Gargoyle - 5.10b

This route is an ok short quick day and although the climbing on the second pitch is engaging the protection is something to be desiered. The pin that is protecting the belay seems to be put inbehind a block that I highly doubt would take a fall and the next pin isnt that great either. The first pitch reminds me of the common second pitch on the far west end for easy street and windy slabs, aside from a litle steeper section it is lower angle on drity slightly loose rock. The thrid pitch I did not find to tricky aside from mabey one move or so. Over all I dont really recomend this route to anyone not climbing above the grade for the simple fact of the pro on the second pitch low down, with trafic and possibly replacing at least the lower pin to protect the belay I think it would be a much better route which is a sad thing for me to say as there are so many poor routes being put up on the east side by the human drill that maybe this route should stay the way it is just to stand out with the older routes.

Combined with Dick's route for a day of climbing when we lost out on Kahl. The 2nd pitch was pretty good, the other two a bit of a bore. The bad rock on the 2nd pitch is protected with old pitons and the good rock protected with bomber new bolts. Go figure. Some decent pro in between, run out in a few places. The traverse on the 3rd pitch is a little tricky, stay low when you are tempted to go high I suppose is the best way to find the piton and bolt. With Shaun P.

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About the first ascent: Joe popped a hook while drilling pitch 2 and took a long fall, the hand drill flying out and down into the scree below. That looked like the end of the day but Brian lowered down and hopped around the scree in too-tight rockshoes until he found the spoon sized drill. Joe was back on the sharp end.
Joe was drilling the last bolt when hoodlums on a school hiking trip started hurling rocks off the summit ridge - the winds were such that Joe and Brian could hear their every gutteral word but the hoodlums could not hear the team's calls of "climbers below". Joe stopped drilling and ran it out through a rockfall storm to a sheltered spot to drill a one bolt belay while Brian showed off his dodgeball skills and cussed the hoodlums. By the time Brian started following the pitch the rock tossing was down to one missile a minute and he was only hit by schrapnel of exploded limestone. After a last pitch of typical dodging and weaving , the route was complete, but the hoodlums were gone.