byran's Logbook (37 ascents)

Splitter hand cracks are a dime a dozen, but that roof pitch is one of a kind.
Fantastic route, it's got a little bit of everything - fingers, hands, OW, chimney, bolt ladder, clean aid, face traverse, tunnel through, tree climbing, good friction, bad friction...
The only constant is the exposure.

Edit: why is there no option for "Aid" under Ascent Style? I guess I'll go with "Hang Dog".

Worth the hype. One of the best routes in SoCal.

At the top, walk toward the South Astrodome. There is a rap anchor (bit old, but decent). A 70m rope and a bit of swinging will get you over to the P1 anchors on Repo Man where you can make a second rap down to your packs (or set up a toprope on this fun 12a R)

Don't bother with this thing. The first bolt protects some smeary moves that are quite stout at the 5.9 grade. After that, it's up into the no fall zone and shitty rock for a while. Reaching the second bolt provides only a momentary relief, until you realize the bolt is sticking a full inch out of the rock. I'm guessing someone tried pulling it and didn't quite finish the job. If you insist on doing this route you'll want to clip the 3rd bolt of Legolas instead, which is about 8 feet to the right, and then traverse back left. The last bolt looked fine, but by that point I was over this route and just finished on Legolas. Considering that the bolts are a retro job and don't even link up any interesting features other than some chossy flakes, i vote it be properly yanked and the holes patched. There's no short supply of moderate slab climbing on Echo Rock. 0/5 stars

The last pitch is burly and heads-up for a Red Rock 5.9. After pulling through the first moves and getting situated on the boulder, you can get a nut in between two thin flakes. Then go right around the corner and mantle onto a ledge where the bolt is. If you can lead this pitch, you'll cruise something like Levitation 29 (or perhaps it would be better to say, you shouldn't attempt to lead this pitch unless you onsight 5.11 sport at Red Rock).

All bolts are 1/4"s and need to be replaced, including the 2 bolt semi-hanging belay. We missed the turn where you're supposed to start climbing up and kept on traversing the dike. Eventually we down climbed a low angle slab to some boulders and then climbed up an easy-5th crack/chimney to the summit. Took 4 pitches going this way.

The leader and follower should both be solid on gritty 5.10 slab. After the follower unclips the final bolt on p2 there's a couple 5.7 friction moves on questionable rock - a fall here would be disastrous. I had my follower leave a bail biner to stay clipped into the bolt as she made the moves. Then when she was on easier terrain she tied in short with an overhand on a bight and untied her fig8 to pull the rope through the bail biner.

Once on the summit we walked south (towards Jungle Cruise) and then scrambled down a large ramp heading towards the northeast corner of the formation. Here we found a single piece of webbing around a small boulder wedged in a crack. There was a rope tied to the webbing but the rope had been severed about 6 feet down?!? I used what was left of the rope to sling a larger chockstone and got it sort of equalized with the webbing. From here one single-rope rappel got us down. Def bring some extra webbing if you plan on going this way. The guidebook shows a different descent off the northwest corner but we couldn't find this, and I imagine it would either require rappels or 5th class downclimbing. All said and done, this was one of the more adventurous climbs I've done in Jtree, but a good one if cragging in Hidden Valley bores you.

Short but stout. The curvy pod thing provides a no-hands rest if you lean a shoulder against the right wall.

A must-do for sure. The Sundike finish is the way to go, but it's easy to do them both by rapping back to the top of p2.

Hair Lip is a wild and unique feature that just begs to be climbed! Protecting the crack in the beginning can be a bit tricky. I think I climbed past some of the best placements because I wanted to get to a stance I saw up higher. It took a bit of fiddling with small nuts and my belayer had to toss me up an orange tcu before I finally got in some adequate gear and felt like I wouldn't deck if I fell off the slab leading to the first bolt. Out on the lip I was having too much fun to be scared. This is one of my favorite pitches of climbing that I've done.

This route has got it all. The first few pitches are terrible - short sections of climbing between ledges, choss, wedged blocks and death flakes galore. The middle pitches, starting with a wildly exposed traverse, are superb - sustained, clean, well-protected, and fun. The last few pitches, following the second traverse, are mediocre with more ledges and loose rock. I give it a PG13 on account of the loose rock, but all of the cruxes are very well protected. The chimneys are quite easy (unless you're carrying a pack) but some of the steep bulges and liebacks felt more like Valley 5.10. But not harder than EB of El Cap, at least from what I remember, it's been a couple years since I climbed that one.

This is a great route and doesn't have any loose rock, except at the topout like all routes at the 5 Open Books area. There are several trees growing out of the crack system however which makes it seem a lot less clean than Commitment. The giant chimney near the end is indeed "the caverns" and is the favorite pitch of the climb. There's not any pro in the chimney but it's also about 5.2 and quite impossible to fall out of.