Cleveland Route 

There's also a piton that can be clipped before traversing to the first bolts.

X rating is not deserved. Falls at the crux are safe and very clean for slab/face.

I'll have to say the "X" rating is spot on. There are several places where ground fall is possible on this route. Yes the crux is reasonably well protected but a fall getting to the first bolt may well be very tragic. Crystals do break in the Needles on well traveled routes.

This sounds like the Barber Route, not the Cleveland Route. Neither way originally had any bolts, and there were a number of ascents of the Barber Route in its original boltless condition. John Bragg and I made one such ascent in the early seventies, I think. The Cleveland Route diagonaled right across the face after the initial moves and has, as far as I know, never been repeated on the lead.

Rich,
This is a similar description to the Cleveland route on Super Pin and I believe your observations about those routes are correct.

There are some similarities in the photo even, but this is describing the Cleveland route on Hairy Pin . . .

And while a fall from the crux section is no problem, falling from the shoulder just before the 2nd bolt would likely be very bad.

This is a cool route if you are thinking about doing it go for it, just make sure you have your head that day. I would call it 5.10 pg-13/R then 5.8 x after the crux.

Oops, my bad...I was indeed thinking the description was of Super Pin.

A historical note: Pete climbed pretty far up a tree near the face to rig some protection for climbing up to and placing the first bolt.

I remember that tree! It was in place for a long time, but it's gone now. Unfortunately that tree and many others in the vicinity were cut down, cut up, and left to lay as a result of the Pine Beetle infestation. Too bad, it looks like crap around the base of Hairy Pin now, and in many parts of the Hills as well.

Got on this July 5th. Anyone know what happened to the summit register? It was a cool one, and I was sad to see it gone.

The summit register from Hairy Pin has been gone for many years. Seems like I last saw one about 10 years ago.

I've heard there is an epic story to Pete's first ascent of this route. I won't try to repeat it since I don't remember the details too well. Anyone?

Well I will try to recall the story of the first ascent.

As I recall Pete had placed the first bolt climbed the crux and then was on his way to the summit when:

His belayer (I forget if it was Dick (Doc) Laptad or Renn Fenton) locked him off on the ledge where the second bolt is and refused to feed more rope until he drilled the second bolt.

I did this route a couple of times and honestly I don't think the second bolt does much good as all of the hard climbing is over and you are only a few feet from the top.