Type: Trad, Aid, 400 ft (121 m), 5 pitches, Grade III
FA: Jon Butler and Cameron Burns with Luke Laeser on the first pitch (April 8, 1995)
Page Views: 3,954 total · 19/month
Shared By: Ben Kiessel on Feb 24, 2007 · Updates
Admins: Jesse Zacher, Bradley Mark Edwards, Nick Reecy, Leo Paik, John McNamee, Frances Fierst, Monty, Monomaniac, Tyler KC

You & This Route


6 Opinions
Your To-Do List: Add To-Do ·
Your Star Rating:
Rating Rating Rating Rating Rating      Clear Rating
Your Difficulty Rating:
-none- Change
Your Ticks:Add New Tick
-none-
Use onX Backcountry to explore the terrain in 3D, view recent satellite imagery, and more. Now available in onX Backcountry Mobile apps! For more information see this post.

Description Suggest change

Five Finger Discount climbs Safeway Spire.

P1 - Climb up the dihedral past some bad rock, to a belay in a chimney. 5.10d, about 100'.

P2 - Cut left out of the chimney on bolts to a hanging belay on the face. C1, 30'. (Note that this pitch looked as if it would go free without too much trouble 5.11+?)

P3 - Aid crux thin gear. 30' of manky rock to a splitter crack, that leads to another hanging belay. C2-, 70'. (Note that this pitch also looked as if it would go free, the crux of which would be the manky rock on dicey gear.)

P4 - Continue up the widening crack system to a belay. 5.10 or C1, 70'.

P5 - Climb 20' of 5.9 to a thin crack in a tight dihedral, (Loweballs make this go clean). Continue to a wide crack and fun climbing, drilled pins and an interesting mantel gets you to the summit. 5.9 C1, 130'. (Note that everything but the last 30' of this pitch will go free without to much trouble. The last 30' might go free with a variation out left instead of following the bolts out right.)

We short fixed pitch 2 thinking it was much longer then it was, I would combine pitches 1 and 2 in the future. We combined pitches 3 and 4 with no problems.

This route will likely go free at hard 5.12.

Location Suggest change

To find Five Finger Discount, walk about a mile past the Liberty Cap cragging area up Ute Canyon, Safeway Spire is obvious. Start on the southeast face.

Protection Suggest change

Double set of cams to #3 Camalot. #3.5, #4, #4.5, #5. Loweballs, stoppers, can't remember using tri-cams, Belay chair? NO PITONS AND HAMMER!

Photos

loading