In Too Deep, 5.10a

[catbirdseat]

I top roped this route on Sunshine Wall yesterday. I'm pretty sure I could lead it. Given that it pinches down to fists in several places, it would seem that it could be led using several 2.5-3.5 inch cams and perhaps 3-4 larger cams in the 5-7 inch range. It has one or two chockstones that can be tied off. Has anyone out there led this one? Martin? Craig?

[Cobra_Commander]

post of the day

[catbirdseat]

As the name would suggest, this offwidth is one of Bill Robins. It has an anchor but the chains are too short, too small and rusty.

[Cobra_Commander]

I just thought it was funny because if you successfully tr'd it, don't you think you would be the one with the best/latest info on what gear would work?

[chucK]

It's pretty easy when on toprope to minimize the gumption needed to get past one short unprotected spot, so I will defend Catbird on his reluctance to believe his own eyes.

 

That said, I doubt the opinions of other climbers of total varying abilities' are going to give much more useful beta than a close-up personal evaluation.

[catbirdseat]

You'd think so, but I have little experience leading offwidths. Sometimes what looks like it might work, doesn't always in practice. It gets really wide up top, but could probably be run out because it's quite easy, almost a chimney. The guide book doesn't say anything about gear unlike the adjacent offwidth Blue Autumn, so it probably takes more standard gear.

[catbirdseat]

I led the route yesterday. To get up on the broken column, I placed two small nuts in the crack belonging to the 5.11b route to the right. After the column top, I got in a #3.5 Friend (you are in grounder territory here, but this part is easy). You also get two Camalot #4.5 placements (I had only one- backcleaned the first below chockstone), a chockstone tie-off and another 3.5 Friend, seven placements in all. If I had a Camalot #5 I would have used it. The last 15 ft is too wide for anything but a Bigbro, but it is easy.

 

This route is significantly easier than Steel Grill, 5.9. The only loose part to watch out for is going over the broken column top. The route length is almost exactly 25 m.

[Dru]

WTF is this, the SuperTaco description? Can you post a photo indicating the exact spots you made the placements, and the length of each quickdraw you used?

[catbirdseat]

What are you? The beta police?

[Cobra_Commander]

It took you two days (145,080,000 millisecs) to come up with that line?

 

Is the approach beta in the beckey guide?

[specialed]

I led that once, but I was drunk on Schmidt's so I don't remember much. Danimal led it too with no big gear at all after Rolf called him a homo.

[Mr._Natural]

haha, you climb at vantage

[catbirdseat]

It took you two days (145,080,000 millisecs) to come up with that line?

That was because I was out climbing. Where were you?

[Cobra_Commander]

calibrating my backpack doppler radar to forecast humidity so I know how many milligrams of chalk to bring.

[specialed]

You have the GPS coord's?

[Cobra_Commander]

dammit...no. I'll have to get the usgs quad.

[MCash]

It took you two days (145,080,000 millisecs) to come up with that line?

 

I thought it was far funnier that it took Sprayshaw almost a month to come up with his Supertaco response.

[bwrts]

I led that once, but I was drunk on Schmidt's so I don't remember much. Danimal led it too with no big gear at all after Rolf called him a homo.

Hah! sounds like another fun-loving-angry day at the crags amongst good friends....sigh.

 

Hey CBS, the FA (Robins) rated this route 5.9. source=>Bill's virtual vantage guide

[RuMR]

yeah, but remember OuterSpace is benchmark 10+

[catbirdseat]

I led that once, but I was drunk on Schmidt's so I don't remember much. Danimal led it too with no big gear at all after Rolf called him a homo.

Hey CBS, the FA (Robins) rated this route 5.9. source=>Bill's virtual vantage guide

I happen to agree. 5.9, not 5.10a.

[MCash]

It looks like they added 1 grade to many of the routes since the FA. No wonder the Coulee has a reputation for soft grades.

[catbirdseat]

"They" being Jim Yoder. But it didn't happen to all routes. The older ones are more likely to be accurate.

[gyselinck]

It looks like they added 1 grade to many of the routes since the FA. No wonder the Coulee has a reputation for soft grades.

 

"They" being Jim Yoder. But it didn't happen to all routes. The older ones are more likely to be accurate.

 

I haven't read any of the above posts, but just saw these. Indeed, many of the rattings were lowered. I have a copy of all Bill Robbins notes/work. They very a lot with what Jim Yoder says in his guide book.

 

Hey MCash and Catbirdseat, where have you guys been? I stopped going to Vantage for a while and have been hitting up Tieton. I had climbed out most gear placement routes and got bored with the place. But, I have been going there a ton lately, about every other day working the harder problems that I skipped over way back when. It's a lot of fun and I haven't seen any of you guys in a long time.

[gyselinck]

I take that back, I just looked through my files and I see that Robin's notes are not there. Now that I think about it I think I threw them out a couple months ago. I used to have like 50 pages or something covering Vantage. But, I know who still has his original notebook and could easily copy pages for a specific area that you might be interested in.

[catbirdseat]

How could you do a thing like that? Throwing away those copies?