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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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"Penny Lane@ Smoke Bluffs, Squamish" - pretty soft 5.9, I'd say. The FA team were a bit light.
The Split Pillar at Squamish has to be fairly high on the list. Eric and Daryl graded it 5.9 - climbing in EBs, protecting it with hexes. In 1975. And it is 5.9, with one slightly harder move at the bottom. Awfully sustained 5.9, but then so are many of the routes mentioned.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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So many factual errors in this thread, but I'll shut up for fear of seeming to be condescending.
Chiloe, the traverse left on the last pitch of Yellow Spur was done by Dave Rearick and me, prior to when Robbins and I free climbed the whole route. Yes that's a beautiful one. I think about fifty or more 5.9 climbs, maybe a hundred, in Eldorado could be considered as candidates for the best, most beautiful 5.9 in the universe. When people start listing their 5.9 favorites in Yosemite, I have done most of those, and yes they are good. But we must not be too provincial. Some of those routes cited don't even remotely compare in quality to routes outside Yosemite. While on the other hand, there are countless routes in the Valley beautifully beyond compare. I have always feared making these lists of "best," characteristic of Outside Magazine ("Best getaways," etc.), because it simply invites the masses to storm and destroy those best things. "Best secret hikes in the mountains" soon eliminates the secret element. I have avoided lists of best climbs, in my old guidebooks, for that reason of singling out those routes for mass consumption, though I realize I am guilty too of sharing information about great climbs and places. The book "50 Classic Climbs in North America" seems a good example of another invite to the crowds. I also think of pitches as like people. Each is very different. It might be less insightful to compare pitches than simply to look at each pitch as unique.
I'm up too late, so forgive the unsolicited philosophy.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Oli:
Chiloe, the traverse left on the last pitch of Yellow Spur was done by Dave Rearick and me, prior to when Robbins and I free climbed the whole route.
Yes, I thought that might be the case, which is why I wrote "(Robbins?)" in my note -- I've heard people calling it the Robbins traverse, even though it has an older story. I don't live in Colorado any more, but that's a pitch I come back to every decade or so, and it's always as cool as I remember. (The bolted straight-up variation is more forgettable, IMHO).
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Oli:
I have avoided lists of best climbs, in my old guidebooks, for that reason of singling out those routes for mass consumption,
Ah, but your list of recommended routes in the original blue guide made a wonderful project for me, my first year of climbing around Boulder.
Apart from that, I agree with your point.
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jeff leads
Sport climber
ca
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IMHO,
Some really steller 5.9's are:
Flight of the Gumby- NRG
Touch and Go- Jtree
Whodunnit- Idylwild
Jus sayin...
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Dragon with Matches
climber
Bamboo Grove
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Chiloe, that is one seriously hell of a beautiful photo of the Yellow Spur. That image pretty much sums up the Eldo in my mind.
A perfect, pointed summit; psychedelic colors on the rock; blue skies (for now); the road visible but a hundred years distant; the creek always singing; and somewhere below, nearly forgotten, a partner tiptoeing up an arete, gently (or not) asking if a bit of uprope might not be possible.
Pat, thanks for the history, great to hear about your passage with Rearick. True history notwithstanding, it's a suitably noble setting for a Colorado version of the "Robbins Traverse."
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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I like the licheny colors of the photo. I think what you're seeing, though is one of the stances, that horizontal-ish crack up above the actual airy, vertical pitch with Rearick/Ament traverse. The formation of rock you see sticking out just below and left of the road is actually the top of the Vertigo and Super Slab buttress, far below. It's hard to get perspective sometimes in photos. So the photo shows the road far below, the colorful rock, but not the actual pitch or real exposure down the Yellow Spur's steep wall. I alway set up that below a bit lower, so that I could lean over the edge and look down as my partner followed. It is such a joy to watch someone do that beautiful climbing for the first time, to discover the nice little edges. And as for the name "Robbins traverse," well Royal and I did it that way as well when we climbed the route. But I wouldn't want Rearick to be forgotten. He was one of the best climbers of his era, a brilliant free climber and stellar human being, as were most of the men and women who came from that period.
About the bolted direct finish to the pitch, it's less logical, really, than moving left, although that is in retrospect. It's not so clear that traverse goes at all, until you reach out and start feeling for holds. Rearick simply had a moment's inspiration to eliminate those bolts on the straight up way. Layton was fixated a bit on straight lines, and if you follow the continuation of the faint cracks of that pitch (or lack of continuation), you get that short, somewhat contrived bolted finish. It was right on the last move of that final bolted headwall that one day, as a 14 year old kid, snowflakes the size of eggs started hitting me in the face hard, from a storm that rushed in -- unseen from the east...
Pat
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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You make me want to go do that favorite climb again.
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wildone
climber
The Astroman of 5.9
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Three words: Phobos, Phobos, Phobos!
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Touch 'N Go, though I admit to the bias of having done its first ascent, is really a very clean, beautiful short route. It suffers a bit from too much popularity, but the climbing is good. The first pitch is a bit of a pump right off the ground, then lovely delicate rock to a belay ledge. The slightly right-leaning inside corner above is a classic, obvious line, with one nice move after another, to the trickiest move right at the top... I can't imagine not enjoying the route.
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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You are all wrong the best 5.9s ever are at Devils Tower
1st pitch of the Cave -beware pitch two!
Walt Bailey Memorial
Assembly Line
murf
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Pat, that photo was taken looking down the traverse pitch, while I belayed from a small stance at the base of the knife-edge summit pitch. It seemed a suitably cosmic belay spot. My partner, Eric Dearing, has just finished the piton-ladder section and is starting the leftwards traverse across the face. The white runner in the photo is clipped to an ancient soft-iron peg, which you clip after the runout.
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lars johansen
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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"A Little Nukey", Power Dome, Courtright
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Ksolem
Trad climber
LA, Ca
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Oli, there appears to be some confusion here. The "Touch 'n Go" which I jokingly referred to as a "highball boulder problem" is a short route in Josh first climbed by Matt Cox, as I recall. Obviously the route to which you refer is elsewhere..?
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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I wanna change my answer to the hand crack on Silent Line. J linked the pitches there, so I had to simul climb for a ways. In the end it was probably at least 250 feet of perfect uninterupted hand jamming way up above the Valley. THAT was definately the best 5.9 pitch I've ever been on.
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BlazeOn
Trad climber
Asheville, NC
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SuperCrack 5.9 at the New River Gorge, Beauty Mnt. Damn!
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Radical--Thanks, man. Order em from me at big discounts.
Chiloe--I can't for some reason see the climber you're belaying, on my screen. Maybe my eyes have finally gone. I know the place in my heart, though, down to each grain of beloved sandstone...
Ksolem--OK, Touch N' Go in Eldorado Canyon was done in the 1960s. I wasn't aware of the California route. I can see why you wouldn't like that other route, though, if I haven't climbed it (hehe).
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Ksolem
Trad climber
LA, Ca
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Actually, Oli, the route in Josh is quite fine. But no way does it make the cut for best in the universe. The one you descibe in Eldo does sound nice...
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wiclimber
Trad climber
devil's lake, wi
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Oli,
I love Touch n Go. Those first couple moves of the route, traversing left, can be tough to protect for some people. I remember threading a sling in there. Some have gotten into trouble by not protecting it well and going for the move only to sketch.
The crux move higher up (what used to the be the 2nd pitch but is now usually linked) has that nice hidden hold on the exit move with small wires at your feet. Brilliant!!
Did you do it all in one pitch on the FA or did you belay on the ledge half way up?
How fun it must have been in Eldo back then.
It's 5.8 though :), so it doesn't apply in this thread.
AK
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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A lot of wonderful climbs mentioned. Here's a nomination for East Buttress of Middle Cathedral. Not sure it beats out all the others mentioned, but hot damn it's a fine climb from start to finish.
GO
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