Ascent Notes for: Epinephrine - 5.9 popular Average Rating : 4.65/5

Such a cool experience. Elephants trunks was so neat

My longest ever by several pitches. Seconded all but the first pitch. Incredible.

Kinda' thuggish - good route but not sure when I'll be back. Chimneys are a lot of grunt work!

led odd-numbered pitches

Still in disbelief that every single pitch on this climb was so good. The chimneys are not scary at all and only involve maybe 100-150 feet of real chimneying, the rest is classic crack climbing. You want a scary chimney go do Tunnel Vision. Took about 10.5 hours car to car and we moved at reasonable pace in great weather with no one else on the route. Descent was straightforward using Supertopo beta but I could see it being awful in the dark.

My partner Ryan and I did it in 10 pitches - started at 11am; skipped the first pitch and scrambled instead via a few feet to the right of the start - then linked the next 2 pitches simul-climbing. I led the first chimney and Ryan led the last two and then we swapped leads again after the Black Tower. The rest of the route is face climbing and scrambling that Ryan led. The descent is clearly marked with cairns but we were halfway down when it got dark on us. We managed to get to the vehicle after being embraced by brush and cactus kisses. The descent in the dark was the most intense part - but best route I've climbed in RR thus far; have to give a lot of that credit due to a knowledgeable and strong partner.

-simul-climbed with Whiteflash (5th classed the chimneys though)
-long and exposed

Climbed with SF and split the leads up as so. SF linked 1-2 doing some harder crack to the right instead of the 5.6 chimney. WF 1st 'hard' chimney. SF led what we felt was pointedly the crux chimney. p5 WF. SF linked 6-7 to the top of the trunk. p8 WF. SF linked p9-10 with some simul. WF linked p11-12 with some simul. And we did the ramp with simul climbing. Went super light and super early , once you get past the 2nd hard chimney the rest of the route will fly by. I think it was 8-9 pitches total for us with a 70m rope.

Descent was not too bad for us and we got off the ridge fine, took some route finding down the 3rd class slope though.

Chimneys were hard for me. I hung in the two hardest chimneys.

Definitely worth combining P1 & P2 at the start, then leading the first pitch after the Black Tower to the top of the Elephant's Trunk in order to combine the two 5.9 pitches above that into one pitch.

I really think that move out of the P5 chimney is harder than 5.9.

Can definitely see why the descent confuses people. That large hill off to the right? You've got to walk over that before the long walk along the ridge really begins. It is definitely key to find those descent cairns into the gully leading down to the Frogland descent before dark hits. Otherwise, it's one mistake and...

Awesome route. The chimneys are definately a trip and the 5th pitch chimney was definately the crux for me. Stayed deep in for the gear and had to do some bouldery overhanging moves that felt harder than 5.9. We combined several pitches and used alternative belays that broke down like this. Combine pitches 1 & 2. Do regular pitches to the top of the Black Tower, avoiding the old intermediate belay in pitch 5. At the top of the Black Tower run the pitch longer to the top of the Elephants Trunk so you can combine pitches 8 & 9 without ropedrage (stellar pitches by the way). Break the rest of it up like normal for a climb of only 10 pitches with a bunch of simul-climbing at the end. We got up and down to the col between Whiskey Peak and Black Velvet before we needed headlamps. I can see how people get confused in the dark but if you've got good vision and can't figure this out in the daylight then you need some work on your routefinding skills. The descent is the hardest part of the day by far. We got done at about 6 after starting at 6:30 and didn't get back to the car till almost 9.