Eldo | Upper Peanuts Wall: Proposed bolted rap route

Upper Peanuts Wall is long overdue for a sustainable descent route.
Yesterday I built three temporary rap anchors to map out a proposed bolted descent route down the left side of the face.

Since August is a popular time for Upper Peanuts traffic, please try this descent and offer suggestions/improvements. The rope pulls are all clean with this route, but we spied another possible clean slot closer to the middle of the wall from below. If you find a better third anchor I will go give it a try. As it is, I'll write up an application for anchors in these locations if I don't get any feedback.

1 - The top station is a sling, ring, and two nuts near the end of Heavy Weather. (Could have equalized it better - feel free to re-tie it.) A 20m rap trending to climber's left will get you safely over the stacked 'death blocks' and to the big ledge. Walk left ~20' while still attached to a three-piece anchor (two nuts and a pink tricam).
2 - Rap 30m down the clean headwall to a tree, trending slightly to climber's left.
3 - (There is good rock to the left of the tree for a bolted anchor.) From the tree rap 30m to the gully. At the end of your rope you will almost be on the improved trail.

(I added a note to each temporary rap station that ACE is using them to map out a route. They are not booty, but I realize they may disappear. Please don't take them.)

Three temporary rap anchors near possible bolt locations.

Can you explain this?

What do you mean by "sustainable"?

I've done many route on Upper Peanuts and don't remember ever having an issue getting down.

The walk-off in either direction causes extreme erosion since the slope is so steep and unstable and climbers don't all take the same path. Building a really nice trail up the west side probably isn't practical.
The park has expressed an interest in a descent option that causes less impact.

Gaylord, nobody's responded to your constant trolling since you joined a week ago, nobody cares. Why don't you just slink off now?

Thanks for the work you're putting in, Gregger. Much appreciated.

Gregger is...ummm...the MAN. Thanks. My only worry is increased traffic at Peanuts. There is a lot of big junky rock up there, and that is sayin' something for Eldo.

Abram- I gurantee ive done more climbing in eldo than you and have climbed a lot of the good and bad. if your going to put rap route on upper peanuts, have fun with the continous bombardment of rocks off those ledges. PS> so what your saying is you left bail gear on upper paenuts?

This post violated Rule #1. It has been removed by Mountain Project.

Ha Ha Let the chest pounding commence!

Thanks for the head's up. I'll try to head up and take a look at the proposal.

Yes, there certainly is a lot of loose rock up there. That's what makes using the Sunrider anchors from Heavy Weather undesirable. The gash between the summit ridge and the Sunrider arete is full of booby traps. The left side option could avoid much of that.

The impetus is the management of erosion (with a side benefit of a more convenient way down.) I doubt that Upper Peanuts will ever get a lot of traffic given the ratio of hike:routes, but the west descent trails will only get worse without a rap option.

Gaylord, if you want to be part of this (regardless of how much you have climbed there)
man/women up and use your real name. Otherwise your comments are worthless!

BTW, I could care less either way, so there you go... :)

I understand erosion is the motivation. But it seems convenience anchors are becoming all to common in Eldo. It only takes about five minutes to walk off. Perhaps a well carned trail could keep everyone going down the same route. I was there last week and erosion didn't seem that bad. And as you mentioned, Peanuts doesn't see a lot of traffic anyway. Thanks for your effort though.

Did some laps on Heavy Weather today and spent a little time sussing out rappel options.

First, I'll critique the descent Greg currently has in situ as I rappelled it in it's entirety this morning (i.e., 8/1/2013). To keep things subjective I'll use a +1/0/-1 grading scale for each rappel based on six criteria.

• AQ - Anchor stone quality
• AS - Is the anchor in a safe location free of loose rock that could be accidentally knocked off?
• AU - How easy is it to secure to the anchor (e.g., ledge is the gold standard with anchor at chest height), setup the rope for rappel, and begin lowering.
• RU - Is it easy to figure out where the rappel goes and how to get to the next station.
• RS - Any loose things that might be knocked off while rappelling? Does it reach the next anchor w/out down climbing?
• PULL - When pulling the rope will it snag on anything, be dragged in the dirt excessively, fall on hiking trails, etc...

R1. 25M +5

• AQ +1
• AS +1
• AU 0 - Not any great ledges to stand on for the setup. No loose rock. Rope throw can get snagged on stuff.
• RU +1 - Fairly intuitive to get to next anchor and it can be spotted visually.
• RS +1
• PULL +1

R2. 30M +3

• AQ +1
• AS +1
• AU 0 - Great setup ledge. The shrubs in the immediate vicinity of the anchor will need to be removed as the rope gets tangled while setting up the rappel.
• RU 0 - Fairly intuitive to get to next anchor. Probably can't see it though when bolted.
• RS 0 - Some loose rock in the last half of the rappel.
• PULL +1

R3. 30M +2

• AQ +1
• AS +1
• AU 0 - Good setup ledge, however trees and shrubs about below for the rope to hang up on when thrown.
• RU +1
• RS 0 - Last 15M is a 45 degree slope covered in shrubs and tress you rappel down. Ideally, the rappel would end at 15M and small access trail join the unimproved gully trail which joins the improved Peanuts trail ~200' lower.
• PULL -1 - Rope might snag on trees and shrubs and/or be dragged through dirt.

R2 can be improved and reach a +5 by de-shrubing and removing some small loose rocks in the last half of the rappel. Not sure what to think of R3.

I'll edit this post with my thoughts on a rappel for the right side of the formation.

Thanks, Joe.

It seems silly to add 3 bolt anchors to descend from essentially one climb. One climb that has been descended fine since the 60's...

A better option might be to add an anchor near the base of Sunrider. From there you can rap to the Heavy Weather 1st pitch anchor and then to the ground. Since almost all of the routes besides Heavy Weather are walking off to the right. Then you will have a complete rap route by only adding one anchor, and it can serve all of the routes...

I know it is tricky to get to the Sunrider anchor from the top, but it can't be that hard, since I made it.
It is already possible to rap from the Sunrider anchor to the ledge with the big tree (with a 70) and then scramble down to the Heavy Weather anchor. The new anchor would cut out the need for a 70, the down climbing, and the chance of your rope getting stuck on that first pull.

Oh yeah, the last pitch of Heavy Weather is super fun. Very short, but I wouldn't skip it.

Mark Roth wrote:One climb that has been descended fine since the 60's...

Keep in mind the goal here. To minimize erosion and avoid a large capital outlay (i.e., $$$) for trail construction on the descent route. It's not 1960 any more and the amount of traffic to this crag has picked up and noticeable erosion is happening right now.

Mark Roth wrote:I know it is tricky to get to the Sunrider anchor from the top, but it can't be that hard, since I made it.

Throw in a little less experience and some weather and things could get dicey real quick accessing the existing Sunrider anchor. An additional anchor at Sunriders' base might entice Sunrider suitors to rappel instead of hike back down. Given the goal stated above and that maybe 15% of Upper Peanuts visitors target Sunrider and will almost certainly approach via the gully it's hard to surmise the pay off.

Unless you run your idea past the Gods of supertopo, you will have your bolts chopped.

The ethics of tradition ya know.

Dave H - It sounds like you may have tossed your rope down the plumb line from the tree. The slab is blank to skier's right, and if it were to be bolted the bolts would be that far over from the tree. Improving the trail would also probably be a requirement to make that work. I'm not convinced that the third rap is in the best place. We were running out of daylight when I got there, so I settled. I'll go back and look for an option to climber's right.

Mark - It may seem silly on paper, but look at the traffic stats: in the MoPro database Heavy Weather has 72 votes, almost as many as all the other routes combined. A rappel option that HW climbers would use would do a lot of good. The scramble over to the Sunrider anchors just isn't going to be a popular option for HW climbers (IMO).

Dave S, Locker - The risk involved in the walk-off isn't the issue, and if the bolted descent is installed it will be done after an affirmative public vote (and at the request of the park rangers) - a process designed to avoid bolt war tactics.

Gregger Man wrote:The scramble over to the Sunrider anchors just isn't going to be a popular option for HW climbers (IMO).

Rappel descents are often favored over walk offs or scrambles. Case in point yesterday I encountered a climbing team on Upper Peanuts near the top of the formation - Tom and Debbie. They were happy to try the temporary rappel route and stated verbally to me they much prefer rappelling to the walk off that they have done before and dislike.

Currently, I have a 200' static line attached to an anchor at the start of Heavy Weather P3. It's marked as belonging to ACE. Will probably remove it in a week or so. Feel free to use it to explore rappel descent routes to the climbers left of HW. The static rope reaches the ground with 10' to spare.

Joe are u checking out that thin crack below the ledge? I top roped it a year ago, i left a nut in a crack on the ledge...