the Bay Tree. With this line, and a 60m rope, I was about 20 feet short of the tree though, and had to build an anchor in groove (this was w/my belayer belaying from the same spot you belay the grack center). Thus, I'd recommend either a pair of 70s, a slightly more direct line, or scrambling up a bit on the class 3/4 start and belaying from there.

The Bay Tree has slings/rap rings as of our climb.

The money pitch of the grack left is the first half of the second pitch. It isn't very long, but it has some interesting moves in it, primarily stemming, a bit of lieback/mantle. This is the only 5.7 portion. It is just above the Bay Tree.

The second half of pitch 2 is class 3 or 4 to a very large slung boulder. You can rap from there if you like. We did a class 3/4 pitch 3 scramble to the top of the Grack Center, and then rappelled from there. Supertopo doesn't denote the route going to the top of the Grack Center (denoted route K in the book) - I assume because it's essentially just 3rd class.

Just like the Grack Center, the Grack Left descent is accomplished via two rappels using two ropes.

while there were a few interesting parts, mostly boring. Some of the belay stations were slightly sketchy. The view from the grack ledge is awesome though.

Fun, but enjoyed the center much more. Lots of bees around the belay anchors.