[TR] Smith Rocks - Monkey Face/Zebra Zion/etc 3/11

[ivan]

Sweet classic John. Your pic sort of looks like that route.

 

How about a mini TR since it's 5 glorious and varied pitches and you posted only 2 pics of only the crescent crack? Oly climber needs to get on this one next time down:-0.

 

My special questions are:

 

Have the 1st pitch 1/4 death bolts been redone by Corvallisclimb or anyone?

 

Was there much loose rock?

 

3rd, would you call P1 10B or C or do you think it's really 10A?

 

What did you use for pro on the last pitch, and did you wander to the left and up the face or stay in the offwidth?

 

I once pulled off about a 1'-2' flake (one-two foot across x @8" deep) on P1 of free lunch. The scar-light rock is still visible @ 30'-40' up or so).

 

I'll pass on the TR Bill (hijacking is so much more fun!)... if peeps have questions they can send me a pm.

 

I'll post a few more pics later... Marcus's girl took a few from the ground.

 

The 1st pitch bolts are great/new... after 4 cut left and follow them across to the belay. The 1st pitch belay shared the belay bolts for Highway 97 so they are super fat new ones.

 

A little choss on the first pitch... nothing too bad but if peeps are hanging out for Teddy Bear's picnic give them a heads up before you launch off.

 

And p1 is 10-... some might try to call it an "a"... some a "b"... whatever... 10- is good enough for me...

 

How loose is it? I have a hard time answering this as everyone has a different opinion... my teenage years were spent at smith or around the OR casacades so my idea of loose might be a little more liberal than most...

 

How about this? All the belays are protected/out of the line of fire from rock fall (as the route never really goes straight up) so as long as you have a healthy set of lungs to yell rock at the hikers below and a fine selection of small to mid sized cams to sew with you should be fine.

 

For reference if you have done the farmers route this one is significantly less choss.

 

I will say for what it is or isn't worth for the aspiring alpine climber (especially those interested in first ascents) this is a great alpine trainer/sampler... face climbing on p1, traverse/downclimbing on p2, pigeon poop wallowing on p3, sustained 5.9 on some loose rock on p4 and an offwidth for p5... basically a little bit of everything. Plus it will make you bring a back pack or at least climb with your shoes on your harness as you wouldn't be able to easily rap it. This will ensure good times on p5 So yeah... a little alpine sampler.

 

Pro: set of nuts, blue - red alien, 0.4 - 3.5 c4 singles (if you sew you might want doubles in 0.5 - 2). Mileage will vary.

 

Now I just need to con someone into climbing shiprock with me 50' loops of 1" webbing? check.

did this y-day w/ layton - much fun - quite alpinesque, as john indicates, except w/ the bonus feature of being able to kill a large number of tourons and hardman sportos simultaneously

 

my fav moment on the traversing was going to put all my weight on a block at my feet when it made a tremendous crrrrraaaaack sound like a cedar coming down and got all good n' wobbly as i gently tried to detach myself from it while figuring out how i could push it away from me so i wouldn't get crushed

[olyclimber]

Pretty crazy that this weekend nearly killed me (probably the closest I've come to death).   It mid-week that I ended up in the ER minutes from dying, moved to the top of the triage, immediate kidney dialysis because of kidney failure do to a tiny scratch in my elbow that resulted in a sepsis infection and a month in ICU and whole lotta of morphine.

And you people here at cc.com had my back and supported me all the way through.