A Cuban climber's first American climb - Carlos Pi...
Description
Start on the west face of Castle Rock, about 15' left of Bailey's Overhang. Climb a beautiful left-curving dihedral with THIN crack/seam ... looks very Yosemite-esque. Starts out with lieback or hand jams up a steep crack and continues up the beautiful and slippery corner ... stem like crazy to the top, turn a small roof and cruise to the anchor.
Protection
Small cams (Aliens or TCUs) for the meat....hand size for the start. Anchor is a 2-bolt chain anchor....one of the bolts seemed pretty loose so if you TR I suggest backing it up with .75 Camalot jr. or equivalent in a nearby crack.
Went up and led this again a few days ago.....what a GREAT pitch. It's got it all, face climbing, perfect hands, liebacking, finger jams and wide stemming to a roof with some steep jug-hauling and a couple finger/hand jams to the chains....wooooohooooo....fun!
Man, I was up there with my kids in the creek the other day and these guys were eyeing up curving crack..... i told them it's awesome and they decided to do it. The guy hung at the hand crack, hung on the stemming in many places and fell off the roof a couple times....then he almost made it over the roof but fell and pulled a yellow alien and a blue alien and fell probably 40 feet upside down and was saved by the fixed pin.Man, it was fuckin' scary fall but he was ok with a helmet on too. Make sure you get a good placement in that upper chalked up crack (easy to do) and extend it cuz turning the roof pulls that cam around a bit and probably walked it enuff to cause it to pull on that guy...... careful out there but climb hard.
Another solid 5.9 that I recently discovered. I found the rock above the piton to be a little slick. It was difficult to smear/stem until I reached the overhang. Good climb though.
Great Climb - 3 Stars!!! Get there early on weekends - it get's busy and when we were climbing there were two other parties waiting.
What's up with the grafitti around the base of Castle? It's in spanish and I have no idea what it means. Is it some kind of anti-climber political thing or just the work of complete moron with too much time on this hands?
Did this route two weeks ago. My first 5.9 trad lead. I can sauce a 5.8+ but this thing was very tough for me. The protection wasn't super good but certainly adequate. The first section is a piece of cake, it gets interesting after the piton. The rock on this route is very slick and the foot holds suck! I wouldn't recommend this route for new 5.9 leaders! It felt like I was on my hands a lot with no real rests. Because of the approach I give it one star. Also, I believe the hangers at the top are on small bolts which aren't recommended for use anymore and one of them is loose.
What? This is great 5.9 maybe 5.9+ climbing on very solid rock. The pro is great and as I recall, bomber. Its not friction-granite (but little is at Castle), so may feel a bit slick. There are 2 pretty damn good rest positions/gear placing if you stem out with your left foot. As you can belay from your car there is zero approach. The climb is short but sweet. 2+ stars (3 if it was longer).