Just Acquaintances - 5.6

This year I've climbed or reclimbed Bear's Reach, Surrealistic, Corrugation, Hogwild, Harvey Right, and if Just Acquaintances is 5.6, those are 5.6 or 5.5. ie, There were maybe 2 moves on Acquaintances that were technically harder than anything on Corrugation. That said, a fun, steep, route, but still a little dirty.

I followed on this route and felt like a couple sections were a bit stiffer than 5.6. There is an obvious crux that can be protected well by what is probably a BD#2. You could use a #4 or #5 near the top where there's double hand cracks (and larger) for a bit (be careful not to break off the piece of granite in between the two parallel vertical cracks near the top). The route itself wasn't perfect granite but was relatively clean until you climb over the top where you find a lot of munge, sand, some loose rocks (especially over the top to the left), and some flaky granite. There's an obvious good sized tree about 30-40 feet above the top out (up to the right) that is a pretty good belay spot. If you're following or on the ground while someone's climbing wear your helmut - it's not impossible to get a rock on the skull down there. You can apparently rappel down to the 10a with a single rope - although we decided to walk off - which is class 2 and 3 above the tree. There were some straps on the tree when we were there but no rap bolts/rings. I don't recommend this as a newbie's first 5.6 lead.

Climbed with Yvan S. Harder than Hogwild. Belayed at tree and rapped off with 2 ropes.

It's steep in contrast to other 5.6 routes like Deception and Harvey's. Someone slinged a 24" diameter tree at the top with rings - I'd say about 196-197' from the ground. We walked off the back to camp via 2nd class. I felt it was generally pretty clean.

cleaned sand off all the holds and moss in a few placements but definately a route to do, it should definately have rap rings at the top though :/