mjwestla's Logbook (258 ascents)

Can do it via top of Frank's World or Lemon Twist, just head a bit more left and back inwards from FW's anchors on the big shelf. Line follows an easy block start with some loose rock until it leads you up into a really unlikely looking roof slot/corner that arches out behind you and to the right. A little small gear at the start and then a crucial #3 or #3.5 C4 protect (well) an intimidating and airy but awesome handcrack/backstep/stemming roof problem that takes you to an easy top out. Kinda burly but short lived and worth a trip! More fun than Sour Grapes to me.

Finally linked it all together. Great movement and great pro, just have to hang on long enough to put it all together at the top. Run out but easy to the first bolt sets you up for a tricky first roof crux and some fun face climbing. Work up through the crack on good holds to the big roof. Find the best slots for gear (several crappy flakes to avoid) and then power it up and out on jugs. Hardest part is hanging out to place a keyhole stopper but it's so good it's worth doing. Either build a trad anchor with small to medium gear above and a little right of the crack finish or traverse and lower from Shock the monkey anchor.

So good, this should be getting done all the time! More variety than Shock and just as much fun at the finish. Might be my favorite single pitch 10 in NC.

Back for the RP on attempt two. I noticed I tend to miss the key right hand crimp at the upper crux when leading versus TRing. There is a sorta decent red C4 you can place in a pod up around there but it may be more trouble than it's worth. It's been fun climbing it on TR over the years as I come down from other routes and it was satisfying adding the RP lead experience. Very nice route that takes gear well but would be a challenging onsight effort.

RP - went smoothly this time largely due to no fiddling with unnecessary extra pieces.

Great route that protects well and is exciting and has a lot of different kinds of movement. On a highish humidity day it felt a little slick in spots but overall the crack is very friendly, offering finger slots, hand jams, all the way up to the crazy undercling crux move. No tape necessary. The thin part/first crux was no big deal to me (just a thin move committing to some polished edges for feet with bomber gear). The tricky part was that around every corner where I was working cracks the good holds vanished for a bit and I had to stay engaged when I kept expecting a jug. It really kept my heart rate up and started to get into my head. It made the onsight a bit more exciting and sustained mentally than any of the 10s I've been on previously. The undercling was definitely the hardest part for me and I made a major production out of stuffing a #4 C4 way up in there. Going without or taking a #5 would probably make things a lot easier and simpler. Thankfully, even as improbable as it seems once I committed the feet were a little better than expected. I protected the hell out of it and issued forth a lot of animal noises as I futzed my way up it. Your experience may be more relaxed - I suspect a subsequent ascent will be for me.

First clean 11 on gear. Great route with tricky gymnastic movement between small if good stances for gear. Small stoppers (big brass work well) and yellow and green alien sizes do well to protect the start if you can avoid blocking your handholds. More small to mid-size above. Make sure to protect well as the business starts right off the deck and just nuts might zipper. Multiple thin and powerful moves, it's no gimme and not totally over when you turn the arete although you can get a good rest there.

It's all there. Lieback, stem, and crimp through exciting engaging moves. I used a ton of my smallest gear on this one but a piece (red ballnut) I sussed out on a follow-up run on TR seemed like a nice alternative to the dubious RPs I used at the start of the slabby bit. Still not sure of the best nuts to use there. The powerful lieback start is fun and well protected although the thin face (and slight overhang at one point) is where the true action is. Fantastic! I think one of the hardest parts is getting yourself moving onto the face from the ledge midway up... could be my favorite route at Moore's even though it's a bit scary.

Got on this sucker with just a sense of the features ahead, not much else. I started on the bottom right behind the big flake to maximize time climbing the crack, which was fun and not nearly so difficult as it looked. Lots of great locks and mostly feet outside of the crack to work with. Was a bit easier to pull the bulge to the first bolt just a little higher than I initially guessed. It was running with water when we got there in the AM but had dried by the time I got on - even so, it is seriously slick in spots. Big hand and foot holds, a bit like the heavily bolted part of the first pitch of the pulpit, but a hell of a lot slicker. It was nerve rattling from there to the anchor. You get two bolts then a committing series of moves using a flake for good hands when the good feet run out. Placed a bunch of small stuff when I got to the flake to try to "share the load" as this is the last pro you get. At the end of the flake there is a very exciting slick traverse right to get to some features you can use to surmount the top of the flake and start of the last bit of slab to the anchor. I was really tense by that point and slipped on the glassy feet. Dropped about 10 feet but no big deal. Got back on and pulled through to the end. The whole way from there is pretty tenuous and I felt it was possible to slip the whole way to the anchor, even though it's very featured (I feel for that person who blew it near the top). It does ease up just a bit though, thankfully. Still, it's an awesome route and highly recommended. Suggest using a 70m to TR and rap P1.

Gear spoilers:
Didn't use any gear bigger than .75 camalot (save that until just after the 2nd bolt!). Used a lot of .5ish size cams and medium nuts in the crack. Several small cams in the flexy flake section but saved a small grey C4 as the last piece of gear. I asked my second to try out my blue/yellow Master cam hybrid and that apparently worked a lot better in that spot. Whatever it is, you want it to be good as it's the last piece you get. :p Glad mine held!

This would be a pretty scary lead - 10ish moves get you up through the face and over the little roof but then a couple more very thin moves are required to get you to what is likely your first gear in a short crack below the first bolt. Not sure if you could get any gear in the little gash at the base of the roof... it'd be a rough steep fall all the way to the ground if you blew it going for the crack.

Still, it's a fun and easy to set TR from the anchors on Fantastic. Pretty brutal crystal crimping and stepping on nothing, although hard to tell if we were going the right way all the time since the features/path is so faint. Had a little pressure bruise on my index fingertip from crushing the hell out of a couple of those crystal crimps.

Did P1 only - Primarily a trad route following a crack and some flakes, this is probably the safest route I have climbed at Stone, excepting perhaps the Arch. Crux right at the first bolt and just a tiny bit of slightly challenging climbing after that. Much less intimidating than most of the other routes I've climbed at Stone, even many of the lower graded routes. Definitely a good choice for warming up for Fantastic even though it's technically easier.

We traversed over to the first bolt on P2 in an effort to set a TR on something but opted to do so from the P1 anchors on Fantastic instead. Not too tough to reach the first bolt, but much more Stone style runout climbing. At least there are some features to work with through that part. The moves to the next bolt looked a bit more heady and certainly that last bit of Fantastic is pretty riveting.