Odyssey
5.11- YDS 6c French 22 Ewbanks VIII- UIAA 22 ZA E3 5c British
Avg: 3.8 from 23 votes
Type: | Trad, 500 ft (152 m), 4 pitches |
FA: | DB, SG, RT '75 |
Page Views: | 4,543 total · 30/month |
Shared By: | Charles Vernon on Sep 3, 2011 |
Admins: | adrian montaƱo, Greg Opland, Brian Boyd, JJ Schlick, Kemper Brightman, Luke Bertelsen |
Description
If you've ever complained that there's not enough good cracks in Southern Arizona, then you need to go climb this route RIGHT NOW. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is probably the best crack I've climbed in SoAZ. Unfortunately, there's high overhead: a long approach, plus either mediocre finishing pitches or a complex descent, but the second pitch alone is worth it and there's a number of other good pitches in the area. A good strategy might be to climb the first two pitches and then finish by climbing out on something else.
Pitch 1 | 5.10: Begins with an awkward slot that leads to a cool fist crack, then a moderate hand crack, and finally a thin seam up a slab to a big ledge. A nice pitch in its own right.
Pitch 2 | 5.11- : The money: a beautiful splitter finger crack for 120 feet. The rock is superb, though slightly dirty due to neglect. After an old 2 bolt anchor, the crack begins to overhang slightly, and widens to rattly fingers! (There's an old fixed bong in this section that's extremely annoying as it doesn't seem reliable for pro, but takes up what is probably the only thing resembling a hand jam above the old anchor.)
Edit: per the comments below, note that the bong and the old 2-bolt anchor have been removed, and there is now a fixed belay/rappel anchor at the top of pitch two which incorporates a new bolt.
Above pitch two we fixed a nut/sling anchor and rappelled off (with a 70, which just barely makes it to the ledge!), rather than do the last two pitches, which SQL II and Steiger describe as "rather boring." If you use this anchor, double check the back of the sling as the horn it's around is a bit sharp in places.
After rapping to the ledge at the base of pitch two, either traverse off climber's right (south), or follow the ledge left and find a tree or other means of doing a short rap into the Aegir-Poseiden Gully.
Pitch 3 | 5.9 R: work up and left into rotten corner (not much trustworthy rock here), using many slings to reduce drag. At times, better pro can be found on the outer face of the right side of the corner, but it is strenuous to place. This corner continues up and right through a "birthing hole", or you can stay left and enter a shallow, slabby right-facing corner where you might find better rock, but sparser pro.
Pitch 4 | 5.9 R: from the ledge work up the fairly unprotectable right-facing corner, fishing in pro ranging from decent to purely psychological, until below a weakness in the roof above. Pull this and continue up the slab to a belay at ledge with trees. Brass is helpful on this pitch.
(P3 & 4 descr. provided by Andy B.)
Location
On pitch two, SQL II seems to suggest climbing a left-leaning corner rather than the splitter, but Steiger clarifies that this is a variation. At any rate, once you're there, the splitter is the obvious way to go.
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