New Routes at Playground Point

[catbirdseat]

There are several new routes at Playground Point. They are all in keeping with the flavor of the area, that is they are beginners routes. Here are three that I know of:

 

One of them is a ~5.3 trad route that features a left facing dihedral that my buddy jokingly called the "mini Deidre". It is located to the left of Birthday Boy.

 

There is a bolted route that goes at about 5.6 below and to the left with a top anchor located up the ramp to the left of "mini Deidre". This route is EXACTLY 25 m long. You can walk off or rap.

 

Still further to the left is another new bolted route that we didn't have time to look at closely.

[rbwen]

Woo hoo. Thanks for the beta.

 

rbwen

[rbwen]

We played around at Playground Point today with the one-year old and did the routes listed above. I'll list a bit about each one to give a little more information for the curious, as we were. These lines are great beginning leads. Easy slabs with many bolts and good anchors on top of the sport lines. Starting at Birthday Boy, moving right to left. We used a 60m rope.

 

1. The 5.3 trad line is down the hill about 40 feet and about 50 feet to the left of BB. It starts right by a tree and heads up a crack trending left and then back up right up onto the slab to a two-bolt anchor next to the Birthday Boy anchor. There are no chains on this anchor but you can walk off to the left. Next time I get up there I'll put quick links and chains on Birthday Boy and this route. The route itself is not very exciting and not very hard but it does take some decent gear and is a good training for trad leading. There is one bolt on the upper slab to protect it.

 

2. The next route to the left is a bolted line (6-7 bolts) that runs up a slab to an anchor with chains. You start down and left of the 5.3 on a little ledge with a nice two-bolt belay anchor. Move up the slab from the ledge, clip the first bolt, pull the first move onto the slab and then it's a quick romp up to the top. Plenty of bolts on this one and pretty fun. 5.6 seemed like a good rating with some slabby moves down below and some easy bulges up top.

 

3. Another 75 feet to the left and up to a large tree is the third new climb here. The tree has a piece of rope with two large rap rings to use for a belay anchor and a quick/safe way back down the 20 feet to the main ledge. This climb is very similar to its neighbor and would probably be rated 5.6 also. Start from the tree and follow the bolts up past a small roof to the anchors. Thank you whomever created these routes for the great anchors with quicklinks and chains. There are 8 bolts on this one. Again, pretty much the same as the one to the right. Easy slab moves past a ton of bolts all the way.

 

We scouted a bit more to the left but didn't see anything else worthy of our time.

 

As we were leaving we noticed a route being established about ten feet to the left of the 5.4 Baby Steps. It was being bolted and scrubbed and seemed to be about the same grade as BS. We questioned the need for two bolted routes of the same grade so close together but decided we were happy that new stuff was being put up.

 

Question: There is a crack climb to the right of Baby Steps that looks like it ends at a tree belay. It looked fun but we didn't have time to check it out, about fist-wide for fifeen or twenty feet. Anybody know the name of that one and what it goes at?

 

rbwen

[DPS]

Question: There is a crack climb to the right of Baby Steps that looks like it ends at a tree belay. It looked fun but we didn't have time to check it out, about fist-wide for fifeen or twenty feet. Anybody know the name of that one and what it goes at?

 

rbwen

 

Not sure the name of this climb but it is about 5.6.

[viktor]

Zap Crack, 5.5 or so

Please don't chain those routes. There are plenty of climbs that need them, but not those. I have a list if you're motivated to help.