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I checked out Steve's 1990s rap bolted route, Jewel in the Crown, last year. The lower part of this one-pitch route is steep and high quality. The upper part is less steep but pretty bad with slippery white lichen and mossy. To my surprise, none of the holds broke off when I top-roped (and hangdogged) the climb. This experience inspired me to explore other steep lines on the wall.

Yes, it is an incredible looking wall and so is the climbing after peeling off the loose stuff. From my experience, it’s the jointing or fracturing that makes the basalt at Crown Point notoriously loose and horrific. The unfractured basalt is actually quit hard and solid. On Belvedere, special bolts were not warranted. Drill time for each bolt took about as long as any other solid Columbia River Basalt crag in the area.

New five pitch sport route on Crown Point developed top-down. More details on Belvedere will be posted later on Mountain Project.

Thanks for the top-down facelift idea that I used to develop Belvedere, the new 5 pitch sport route on Crown Point. The line was aggressively cleaned beyond "solid enough".