Ascent Notes for: Beginner's Delight - 5.3 popular Average Rating : 4.08/5

woo hoo

Lead pitches 1 and 3 and a lot of fun with some easy and good climbing.

Good final pitch even though it is short.

Climbed with Terrie and Ken, tons of fun, took a while to figure out where to go after traverse, but made it through clean. Hornet nests in two hand holds, buzzy warnings but no stings. First climb where I could look down as I was climbing.

Climbed with Ken S and Lauren P. Ken took p1 and 3, and I led p2. The traverse actually does have gear. Not every 5 feet of course, but it has enough gear to be safe on any penji fall, if you are on route and look for it.

There is one part where an apparent *perfect* nut placement slots - the block is loose. Not fall out and kill someone on e the ground loose, but for sure won't hold pro on a fall loose. Just to the left and at feet is a good cam placement. Like I said - if you look for the pro, it is there! I had a new person in our middle, and I wanted to protect her well.

P3 crux sequence is pretty awesome for a 5.3 - gotta love the Gunks!

Even though it's my 6th season out, I had never been on anything but p1 of this route before. It's nice to be finally ticking these classics.

I lead pitches 1 and 3, and Bill took p2 with Mark in the middle. Plenty of room on belay ledges for a party of 3. \We used a slightly harder start up a crack. Very fun. Very windy with TS Hanna coming up the coast. We had sunny skies.

Climbed P1 & 2 together and skipped the 1st belay. Climbed high into corner. Traversed at the pin. Up to below the next anchor I built a gear anchor because I ran out of slings. I convinced Paul to lead the last pitch (in his tevas) because I was feeling heady after having a not so nicely protected traverse. Will be much easier next time, as an onsight I found it to be difficult, esp for 5.3

...however, we might have been a slight bit off-route, as we climbed up the right-facing inside corner on P2 about as far as we could and then traversed straight left. (Didn't see any old pins as others have described.) The guided group on the route later traversed MUCH lower than we did - about level with the P1 belay ledge.

Regardless, it was only the first move of the traverse that was a bit awkward and then pretty straightforward after that. GREAT belay ledge for P3, but the dihedral/roof combo at the beginning of P3 proved interesting. Trying to clean a red Friend in the horizontal crack just before going out onto the face, my fearsome leader Paul had me on a tight belay (which normally I prefer), but in this case, I was bent over at the waist with my head was pinned up against the roof! "Slack!"

Getting out on the face on P3 gives some nice exposure. We should've rapped it, however, since the hike across the cliff, down the Uberfall escape route and back out the carriage road to the base of the route (all done in my climbing shoes) left me with a nice blister on my left heel. Note to self: clip my Teva's to my harness next time for the walk off. D'OH!!

[EDIT]: My partner told me we did a 5.5 variation.

Third pitch has some fun, airy options if one chooses to stay right

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