ronamick
Dec 1, 2002, 6:40 PM
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Registered: Nov 28, 2002
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This is not the name of this boulder! Robbins crack is the most famous and hisorically significant route at Mt. Woodson, and predates Lie Detector by a couple decades.
Soon after Mt. Woodson's cracks were discovered, word got back to The Valley, and Royal Robbins, who was probably the best free climber in the world at that time decided to go down and check out this mysterious new place. The locals showed him a crack, telling them that they had climbed it. Not to be outdone, Robbins climbed it with a supreme effort, calling it 5.10 (when 5.10 was as hard as it got) and saying it was as hardas anything he'd climbed in the valley. What the locals neglected to add was that they had aided the thing, and not wanting to be accused of sandbagging, they never told Robbins, who returned to Yosemite with tales of Woodson's hard cracks and hard crack climbers.
This natural crack is indisputably the premiere feature on the rock, and is the proper namesake.
Lie detector was not a climb until the seam at the bottom was doctored to make pods deep enough to jam, and reach the start of the crack above. Prior to this, people use to lower down to the ledge where the crack starts and climb back up at 5.9. It was called "The backside of Robbins".
Footnote: The name Lie Detector is a humorous aside by the first ascentionists as to their nefarious means of ascent.
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