Badger Crack  5.10

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Type:  Trad, 3 pitches, 250 feet Consensus:  5.10b/c [details] FA:  Bernard Gillett and Eric Roslansky, 2002 Submitted By:  Dave Holliday on Dec 20, 2010 You & This Route  |  Other Opinions (2) Your todo list: Your stars: Your rating: -none- [change] Your ticklist: [add new tick]

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Description 

This is a fun three-pitch route that goes to the summit of the formation. It has a very awkward crux pitch.

The first pitch goes up nebulous terrain to a right-facing corner with a bulge. Make awkward moves to surmount the bulge, go up a low-angle wide crack, and then cut up and left via a handcrack to a small shelf with a bolted rappel anchor (5.7, 100 feet).

The second pitch can be seen at this point, and it's a left-leaning finger and hand crack. Climb easily up and left from the belay to a stance below an obvious bolt. Go up a corner to the left of the bolt and then climb the left-leaning crack; after the leaning crack fun, climb straight up to a finger crack in a corner capped by a small roof. Surmount the roof to arrive on a large ledge (5.10, 100 feet).

The last pitch starts with a wide-hands crack (or fist depending on your hand size) and then climbs easily to the summit (5.8, 40 feet).

A few notes: we linked the last two pitches.

We also gardened out dirt from the crux section of the second pitch.

We inadvertently added a crux to the second pitch by climbing past the bolt and then going up and left via another awkward crack. We then stepped over to the left to get back on route.

Location 

Get yourself to the access ledge that runs across most of the rock. On its left side you'll see a steep, bolted slab with a roof above it split by a crack (that's the route Stiff Lipped). This route starts just to the left; you're aiming for a right-facing corner with a crack through a bulge.

We descended from a rappel anchor from the summit (best to belay one another to the anchor) and then rappelled to the anchor at the top of pitch one. The guidebook topo indicates "100ft+" for this rappel. We used a 70m rope and were fine, but I think you'd come up short with a 60m. Rappel once more back down to the access ledge.

Protection 

Standard rack up to a #3 Camalot. I don't remember using anything smaller than a 0.3 Camalot.