SUMMARY HAIKU
Too Many Tantrums here
Do the roof, traverse, or both?
What the FUCK today!
Too Many Tantrums here
Do the roof, traverse, or both?
What the FUCK today!
Mescalito East
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DATE OF CLIMB: DECEMBER 20, 2019
WALLS HIT TODAY: 1 (Mescalito - E Face) NUMBER OF CLIMBS TODAY: 1 NUMBER OF PITCHES TODAY: 2 (often done in 3 pitches) VERTICAL 5.7 FEET CLIMBED TODAY: 290' NUMBER OF FALLS TODAY: 0 NUMBER OF TAKES TODAY: 1
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TOTAL CLIMBS SO FAR: 73
TOTAL PITCHES SO FAR: 90 TOTAL 5.7 VERTICAL FEET ON THE TOUR SO FAR: 6,985' NUMBER OF CLIMBS REMAINING: 176 VERTICAL FEET REMAINING: ~43,382 FALLS SO FAR: 0 TAKES ON LEAD SO FAR:
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VIDEO NOTE: We planned to do two climbs and ended up just doing this one. It's actually a good thing we did, because the next day we did Pauligk Pillar and that was even more of a What the FUCK!-er! (see Day 23).
START & END TIMES:
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Pitch 1
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Climb: Too Many Tantrums (Trad) (5.7)(2 pitches - often done in 3 - 290') Wall: Mescalito E Face Conclusion WTF? What the FUCK!
Pitch 1 starts off with a bang with this quite challenging mini roof with no holds. It is cussing and grunt-worthy for sure. Meeting our WTF criteria, Rick said "fuck" multiple times on this section - he also "took," which was the first time for him to take on this tour!
The climb gets back to (mostly) 5.7 terrain for the rest of this pitch. Sometimes this climb is broken into three pitches. Rick decided to do a rope stretcher, taking our 60m twins all the way to a decent belay ledge about 190 ft up (placing pro in pockets). This was to minimize rope drag on the traverse to the anchors on pitch 2. 
Rick's first take and hang on the WTF 5.7 tour! He also said "fuck" several times. This mini-roof is the first element contributing to the WTFuck rating of this climb.
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Start of Too Many Tantrums - Rick and I estimate this to be about a 5.10b start.
With some grunting and try-hard moves, he made it!
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Pitch 2
Stef on pitch 2 of Too Many Tantrums.
Stef on rappel.
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The main issue with pitch 2 was deciding to do the traverse versus the roof then traverse.
The supposed 5.7 version is to cut below the roof and traverse right to the anchors for rappelling (the anchors are at the top of the climb Next Century.) The entry into the traverse was bulgy and committing, and difficult to see holds to get out onto the face. Trying to get into the traverse felt less comfortable than the roof. It's difficult to see the holds and protection possibilities on this traverse. A Mountain Project description also describes it as difficult to protect for the second. Although the roof is technically on another climb (rated 5.8+/5.9-), it just seemed more straightforward. You can (sort of) protect the roof from below (though with the sling a fall would likely be a small deck), then do some scrappy moves to get up and over. The holds are there, you just can't place any pro once you commit - you gotta go. Mountain Project descriptions from the roof, talk about going up, over and down to the anchors, but we just traversed after gaining the roof. This traverse is protectable and straight forward. Rappel down Next Century with two ropes (we used two 60m ropes). |
The End
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Stef points to the major What the Fuck part of this climb (which is avoidable by starting on a different climb). All in all this was a good climb, just not for a beginner and not a 5.7 the way we went.
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Links to the WTF 5.7 Tour: Red Rock Canyon sorted by area: