Photos by climbingeek

The Fortress, overlooking Sespe Creek. Approach all routes by scrambling up the hillside to the left of a boulder-filled gully in the bottom left of this photo.

Matt Greiger tries to beat the closeout on the second pitch of "Wings & Stings" on Hammer Dome. Digital Illustration by Matthew Fienup, copyright Earthworks LLC. www.earthworksclimbing.com

1. FLAKES/ROCKOCO: two 1/2" wedge bolts with chains. 2. APPLIED MAGNETICS: two 14mm Petzl Bat'inox glue-ins and one 12mm Fixe Triplex expansion bolt. 3. GREAT RACE/PEELS: two 1/2" wedge bolts with chains. 4. FINE LINE: two 12mm Fixe glue-ins and one 1/2" Powers expansion bolt with chain.

Rachel Maine, of Santa Paula, nears the top of the exposed headwall of "Economique," at Wheeler Gorge. The route is Wheeler's newest lead climb and offers an accesible approach pitch for setting up a TR on the classic "Goulara." Economique follows an arete and face that was previously top-roped (originally by Mike Gould). The route was equipped and led by locals Matthew and Marisa Fienup.

Here is my complete set-up for TR-soloing. I use two strands of rope on my fixed line. I ascend one strand. Halfway up the route, I clip into a bite of rope on the second strand as a back-up to the ascender. Once at the top, I put myself on rappel, using a Gri-Gri, on the back-up strand before removing my ascender from the rope.

I often use the Petzl Basic Ascender for top-rope soloing. The carabiner pictured is the "Belay-Master" by DMM. It is simply awesome. Before using the Belay-Master, I often looked down while TR-soloing to see my biner cross-loaded (with the gate of the biner specifically loaded).