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Ezra Ellis
Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
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Oct 20, 2015 - 06:01pm PT
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Nearly any thing at Heise, Idaho.
Short loose guano filled routes that often rain mud, and you have to pay to climb there.
A particularly slick 5.9 is so poorly bolted it has had multiple ankle fractures.
Ahhhh good times ;)
A close second is the midget widget wall near there, I wore sunglasses on cloudy days to keep the detritus and mud out of my eyes.
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lars johansen
Trad climber
West Marin, CA
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Oct 20, 2015 - 06:02pm PT
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I'm going to go with Pinnacles again. Route was in Juniper Canyon. In 1986 I peeled off a FA taking a 70 foot leader fall and broke my leg. Going back in 2011 I again was injured in the same place, this time critically. Man, that stretch of rock is voodoo!-lars
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Oct 20, 2015 - 07:49pm PT
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Johns Other Chimney 5.4 A1- Cathedral, Yosemite Valley
My first route on my first weekend climbing ever. First time crawling down steep gully's in the dark, first epic.
This is a can't miss climb.
The next day we did Lost Arrow from the Notch. We were so slow we had to bivy on top of the tip. We were all too scared to do the Tyrolean in the dark.
Marty
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Oct 20, 2015 - 08:20pm PT
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For me: Carolyn's Rump on Cyclops at Josh.
That one's pretty bad, but the worst one I didn't do was some dirty groove that Tucker wanted to tick off.
After a sustained gravel shower belaying, I refused to follow it.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 20, 2015 - 08:33pm PT
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25 or so years ago I wandered solo up the northwest side of Little Bear Peak, a fourteener behind Blanca Peak in S. Colorado. Once committed I found that every move on very steep terrain had to be calculated and precise to avoid the rock collapsing. Nerve wracking.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Oct 20, 2015 - 08:35pm PT
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Marty, sounds like your second climb was a bit more aggressive that your first! Way to pack in a good weekend.
Lars, one word: Holyfriggingcrazyshitman!
Hope you can still get after it after a less-than-perfect day at the Pinns.
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Gary
Social climber
Hell is empty and all the devils are here
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Oct 21, 2015 - 05:42am PT
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That one's pretty bad, but the worst one I didn't do was some dirty groove that Tucker wanted to tick off.
TGT, was that Not Worth Your Pile? on Wothwhile Rock? From the name I should have known better than to get on it. It was like climbing on eggshells. My belayer was in real danger.
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Stewart Johnson
climber
lake forest
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Oct 21, 2015 - 05:52am PT
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Climbed this super pile four times.
The north buttress has some of the worst
Stone around.
Most people drive right by..
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Gunkie
climber
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Oct 21, 2015 - 05:59am PT
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I've done a lot of crappy, lichen covered climbs in the Gunks. But one that I would truly consider crappy is where we bushwhacked in a couple of miles on the promise of a 'splitter hand crack in the back of a pristine dihedral' in the Catskills.
Two hours of uphill hiking through dubious areas of private properties landed us at a scruffy cliff band with a dihedral that has obviously been climbed and it had a crack in the back. One approach pitch of dirty, scary 4th class where getting the chop was a distinct possibility and would have been painful and embarrassing all at the same time.
The dihedral pitch was a crappy layback to start, to a really decent 25' of climbing, to a final stemming section through pine needles and guano. The topout was a slopping nightmare with choss being bound together with moss.
Ended up being almost a full-day adventure ending with a 'I'll never do that again.'
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Prezwoodz
climber
Anchorage
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Oct 21, 2015 - 09:16am PT
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Theres this thing on the highway where I left, for the first time, a cam to rap from and bail. I haven't even gone back to get it and it'd be easy to rap into....maybe thats a sign.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Oct 21, 2015 - 09:19am PT
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TGT, was that Not Worth Your Pile? on Wothwhile Rock? From the name I should have known better than to get on it. It was like climbing on eggshells. My belayer was in real danger.
No, it was some gravel heap back in Oz or the Poppy Fields somewhere.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Oct 21, 2015 - 09:20am PT
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I LOL'ed at all the posts about the Pinnacles. Dudes, go to the Cascades,
Rockies, Pamirs, Andes, etc., where you can do 20-40 pitch routes like that!
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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Oct 21, 2015 - 10:35am PT
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I had an execrable bushwhacking experience, with devil's walking stick, yellow jackets, rain-soaked forest, and giant slugs, while attempting to find the Picket Range. But that doesn't count, as we never even saw the mountains.
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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Oct 21, 2015 - 10:41am PT
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I recall when I first started climbing in Spain, a guy was showing me several of the areas around Barcelona. On the hike up to one cliff, we passed a 15 meter high, low angle, blocky and brushy outcrop, and he remarked "The British would climb on this".
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gumbyKing
Trad climber
Vancouver, BC
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Oct 21, 2015 - 11:22am PT
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Barney Rubble, 5.9, Barn Bluff, Red Wing MN, 35 feet
Start up with some loose sandy rock, where tight hands erode the rock to loose hands by the time you've finished setting your gear. Then move into the house of cards sections with 200-500 lbs. loose blocks ready to blow and wiggling if one of the many many local wasps lands on it. This leads to the sand section - where first sized souvenirs can be acquired that once were the best looking hand holds around, and everything else is covered in 3-4 inches of sand. Downclimb 25 feet to the base, and wonder just how good the last 10 feet of the climb are if the guide book gives it 2 stars.
[Edit: forgot to mention, on the way down I was able to pull my cam out just by applying a very small amount of force and grind it through the sorta sticky sand that was the best looking stone on the route]
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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Oct 21, 2015 - 11:35am PT
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It's so bad it's awesome.
This is why we do it....
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Capt.
climber
some eastside hovel
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Oct 21, 2015 - 11:49am PT
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Oh yeah, I forgot. Anything in Cabo San Lucas.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Oct 21, 2015 - 12:02pm PT
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Interesting how the Pinnacles appear on this thread so much. Have to say, I climbed there a couple of times and came away with the feeling that it was a place that would be dormant if it weren't located near so many people. The condors were interesting and I saw a couple of tarantulas, other than that.....1 star.
While I suspect that may be true, I still like Pinnacles enough to make a couple of trips there a year, even though I can get to superb granite climbing in an hour's less driving time. It may just be that I did some of my first roped climbs there, but it remains adventurous and, if you hike any distance from the parking lots, full of uncrowded routes.
In Roper's old Yosemite Valley Guide, I recall "Arches Direct" getting a write-up as being a really lousey climb? Anyone done it?
With four years of drought, I thought this would be the year for someone to give it a go. Any route about which Kor allegedly said (and meant) "Never again" must be something to see.
Roper's guides had another climb - The Inconsolable Buttress (III, 5.7, A3)- that he made sound even worse, and that isn't easy. After all, he called one route "the most worthless climb in the Valley," and said of another "This 'death march' type of climb cannot be termed popular." Nonetheless, the description of the rotten rock, unenjoyable climbing, a miserable approach and an even worse descent (IIRR, the "descent" goes up 850 vertical feet of talus until one can contour into flood channels to follow down for 2,500 vertical feet). I doubt anyone has repeated this route since the publication of Roper's red guide.
John
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Oct 21, 2015 - 12:22pm PT
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Nutcracker
I just like the feeling of actual rock with a bit of grit or lichen or loose stuff and that was the only route I've ever done that felt greasy and had a big stripe of clean granite going through the normal rock.
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