Helmet Buttress - 5.6

Slung the tree at the bottom for the first pro. The left crack accepts great gear. Lacing it up most of the way is totally possible until the crack thins out and pushes you out right on the face. I was trying to conserve energy so I ran it out (and from the looks of other peoples' postings that is normal). I found a great # 0.5 Cam placement overhead where I made the traverse and then it was easy ground to the butress on the right. We rapped from the rings on top of the butress. I agree with mjwestlake that pitch 2 looks sketch. Would love to get some experience perspective on how to tackle that one.

a side note for me is that this was my first full trad 5.6. Getting better slowly but surely! :)

I didn't know that this climb officially had more pitches. I just did the first and assumed the next tied to one of the variations. Doh! First pitch wasn't that exciting though, lots of gear in the crack with one traverse on great feet. Never felt ran out really, rapped from the top of the buttress.

Probably not a good route for newbie followers or leaders due to possible bad falls.

Getting off the ground might seem a bit tricky for 5.6 and the start and end of the traverse are not well protected. My gear was such that when I starting to move out of the corner if I blew it I would have swung back into the corner. It's not too far to go but it's quite thin (poor hands and slabby feet) and could cause a pendulum for the leader back into the crack or a pendulum in the other direction for a second (we nearly saw this happen to the second with the party who went up as we were packing out). Once you've made it to the first big block that is part of the belay ledge you're set though. Also no gear for the last 15 feet or so of the traverse but the ledge is huge.

One thing to note is that although the crack is quite large where it starts, there is a smaller secondary crack that accepts gear in the flake itself; this might reduce your initial runout over the easy ground if you don't have big stuff for the main crack.

P2 still looks weird...

followed crack and then traversed right. runout. pendulum potential for second.

Nice easy P1 (I followed) with abundant gear options. Follow a crack up and to the left to traverse out and up to a grassy ledge. The ledge is run out due to the vegetation but easy. End at a set of bolts. Nice view out over the trees from the big comfy belay ledge.

I started to lead P2, but it seemed cryptic to start with no obvious line up and no gear until probably somewhere near or at the little roof about 20 feet up. I wasn't very keen on the possibility of falling onto the anchor or landing on the ledge that day as it was wet so I backed off. Someone please post a response if there is an easier/safer way. The moves didn't seem very 5.6ish, but I'm sure being on lead with no obvious gear on wet rock wasn't helping matters.