Ascent Notes for: El Camino Real - 5.10a Average Rating : 4.45/5

did this with a headlamp at the end of the day. probably not the best idea and I would have been more comfortable doing it during the day...but still really cool lieback section.

Beautiful P3 dihedral. Exciting P2 slab. P1 seemed contrived, so we started cliff left at a cool easy flake feature. Don't fall at the P2 start.

But fun. Did P1 of Fingertrip Traverse to get to El Camino. Finished up on P3 of Jensen's Jaunt I believe.

sucka with good stances for gear until the last 15 feet. Had a foot slip out a move below grabbing top, got a little interesting as the cam I had in decided to half work. A real nice clean line that I hope to do again. The traverse on the pitch above the lieback is cool too.

All pitches on lead

None

Steeper dihedral with great fingers. Good stance for all gear. A BD.4 protected the crux, but the whole 3rd pitch is sustained 5.9+ with gear size BD.3 to .5. Favorite climb at Tahquitz

A really fun pitch!

On the second pitch climbed up the arete until I joined Coffin Nail... then looked for the bolt... saw it far down and to the left.. no biggie. Did a traverse left across some edges, maybe 5.8. kinda scary though, would have hit that blocky ledge below. Ow? The lieback was pumpy for only 80 feet! Good route, even the opening and ending pitches!

Did this route with Jordan Ramey today. I thought pitches 1 & 2 were unremarkable slab, but pitch 3 certainly lived up to the quality of its reputation. However, I found it not to be quite the enduro-challenge I'd been led to expect. I had the pleasure of leading p3, and as consolation Jordan got to lead p1&2. One can also top-rope part of Dos Equis from the rap-rings at the top of p3, as we did. We attempted to finish on "Pigs in Bondage" - listed as 10a in the Vogel & Gaines guidebook. There is little info, and I couldn't find this finish referenced elsewhere. We meandered a bit, trying to find where to go, and finally opted to follow a left-tending broken crack to top. Well, just when this crack reached its highest point up on the slab above is a big single black bolt. Shortly after that the slab gives way to 4th class. We needed to do the finish (ie: everything above the top of ECR p3) as two (rope-stretcher) pitches with a 60m.