Castle Crack - 5.10c

Nice to see that a friend of mine posted the last log. I disagree though. I thought it was true to grade, and even a little bit stout. That's based more on the fact that it is sustained rather than on the moves themselves. You will go back and forth between crack holds and face holds. There's usually something there, but you often have to search for it. Greg is right about the feet, but you will have to look around sometimes. And rest any time you can. You'll have to look for that too. I used a kneebar at one point. Later, cramming a toe into the crack helped to take pressure off my hands. And later I slipped a forearm behind an edge and rested off of that. Weird. I've never bragged about rests before. But they were helpful.

The route has pretty good feet everywhere, and seem easier than I expected based on the grade and it being a trad route. In Yosemite or JT or Tahquitz I would guess this route would be called 10a. Look hard before the pod for pro possibilities - they are there, but maybe not obvious. This route also has so many face features, one almost could get away with only minimal use of the crack. If you want a splitter crack, look elsewhere.

really nice climb. Pretty long and interesting moves got pumped as well. Good rock too. Bring extra small gear.

fun, got it cleanly this time.

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