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cracklover
Nov 5, 2007, 2:51 PM
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I've done MF and Le Teton at the Gunks. I've done those really tough-for-the-grade Henry Barber routes on Cathedral like Chicken Delight, Layton's, and Double Vee. I've done Vertigo, an unprotectable 30+ foot arching offwidth on Cannon. But there's another 9 in the Northeast that has them all beat by a mile, in my book: Retaliation, on Cathedral Ledge.
Followed it, scared out of my gourd, and vowed I'd never lead it. About 5 years later I'd forgotten all about the climb (blocked it from my memory, no doubt), saw the name in a guidebook, and thought it would be fun to lead. By the time I got through the crux pitch, I realized that this felt strangely familiar. D'oh!
100 feet of very tenuous layback/undercling, with super-balancy foot-smears, often no gear, and when you do get gear, it's placed blind, and to inspect it you'd have to pull 5.12 moves to be on the wrong side of the crack. Curving/angling face, so you can never see what's coming. And through it all the pump clock just keeps ticking. What a horror show. It even made my second cry!
GO
(This post was edited by cracklover on Nov 5, 2007, 2:56 PM)
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chossmonkey
Nov 5, 2007, 4:03 PM
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In Pursuit of Excellence at T-Wall. I really sucked at jamming when I did it though.
Assembly Line at Devils Tower always seems hard to. The supposed crux moves at the bottom are no problem. Its the easier climbing above that gives me problems. Its a really bad size for me.
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tomcat
Nov 5, 2007, 5:14 PM
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Duet Direct was rated 5.9 when I led it.Seemed a tad harder though.I heard it was "5.7"at the time of the FA.
I've led Turner's a bunch of times.Not as burly as you'd think,good feet at a lot of spots.Having a #4 Friend or Camalot that you slide up a couple times makes it downright fun.I'd say the 5.8 part is actually in that tight corner at the end of the pitch.
Retaliation is tough to lead because of the difficulty placing gear,many people epic on it,but I don't personally think it's harder than 9.Easier to do Youth Challenge at 10b.
Live Free or Die at the Beer Walls seems kinda stout,but it's got a plus so it's OK I guess....
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vegastradguy
Nov 5, 2007, 5:24 PM
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cracklover wrote: I've done MF and Le Teton at the Gunks. I've done those really tough-for-the-grade Henry Barber routes on Cathedral like Chicken Delight, Layton's, and Double Vee. I've done Vertigo, an unprotectable 30+ foot arching offwidth on Cannon. But there's another 9 in the Northeast that has them all beat by a mile, in my book: Retaliation, on Cathedral Ledge. Followed it, scared out of my gourd, and vowed I'd never lead it. About 5 years later I'd forgotten all about the climb (blocked it from my memory, no doubt), saw the name in a guidebook, and thought it would be fun to lead. By the time I got through the crux pitch, I realized that this felt strangely familiar. D'oh! 100 feet of very tenuous layback/undercling, with super-balancy foot-smears, often no gear, and when you do get gear, it's placed blind, and to inspect it you'd have to pull 5.12 moves to be on the wrong side of the crack. Curving/angling face, so you can never see what's coming. And through it all the pump clock just keeps ticking. What a horror show. It even made my second cry! GO
Dude, if i ever make it back east, we're going up this route! Sounds sweet! I'm even guessing you'll let me lead the whole thing!
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cracklover
Nov 5, 2007, 6:01 PM
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vegastradguy wrote: cracklover wrote: I've done MF and Le Teton at the Gunks. I've done those really tough-for-the-grade Henry Barber routes on Cathedral like Chicken Delight, Layton's, and Double Vee. I've done Vertigo, an unprotectable 30+ foot arching offwidth on Cannon. But there's another 9 in the Northeast that has them all beat by a mile, in my book: Retaliation, on Cathedral Ledge. Followed it, scared out of my gourd, and vowed I'd never lead it. About 5 years later I'd forgotten all about the climb (blocked it from my memory, no doubt), saw the name in a guidebook, and thought it would be fun to lead. By the time I got through the crux pitch, I realized that this felt strangely familiar. D'oh! 100 feet of very tenuous layback/undercling, with super-balancy foot-smears, often no gear, and when you do get gear, it's placed blind, and to inspect it you'd have to pull 5.12 moves to be on the wrong side of the crack. Curving/angling face, so you can never see what's coming. And through it all the pump clock just keeps ticking. What a horror show. It even made my second cry! GO Dude, if i ever make it back east, we're going up this route! Sounds sweet! I'm even guessing you'll let me lead the whole thing!
Hahahaha! You bet, man, it's all yours! However, in exchange, you have to let me drag you up some heinous roofs at the Gunks!
Edited to add - Tomcat - you may be right, the individual moves may be physically no harder than 5.9. But to onsight this climb is much more difficult than any other 5.9 I've done.
GO
(This post was edited by cracklover on Nov 5, 2007, 6:06 PM)
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graniteboy
Nov 5, 2007, 6:14 PM
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For well known routes....I'd say it's the steck-salathe. Or traveler's buttress....both have good hard 5.9 offwidth moves. And steck-salathe is a very good endurance workout.
But really, for sheer thrashing, we did a winter ascent of "offramp" at the black wall, donner summit....it's only graded 5.8.....but with a couple feet of snow to scratch off of every hold.....that was a real sonofabitch.
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elepita
Nov 5, 2007, 6:17 PM
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vortenberg wrote: Just curious. What is the hardest 5.9 you've led? Cheers
I don't know if someone has mentioned, but Godzilla in Index is beautiful but hard!
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tomcat
Nov 5, 2007, 6:19 PM
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Definately agree Gabe...it's tough to lead.When that guy whipped for that photo shoot there,some commented that it's A1 placements every five feet.The gear is good if you can get it placed,but you are constantly tempted to just go for broke.
Nice position on Retalition too.
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graniteboy
Nov 5, 2007, 8:05 PM
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Yeah....Godzilla is stiff. I actually rate that one 10a, and think it's a very fair rating. I talked to the guy who did the F.A. on that thing, way back in the day.....He moved to Truckee....Don something or other....gave him some shit about it.
But Godzilla is not alone at index.....
Index climbers seem to revel in giving sandbag ratings to their routes. But we hafta remember the reason for a rating system: so that climbers who haven't done the route have some idea about the difficulty.....not so that we can make ourselves feel "manly" by undergrading things and sandbagging climbers from other regions.....
Cause if sandbagging were the point, I'd be busy putting up 11b runout routes and calling em
5.8 (pg), and inviting lots of Out of state climbers to come break their legs on em....
But that's not what its about.
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antiqued
Nov 6, 2007, 3:31 PM
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cracklover wrote: ... I've done those really tough-for-the-grade Henry Barber routes on Cathedral like Chicken Delight, Layton's, and Double Vee. ... But there's another 9 in the Northeast that has them all beat by a mile, in my book: Retaliation, on Cathedral Ledge. 100 feet of very tenuous layback/undercling, with super-balancy foot-smears, often no gear, and when you do get gear, it's placed blind, and to inspect it you'd have to pull 5.12 moves to be on the wrong side of the crack. ... And through it all the pump clock just keeps ticking. ... GO
Different pulls for different fools, I guess. I rate Chicken Delight as an easier 9, Retaliation in the middle of 9, and think Double Vee deserves 5.9++! Not that pumpy, but a hard move!! (at least statically)
I just want to induce some people to try Retaliation. It does traverse, your second does need to be competent, but you can always see your protection by placing it (or replacing it!) behind you.
And while I haven't done the other Spider's Web 9s suggested earlier, Esthesia deserves a mention here.
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j_ung
Nov 6, 2007, 6:28 PM
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ja1484 wrote: j_ung wrote: Jaws is up there for me. Bridge Buttress, NRG. MF at the Gunks, too. Now Jay, I know from other posts on here you're a Stone Mountain vet and you're telling me the first pitch of Grand Funk didn't pucker you up more than Jaws? Anyway, that's mine: Grand Funk Railroad, 5.9- (FA'd 1971), Stone Mountain, NC Crux is a blank, steep bulge you must traverse right across on smears alone with no handholds for roughly 15 feet. By the time you hit this crux, you are ~40' off the deck and about ~30' to the right of your last piece of pro, a bolt. After that it's all fun in the sun, but I seriously thought I was going to the hospital all through that section.
Pffft... Everything at Stone Mountain that's 5.10 or under is easy as long you just keep your shit together. Technically, powerfully, endurance-ly and all the other physicalies... Grand Funk is easy. It just also happens to be mind-numbingly terrifying. I heard a story once of a guy who threw up and then went blind in the middle of the crux.
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trenchdigger
Nov 6, 2007, 7:14 PM
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j_ung wrote: ja1484 wrote: j_ung wrote: Jaws is up there for me. Bridge Buttress, NRG. MF at the Gunks, too. Now Jay, I know from other posts on here you're a Stone Mountain vet and you're telling me the first pitch of Grand Funk didn't pucker you up more than Jaws? Anyway, that's mine: Grand Funk Railroad, 5.9- (FA'd 1971), Stone Mountain, NC Crux is a blank, steep bulge you must traverse right across on smears alone with no handholds for roughly 15 feet. By the time you hit this crux, you are ~40' off the deck and about ~30' to the right of your last piece of pro, a bolt. After that it's all fun in the sun, but I seriously thought I was going to the hospital all through that section. Pffft... Everything at Stone Mountain that's 5.10 or under is easy as long you just keep your shit together. Technically, powerfully, endurance-ly and all the other physicalies... Grand Funk is easy. It just also happens to be mind-numbingly terrifying. I heard a story once of a guy who threw up and then went blind in the middle of the crux.
Yah, pucker factor is one thing, sandbagged is another. I found the climbing at Stone soft for the grade. I got on a 12a there (Scimitar, I think?) that would have been just another well protected 5.10+ slab in JTree.
Woodson has its share of sandbagged routes. The one that probably best fits this post is the 40' boulder problem called "Big Grunt". It starts as a 50 degree overhung offwidth that you chicken wing and heel-toe up until it gets wide enough for you to squeeze inside of. From there it's just a widening chimney to the top. It's a 5.9, but the specialized OW techniques required cause many a climber to think otherwise. That has to be my pick...
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ja1484
Nov 6, 2007, 8:13 PM
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Guess you guys distinguish between physical toil and pucker factor when rating difficulty. I don't - there are routes I can't do because they're physically above me *and* there are routes I can't do because I'll throw up and go blind in the middle of the crux  . Physical toil doesn't both me so much as that's just a matter of training...but when a route scares me so much that my balls are hugging my eyes...
Either way, they're f*cking hard in my book.
(This post was edited by ja1484 on Nov 6, 2007, 8:16 PM)
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ajkclay
Nov 6, 2007, 11:20 PM
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Resurrection was the scariest...
Single pitch with a tricky mantle crux followed by a crimpy side pull high-step about 3-4m up and no gear until past half way up. I'm at about 6-7m in the pic and the crack I'm reaching for is the first placement. No escapes into easy rests once you've committed either. And it is very solid at the grade.
The ground below is littered with several sharp blocks that will break your fall. 
Cheers
Adam
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nthusiastj
Nov 6, 2007, 11:56 PM
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I accidentaly climbed Birdcage 10b, thinking it was birdland 9.
When I hit the ground I was complaing how hard Gunks grades are when the guy next to me straightened me out.
That was a damn hard 9.
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j_ung
Nov 7, 2007, 3:55 PM
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ja1484 wrote: Guess you guys distinguish between physical toil and pucker factor when rating difficulty. I don't - there are routes I can't do because they're physically above me *and* there are routes I can't do because I'll throw up and go blind in the middle of the crux . Physical toil doesn't both me so much as that's just a matter of training... but when a route scares me so much that my balls are hugging my eyes... Either way, they're f*cking hard in my book.
Good stuff.
Separate subject: Should wide cracks even count here? All of them are hard for the grade.
(This post was edited by j_ung on Nov 7, 2007, 3:56 PM)
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jdouble
Nov 7, 2007, 4:31 PM
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robdotcalm wrote: jdouble wrote: Clean & Jerk, J Tree Since the route has always been rated 10c, it really doesn't qualify as "hardest 5.9". r.c
I was trying to make a joke/stir the pot........lots of old threads bickering over the rating on Clean and Jerk.
I will work on my humor.
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munky
Nov 7, 2007, 5:04 PM
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Its not really that bad. It looks a hell of a lot scarier from the ground then it actually climbs. Get on it and have some fun.
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kmc
Nov 7, 2007, 7:21 PM
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Birdcage is a great 5.9. Untill you get to the 5.10 roof at the top of the pitch.
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trundlebum
Nov 8, 2007, 12:14 AM
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Any New hampshire 5.9+
I hear 'Titties and beer' at looking glass, is one hell of a 5.8 lol
Steck Salathe'
'Reeds direct'
N.E butt of Higher cathedral rock
for sustained ^
'quick silver'
for 'pucker factor' ^
(This post was edited by trundlebum on Nov 8, 2007, 12:20 AM)
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curt
Nov 8, 2007, 2:25 AM
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camhead wrote: if Clean and and Jerk is indeed 5.9, then without a doubt that is the top of my hard list. otherwise, I agree with anyone who cited MF.
MF isn't even the hardest 5.9 in the Gunks. Go do "Jekyll and Hyde" and you'll see what I mean.
Curt
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brutusofwyde
Nov 10, 2007, 12:06 AM
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My hardest was one of the pitches on Magic Mushroom below Mamoth Terraces. 7" groove rated 5.9 or A3.
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graniteboy
Nov 27, 2007, 1:37 AM
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Here's a truly obscure line down in joshua tree that i thought rated right up there with some of the hardest 5.9's I've ever done: It's called "True Democracy", and it's way out in some obscure part of the wonderland. 5.9 crumbly water groove stemming....the crux is about 30 feet up, and about 6 feet after that, you can actually get some pro. I'd be inclined to rate it 5.10, but it was called 5.9 in th book. I'd be surprised if anyone in here has ever done it though....pretty obscure.
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