[TR] Index - Centerfold, Rattletale 10/16/2010

[wayne]

Trip: Index - Centerfold, Rattletale

 

Date: 10/16/2010

 

Trip Report:

Fargo and I hit the Diamond area last weekend. Now that he is a Puget Sound guy and all, we got to do multi-pitch routes and not have to worry about the short days. Centerfold is a stout route, and I would translate the grades to 4 pitches of 5.11 according to the softer grades that one would find at, say Smith or Leavenworth. There is just no denying the difficulty of the variety of grades we found on the 3 different topos.

Anyhow, great climb though. The first pitch is so very balancy and the foot moves are dicy friction. Here is Orion leading it after we were rappelling.

The money pitch for me was the second. Just the most fun lead for sure

 

It has been a long time since I ran out of small stoppers on a lead!.

Pitch 3 featured the most absurd move of all. Neither on of us could do it clean. 1 topo rated it 10b! HA!!

Pitch 4 wasnt to hard, but I took my only lead fall on it because I have such huge fingers. The route is falling back to nature, More people should do it to keep it clean. It was surprising day for having had lots of rain 2 days before. Go get it this week. More on my blog below.

[DRep]

Thanks for posting. I was watching you guys climb that from inside the Fire Station. I later counted 2 other parties on it.

[miker]

I love that index rock but so few seem to want to make the hike up the hill to the Upper Wall to keep the rock clean except for a couple of the super classics. Now don't get me wrong I bitch about that hike every time I do it, but Kudos to you guys.

[Peter_Puget]

What climbs have you found dirty from lack of traffic?

[lunger]

love that Centerfold--sustained, varied, challenging, fun--thanks for the pics!

[orion_sonya]

It was good to briefly meet you two and we appreciated the gear beta. Sonya and I took the rest of the afternoon to get up that thing! Ahh Index grades, you have got to love them ... and it was cool temps even.

 

Sonya and I agree the route was fun and worthy of a repeat. Protection bolts had all been upgraded to stainless and the natural protection was all good providing you had enough small cams and nuts. Also, for an upper wall route, it was pretty clean but there were some rough spots - the first pitch crux traverse looked to have a recent scrub, but the upper dihedral was a little grassy and there was a tree that was interesting to navigate.

 

Nice pictures and nice TR - thanks!

 

Orion

[Sol]

I love that breadloaf sloper that orion is grabbing on P1.

 

Anybody ever climb jack of diamonds?

[orion_sonya]

I would be interested in knowing more about that route too; I couldn't keep my eyes off that steep wall to the left. The big corner of Hell Bent for Glory looked intriguing as well...

[el jefe]

one of the best routes at the upper wall. the second and fourth pitches are the money.

[mountainsloth]

i need to spend more time at index. thanks for the stoke