TR: Surviving Menopause

[JosephH]

Shane and I took another run at the big p3 roof on Menopause (the extension route above 'Rythmn Method') yesterday. It was our second go at it. We got bloodied and spanked, but we're still alive and now much more 'comfortable' with the dicey p3 approach to the roof. And while we didn't get established [with pro] above the roof at least we have decent pro out at the lip and now the falls are way more manageable as we're making those final moves up and out around it.

 

It's a pretty wild and very unBeacon-like set of moves up through the roof - think of a tall, narrow, flared chimney that's too big to stem at the start but rapidly closes to nothing at the top, then tilt it so it's way overhanging, splitting the roof. You basically have to jam into the base of it until you are high enough to start doing the [scum] chimneying, then do the overhanging flared chimney schrunching out to the top of it where it pierces the lip of the roof and forces you out, then there at the top you have to turn around 180 degrees from facing left to facing right to exit around the lip of the roof and onto the upper face. All in all it's a pretty wild place to be and out at the lip you have 275' feet of clean air exposure to the deck. We're just damn happy to be into clean falls out there now.

 

If you're out and look up a bit after stepping around the "East face closed sign" you can see where the line is as we lowered off the last piece at the lip and it's still up there like an irritating little 'beacon'. We're still hoping to get in one or two more goes at it this year, though it was a little brisk up there in the shade yesterday.

 

[ In this pic looking up from just under p2's second roof, Menopause's p3 takes the pink variation in this photo - the yellow one was the original concept that didn't pan out as the top of the big A-frame roof turns out to be cleanly sealed. ]

 

[billcoe]

Don't know how I missed this until now....sweet!

[JosephH]

Thanks. I get the nervous sweats just thinking about going back up. We have p3 up to the roof basically under control, just so long as we get back on it soon.

[kevbone]

Why the nervous sweats? Does the pro suck? Are you looking at a bad fall?

[billcoe]

Why the nervous sweats? Does the pro suck? Are you looking at a bad fall?

 

You should go do it Kev.

[JosephH]

The middle of the band of rock from the anchor up to the base of the roof is more like bad Smith tuft than Beacon basalt. The pro is a bit marginal and the moves are hard and awkward. A fall might or might not rip one, some, or I suppose even all the placements before you are up under the roof to a Super Cam placement.

 

Let's put it this way, the first piece off the anchor is a beak, the second piece is an HB #7 alloy buried behind the top of a 12' x 4>1' x 2>1' slightly expanding block, the third is a somewhat dubious nest of a #00, #0, and #1 cams, the fourth is a mostly sunk soft euro spade in a crumbling dihedral, the fifth a #1 cam in a runny slot, the sixth an HB #11 alloy slotted backwards in a three-way intersection but a third out of the slot. At that point you go up another 15' to get solid pro and a lousy 'rest', before establishing good pro at the start of the roof and heading up and out.

 

We've fallen on pieces above the Super Cam in the roof (I took a 40-50 footer from out at the lip which was almost clean), but never on any of the pro in the fifty to sixty feet to the solid pro just below the roof. And because you've been travelling out right as you go up and progressively more out over space, on that approach section you'd fall clean at first, but at some point are going to go whipping back left towards the anchor or the long dihedral below it if much of that stuff pulled. The anchor is bomb, however, as are the pitches below and the rock from the roof to the top - it's just this one band that is a bit sketch.

 

[kevbone]

 

Let's put it this way, the first piece off the anchor is a beak, the second piece is an HB #7 alloy buried behind the top of a 12' x 4>1' x 2>1' slightly expanding block, the third is a somewhat dubious nest of a #00, #0, and #1 cams, the fourth is a mostly sunk soft euro spade in a crumbling dihedral, the fifth a #1 cam in a runny slot, the sixth an HB #11 alloy slotted backwards in a three-way intersection but a third out of the slot. At that point you go up another 15' to get solid pro and a lousy 'rest', before establishing good pro at the start of the roof and heading up and out.

 

 

In other words. No one but you will try it.

[JosephH]

And Shane...

 

And anyone else excited at the prospect of heading through that big roof.

[ivan]

 

 

In other words. No one but you will try it.

not true! i just likely wouldn't be "free"ing it

[JosephH]

Also, I didn't 'create' the rock or the line, we're just trying to climb it. This isn't the sort of route that could ever be made 'safe' by any means. Even if you bolted the shit out of it there are still too many big loose blocks and just tracking out right along the edge over space has lots of serious logistical implications with a second not making the roof and, in general, it's not a route that will be easy to retreat from above the roof.

 

We've been saying it's a route where you really have to want to be up in that part of Beacon to do p2 - which is a great line in and of itself, even if you don't go any further - and you really have to want that roof and the wall above to leave the p3 anchor. Nothing about the route is 'normal' or ever will be by any means.