Route beta -- Kangaroo Temple SouthWest Face

[Boston]

Does anyone have photos or additional information (other than the Beckey guide and Mountaineers) concerning this route? I'm especially interested in finding out about the offwidth cracks (size of gear needed).

[Dannible]

Gear to 3" is fine. There are no offwidths, just squeeze chimneys that you can protect fine with normal pro. I had to haul my pack through one, but it was not very hard. When I did it the first pitch looked harder than I thought it should so I went up corners and slabs off to the right of the normal start, then traversed left to the start the second pitch. Do not do this; the pro was worthless, and the climbing hard. Just start where the book tells you to. Above that I thought the route was fun.

 

BTW- The topo in the Beckey book is all wrong (I think), and there is some 5.9 here and there.

[Boston]

Thanks for the info... I was just in the process of trying to borrow larger gear. Was there any route finding difficulty? When I read the Becky guide, I can't follow which pitch they're talking about on the Topo map. Which is more correct -- Topo or description?

[Dannible]

After looking at the book again I'd say that both the topo and the description are much different than what I climbed, even though I'm pretty sure I was on route. From the base the line is pretty obvious. The first few pitches are straight up, then after that you have to traverse right from the belays a couple times, once using a sling fixed to bolts above to swing around a corner. After an obvious narrow chimney go left to a big cave (the biggest cave is the higher one), and from there go up and right following the path of least resistance to avoid the A3 that the book says something about. I wouldn't even bring the route description with you, it'll just confuse you.