This route climbs the big, obvious dihedral right of the 2nd Apron, Right Side route shown in yellow in the picture. This route is to the right of the yellow line in the topo to the right. I thought this was the Right Side route until the picture with the lines drawn in was posted on the site.
P1: The start is about 40 feet right of the Right Side route. Climb up easy slab with lots of small ledges to a big dihedral system. Pass a small ledge and move left into the start of the dihedral. Belay at a stance near the end of your rope. 5.4 190'
P2: Climb the dihedral. Fun steep climbing past occasional loose flakes - be careful what you pull on. Climb past a sloping ledge on the left to a fantastic ledge on the right a few feet higher. 5.4 185'
P3: Climb the dihedral until it peters out, and then move left into another dihedral. Jam up a steep fun crack to a good ledge. 5.4 180'
P4: Climb the dihedral (a pattern emerges). Move left across the slab to yet another dihedral and then wander up to a huge ledge with lots of loose rocks. One could also continue up the dihedral until it forms a small roof, and pull over that. This was wet when I was on it. 5.5 110'
P5: Could be run together with the last pitch, but not recommended because of the large loose blocks on the big ledge. Climb easily up to a short headwall and the top. The line of least resistance is likely 5.2, but a huge number of variations are possible.
Protection
Set and a half of stoppers, Aliens are nice, nothing bigger than a 2 Camalot. The pitches are long, so plan acccordingly.
By Mike Morley Administrator From: Oakland, CA Aug 24, 2003
Climbed this today, like Andrew, thinking it was the Second Apron Right Side route described by Leo (should have brought the topo!). We actually started up the Right Side route, but where the topo (yellow line) cuts up and starts heading left on the first pitch, I continued up right to a notch and continued as for Right Side Dihedral (described here). I wouldn't recommend doing it this way, as there are what I would consider fairly serious runouts where the cracks are too thin and shallow even for micronuts. Done this way, I'd call it 5.7s. From the top of this pitch (200'), we simul-climbed the rest of the way to the summit, encountering nothing harder than 5.4 mixed in with sections of 4th class. All and all, I found this route to be full of loose, lichen-encrusted rock, and one I won't be rushing back to repeat any time soon, although it was still a good "adventure climb" with great exposure and views.
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