eric8

Agreed, the pressure chamber is a harder onsight and it is a letter grade easier. Also, Sloe Children, how many 10+/11- climbers onsight that one?

100% agree with Newest Industries Most of the right side of the country is hard to onsight. Phone Calls from the Dead absolutely flailed on the onsight. Pulled the rope and hiked it... Chimp Dip at Squamish was consistently onsighting that grade at squamish when I tried it. Massive flail session on the start

1 Beckey Chouinard Grand wall with cruel shoes start and chimneys finish Sunshine crack (bugs) supercouloir (mont blanc du tacul) Bear DNB 2. Rostrum Astroman Passenger Freeway Something on the Diamond 3. Thin Redline Salathe (free) Highway 61 Town Crier (free) Pimpsqueak

The reach to the good horizontal hold after the dihedral on natural log cabin the crux back smearing move and the thin crack top out of terminal preppie

where is doctor flash amazing when you need him?

what do you consider to be close enough to Seattle? At index there is 12 gauge IQ which climbs more like your typical sport route than your typical index route and the fifth force which doesn't Equonix, Newhalem and nason ridge are all worth checking out.

It is not clear to me why this rappel route is necessary and it makes me question it's validity (see Sol's response). Adding bolts to save a tree is one thing, that is not the case here. It seems all of the spires have established descents and none of them have a high level of objective hazard for the range and style of climbing, heck this descent adds two rappels. It wouldn't be appropriate to add a rappel line down the east face of liberty bell because I don't like walking down the scree gulley currently used on the descent. I realize this is sort of a no good deed goes unpunished thing but the work Kurt Hicks is doing to upgrade old hardware up there seems like a much better use of a drill.

oh, and the sword is classic and low in the grade with good gear...

The last 10d pitch of cruel shoes is essentially a thin face sport pitch with closely spaced bolts. Pitch 3 is similar in character to the traverse from mercy me to the split, maybe slightly harder but I remember the gear being pretty good.

nice photos, fyi you can avoid the 11b section by climbing higher in the chimney before traversing out right, you will get to a flake that allows you to traverse out right and rejoin the route above the 11b part. That makes this pitch 10c, still the crux for me though as it is harder than pitch 3 imo.

The inner walls at index get all day shade and are good climbing on hot days. Earwax wall is okay too. The no name crag is good on a hot day. Maybe you have to hike or bike if the road is gated? Equinox has one very good 11+ maybe more I was only there once, the 12- routes seem to be more endurance than power so those are good to work.

A friend of mine has onsited a couple of squamish 5.11 offwidths, most of the 5.11 slabs on the apron, and all the popular multipitch squamish 11's. But I would say his index 5.11 onsite rate is well below 50%...

I used to occasionally climb on a 8.9mm double rope (but never an 8.5) as a single for alpine climbs. Even took a nice fall on it once, which I would not want to repeat. These days with the ultra skinny single ropes I just don't think it makes any sense. http://promountainsports.com/index.php/climbing/ropes/serenity-8-9mm.html

Boston Basin- the rock is not as good as the stuart range but it has more glacier travel and a lot of rock routes under 5.9. Another option would be the Eldorado glacier area.

Surely the Zipper is in the top 33..

I was thinking you could hit AC on the way up to the UTW. not doing iron horse and model worker for that reason makes perfect sense to me...

Clay if your already at the utw. Newest industry Julies roof Hairway to stephen accidental discharge iron horse to ring flake model worker Breakfast of champions Marginal karma Battered Sandwhich Spooner is hard! Good luck!!!

11dish, all bolts

Like everyone has said there is no real camping that time of year. The ski station by the brevant lift is the cheapest hostel and a good place to meet people. Plus you can leave your gear there for free when you go out to play on a multiday trip. There are some free unmanned huts that time of year. Which makes the price of the lift tickets and paying for a hostel not so bad if you can go spend 3-4 nights in the mountains at a time. Depends on the weather.

Hey P, I will just add a few comments, having mentored a few friends through this same hurdle. First of all the fact that you could not do one route means nothing. Your trying to break through a 20 year plateau there is going to be a lot of failure a long the way. Learn from it. You can lose 10 lbs, hangboard, boulder in the gym, do every thing right but your still going to fail while out on real rock trying to learn the technique to climb at a higher grade. Those things will just shorten the learning curve. IMO, breaking into 5.10 is all about volume. When I was trying to break into this grade I was trying to 10 pitches in 5.9-5.10 range in a day. This was obviously something I had to work up to. Its probably going to take a couple years before you can do any 5.10 anywhere. I believe it was in Alpinist where Topher Donahue that said "real 5.10 trad will always be hard" So embrace the process if climbing was easy you would do something else fun for instead right?

not sure it would have made a difference and its just armchairing anyway. But I think a grigi is a good investment for the inexperienced lead belayer...I know it makes me feel better.

Practice these techniques early and often on top rope, 5's will feel easy. You will learn more technique in 1 day top roping then 10 leading. Most ice climbers in pnw have horrible technique. The ones that have good technique climb quite hard. That is literally all you need to know. Climb ice with good technique and its easy, unless the ice is brittle and shitty but there is the fun in it.

Klaus is every bit the index 10b...

No good climbing in Boston? Ah, actually there is a great variety of rock climbing around. The gunks, north conway, and rumney are all great crags. There are a bunch of smaller crags around, too. Just no big cool routes like they have in the pacific northwest unless you count cannon...which I don't really...

Boston, unfortunately