SUMMARY HAIKU
Which way do we go?
Are we on the right climb here?
Ha! That's no walk-off!
Which way do we go?
Are we on the right climb here?
Ha! That's no walk-off!
Box of Rain
Climb: Box of Rain (Trad, 200 feet)
Area: Stick Gully
Rope & Gear: We used a 70m, We used both a #5 and #6 and some smalls (and yeah, stuff in between... It takes a big range of pro)
Good Lead for a New Trad Climber? No. Do you like offwidth? Pitch 1 is pretty spicy. Pitch 2 is a bit squeezy. Route finding can be a bit confusing - although everything probably ends up in similar spots.
Conclusion WTF? What the FEISTY!
Area: Stick Gully
Rope & Gear: We used a 70m, We used both a #5 and #6 and some smalls (and yeah, stuff in between... It takes a big range of pro)
Good Lead for a New Trad Climber? No. Do you like offwidth? Pitch 1 is pretty spicy. Pitch 2 is a bit squeezy. Route finding can be a bit confusing - although everything probably ends up in similar spots.
Conclusion WTF? What the FEISTY!
We THINK we got on the correct climb, but we aren't real sure...
This is a Mountain Project-only climb (i.e. not in Handren) and it has a very, very blurry photo taken from about 800 miles away. There is a written description of the climb, but it seemed to fit two spots. There was mention of going up a slab, to a jumbled mess of corners, to an offwidth, to a chockstone, then to more offwidth, then taking a crack that goes off to the right. We couldn't tell from the description what was where and how far up.
The left crack (labeled in pink in the photo above) has a slab going to an offwidth, and there is a good sized chockstone at the top of the offwidth. Plus, it's pretty jumbly... but Rick quickly got deterred on the slick, lichen-covered slab.
The path we ultimately chose to the right wasn't all that slabby, but there's definitely a jumbled mess of corners, and an offwidth, but no chockstone - but there was a good sized boulder capping the offwidth. Is that what is being called a chockstone? I have no idea! So... we either did Box of Rain or we didn't and we did some first ascent, which we could call another Grateful Dead tune ("Althea," after our dog, maybe? Or "Touch of Grey" for the grey-colored rock? But we'll just say we did Box of Rain!)
Did we like it? Actually yes, we did. Admittedly we were pretty worried about it before hand because it is so obscure, there is very little information, and there are zero ticks and comments. Whatever it was we did ended up being a diverse, feisty, interesting climb that we enjoyed (of course you have to be tolerant of off width for this one...)
This is a Mountain Project-only climb (i.e. not in Handren) and it has a very, very blurry photo taken from about 800 miles away. There is a written description of the climb, but it seemed to fit two spots. There was mention of going up a slab, to a jumbled mess of corners, to an offwidth, to a chockstone, then to more offwidth, then taking a crack that goes off to the right. We couldn't tell from the description what was where and how far up.
The left crack (labeled in pink in the photo above) has a slab going to an offwidth, and there is a good sized chockstone at the top of the offwidth. Plus, it's pretty jumbly... but Rick quickly got deterred on the slick, lichen-covered slab.
The path we ultimately chose to the right wasn't all that slabby, but there's definitely a jumbled mess of corners, and an offwidth, but no chockstone - but there was a good sized boulder capping the offwidth. Is that what is being called a chockstone? I have no idea! So... we either did Box of Rain or we didn't and we did some first ascent, which we could call another Grateful Dead tune ("Althea," after our dog, maybe? Or "Touch of Grey" for the grey-colored rock? But we'll just say we did Box of Rain!)
Did we like it? Actually yes, we did. Admittedly we were pretty worried about it before hand because it is so obscure, there is very little information, and there are zero ticks and comments. Whatever it was we did ended up being a diverse, feisty, interesting climb that we enjoyed (of course you have to be tolerant of off width for this one...)
Pitch 1
|
Spicier than it looks from the ground! The first section requires some searching for pro. Then you get to where Rick is in this photo and it gets feisty here!
Rick stayed left, using the face and the crack. I (Stef) went that way, cleaned the gear, tried to go up the way Rick did and couldn't reach crap. So, I retreated and did battle with the bush. That was spicy too! The ramp leading up to the offwidth (where Rick has his hand) was narrow and sloping in a way where it's quite difficult to move without getting spit off. At the top of the offwidth, climb over a boulder then walk back about 40 feet to another offwidth crack. |
|
Pitch 2
|
Well this photo almost says it all. As you can see there is an offwidth (and there is more offwidth above - that is where I used the #6, I used the #5 in the crack in the photo.)
Rick said he turned around and faced the other direction and, based on the slow progress and grunting sounds I made, he thought it was easier to face the other way - haha! The climb description says to go right somewhere, but there were a couple of options to go right. Assuming that I am even on the correct climb, I opted to not follow the directions. The first right would have been awkward for me to get into given the way I was facing. The second right looked like it got into a jumbled mess of boulders and the climbing ended quickly. I wanted to keep climbing and straight up looked like it lasted a bit longer. Since I wasn't even close to 100% sure I was on the correct climb, I figured the directions didn't matter much at this point - haha! The path I went was entertaining, with another offwidth near the top. But, there was a wobbly boulder that I didn't want to risk knocking down onto Rick, so some challenge was added to avoid that boulder completely. I topped out onto a slab of rock for comfortable belaying. |
|
The Descent
The descent descriptions mentions walking off left into the gully. We scoped it out and it's not a walk-off, it's a tricky, exposed, down-climb. The bushes are too small to rappel from, so we left some nuts and tat and did a short rappel (climber's left) down into the gully. Now there's an anchor for you! But bring spare tat in case ours disappears or becomes faded in the UV.
Climb Stats to Date
|
DATE OF CLIMB: October 11, 2020
WALLS HIT: 1 NUMBER OF 5.7 CLIMBS TODAY: 1 NUMBER OF 5.7 PITCHES TODAY: 2 NUMBER OF FALLS: 0 NUMBER OF TAKES: 0 5.7 VERTICAL FEET CLIMBED TODAY: 200' DIRTY UNDERWEAR ENCOUNTERED TODAY: 0 TOTAL CLIMBS SO FAR: 140 TOTAL PITCHES SO FAR: 185 TOTAL 5.7 VERTICAL FEET ON THE TOUR SO FAR: 16,035' NUMBER OF CLIMBS REMAINING: 98 (out of 237) VERTICAL FEET REMAINING: 34,632' DIRTY UNDERWEAR ENCOUNTERED TO DATE: 5 |
FALLS SO FAR:
|