Myster Z - 5.7

None

A friend and I followed a guide up this route. I don't have a lot of gear beta as a result plus our guide was pretty fearless with the runouts :) We did it in 6 pitches if I recall. No bolts. The rock was decent at the beginning with a few less than solid holds, but as we got higher it seemed to get sketchier in general. Near the top I broke of a fist sized piece of the rounded white stuff while barely gripping it and nearly dropped it. I also kept crushing footholds right and left... very unnerving. The worst bit was climbing up the chimney/flare pitch (perhaps off route? more about that below) where the footholds were crumbling and there wasn't much gear (unless you had a set of at least 4 or so big cams) and the flakes that looked like appealing hand holds kept flexing under the least bit of weight. I followed this b/c I though maybe I might want to try leading it later, but I think I might stay away given the runouts on dubious rock... at least the way we went up. Maybe the real route would have felt safer.

While we were heading up a second guide-client group came up behind us and told our guide he might be off route after the 3rd class pitch (we hadn't gone far enough left). This is what led us into territory I would consider a bit runout and scary on lead. We started up the face until a finger crack appeared, which was fine but then we hit the big flaring crack that continued for most of the remainder of the pitch. We chimneyed up with minimal gear (here's where the big cams would have been useful) on rather crumbly rock in places. Not deadly, but with the lack of gear it made me nervous. From there we ended up following a much smaller crack and that is where the belay was. I think after that we got converged with Myster Z again but not having been there before it's hard to say. The top pitches became substantially easier and a bit less rewarding. Eventually it turned into a hike up the slabs to the brownstone wall (which is a pretty awesome area actually).

The hike down the slabs and through the scrambly boulder field was no big deal; I kept my climbing shoes on. It was time consuming though, 45 min or so to get back to the start of this route. Wouldn't want to do it in the dark.

Nice views of Crimson Chrysalis and Geronimo all the way up. Had a hard time seeing folks on CC although we kept hearing them, at least until I realized how huge that pillar was - they looked like ants when we found them! Very hard to judge the scale.

I liked this route. I didn't think there was an excessive amount of loose rock: actually, I found very little. The descent was quite easy. Walk across some some slabs - level ground, for all intents and purposes - then simply go down the path back to where you left the packs. I agree that it is not 5.7. I thought it was 5.6.

Swung leads with Mike C

On P1 we encountered awful crumbling rock with crap flying everywhere. Don't fall or you'll be impaled on this garbage. Gear everywhere, but super terrible rock. EDIT: I weigh about 210 and we brought packs, so this may account for my ability to find crumbly rock.

We missed p2 somehow. I guess I ran p1 too far (70m rope), and we ended up on the slab with the walk to p3.

P3 (4 in the book, but really the 2nd pitch of actual climbing) was good. Nice features on good rock with plenty of gear in the crack. Nice belay seat for the leader, too.

p4 (5 in the book) was unremarkable. The "great crack" was really just a 2 move wonder. Above that it's very runout over a nasty chimney unless you haul up some bigger gear (doubles in #6 c4s...yeah). We had 2 #3s and a #4 and were sorry we didn't bring more. Be warned!

Above that (p5?) it's just a very low angle slab, very grubby and sandy. Dubious rock. Then lots of walking back to brownstone.

The walkoff took us 3 hours because it was covered in ice, dark, with snow everywhere. Thank god for the rei guarantee...I mangled some new stuff on the way down.

Verdict: some decent climbing, but very little, and none at the grade. Some runouts. Poor rock. Dirt. Terrible descent. Don't bother with this stinker...go do johnny vegas or olive oil or birdland or geronimo or anything really.

Used Myster Z to ascend to Brownstone Wall on our way to the Black Dagger. Worth it vs hiking up the canyon in my opinion. The best pitch was the first one I thought. All the belays were real comfortable. On the 5th pitch, if you brought a #5, move up to a small hole/ledge to belay. Just simul-climbed from there to the top.