sed's Logbook (80 ascents)

Will be good fun once clean, having two #3's and two #2's on the dihedral is nice. Gear just above small roof on top is good, keep climbing straight above that roof to keep at grade, otherwise trend left for easier ground.

I finally went out to do this line and discovered that both belays and the three bolts on P2 have been replaced. It's still plenty run out but maybe went from an X to an R. You can do two raps with a 70 meter down the route and get down now.

Great fun manny, I can see you put a lot of work into cleaning and planning the bolt placements, it's not just a good route for camelback, it's a good route period.

A few notes about the northwest facing north face route. First, I lead the odd numbered pitches (recommended) and Mark led the even numbered pitches (not recommended!). If you are interested in leading the 5.10 pitches you should be regularly leading solid 5.11 due to the run out and poor gear. I wont give detailed beta on every pitch but i'll make a few comments.
p1: I'd say this pitch is like 5.7 and only about 80 feet - a pretty easy stroll with decent pro.
p2: you can keep this at about 5.10b if you veer left a bit from the bolts then traverse back right but any way you look at it is kind of scary. The bolts are oddly placed and there is some decent run out before you make it to the flake. The crack above the flake is kind of dirty and pro isn't great but a short 10a move and you are soon on easier, though poorly protected rock.
p3: In my opinion the most enjoyable pitch on the climb, nice rock, good pro and pretty long.
p4:Not as runout as we expected, if you bring a nut tool you'd be amazed what cracks you will find with a little digging.
p5:We belayed at the tree then I traversed straight right from it, did a bit of wandering up and down and a lot of route finding but not that difficult, good rock and decent pro.
p6:Mark let the jagged crack left of the dihedral. The dihedral looked really filthy. The jagged crack was a nice pitch, 5.9 starting move and a nice flake, around roof to right then bolts a bit higher up.
p7;scary flakes, if you look underneath them you'll see they are all just stacked on top of each other. A crowbar would release them all. Dance gingerly, pull down and not out.
p8: The actual difficulty of the climbing on this pitch is (in my opinion) 10d but you are leading left and above two pieces of crappy gear to a flake that will take another piece of crappy gear. If you blow the moves to the flake you can assume that neither your tcu, nor the old pin will stop you and you will be taking a long pendulum fall into a corner. I would rate this pitch as X, not strictly due to the length of runout but the poor quality of the protection below the runout as well. This pitch is why I would recommend the leader should be comfortable leading solid 5.11/+ to lead it. It would be a great service for someone to replace that pin, either with another pin or a bolt. It might have inspired confidence 25 years ago but it certainly doesn't now.
p9:A long pitch of chimney, hands, and offwidth, you'll need all your gear on this one. This pitch is continuous in difficulty and i'd rate it 5.9+, but being that you've already climbed a few hundred feet it will seem longer and harder than it is.
p10:The chimney starts off fun, easy with good stemming. The exit from the chimney sucks, climbing past a yucca and trying not to slip on grassy and dirty slab for another 30 feet.

This is one of those routes that is enjoyable primarily in retrospect. I'm glad it's done, now I don't have to go back. The area is amazing, so many domes and so much rock. We did it in two days, camped at the base the night before then climbed it and hiked out the next day. The rappel for the decent is over the top of the dome to the back, at the notch between leviathan and wilderness domes. There is one rappel from a failry healthy tree that is about 60 feet, then a 2nd rappel from another tree that we did with one 70m rope. You could do it with a 60m if you don't mind a little scrambling on ledges to the ground.

9+ or 10- to the obvious crux on top. I hung once there, expecting it to be harder maybe. well bolted.

chimney is clean, great feet, hand crack up higher dirty but fun.

The starting roof is strenuous but has big jugs and a monster fist jam. Overall it's a great route. Bring a couple long slings for pro under the top roof to avoid drag. The left variation above the roof is 5.9 with good pro, the starting roof is probably around 10d but short.

This could be a really fun route but Jim left this one with 2, 20 ft runouts and given the looseness of the rock and the ledgey nature of the climb it's a lot more dangerous than it needs to be. The climbing is 5.7 but definitely not for the 5.7 leader.

Not as thin as expected but pretty consistent. I had to hang and think about the last bolt but good fun.

great first or last climb of the day.