Home - Destinations - People - Partners - Forum - Photos - What's New
 ADVANCED
West Ridge - Long John to Verschneidung
Show routes:
Select route...
Aftershock 
Break on Through 
Chianti 
Clear-a-Sill 
Cruisin' for Burgers 
Ein Kluck 
Ghetto Blaster 
Gibbet, The 
Incarnation 
Long John Wall 
Next to Nearly 
Rictus 
Rock For Climbing Routes To 
Shock Of the New 
Strawberry Shortcut 
Sunshine Wall 
Toothsheaf Transfusion 
Unlead, The 
Unsaid, The 
Varieties Of Religious Experience 
Washington Irving 
White Rabbit 

Ghetto Blaster 

5.10b X

   

FA: M. Brooks, J. Foster, 1982
Type: Trad, TR
Consensus: 5.10- [details]
Length: 1 pitch
Views: 203 page views

Submitted By: Tony B on Nov 23, 2001


Add Photo  Add Comment 

You and this route  |  Other Opinions (2)
Your todo list:
Your stars:
Your rating: -none- [change]
Your ticklist: [add new tick]
 Printer Friendly View

Description 

Follow the directions as for White Rabbit and take the right-most, right facing dihedral, as opposed to the left-facing one. This route is located just L of Verschneidung. If you enjoy the head game, this route is for you. The moves actually are fun, but potentially dangerous.

The crux move is a reachy mantle/flag from poor flakes to and though an overhang to pinch a horizontal arete-like feature above - matching on the sloping pinch and pulling up to a toe-hook is exciting above crappy small gear. It felt like solid 5.10 to me. The *very tall* folks might find it easier than I did.

Perhaps some holds broke between when the route was rated and now, which could have produced some spectacular falls.


Protection 

This is a death route. The Rossiter guidebook rated it 5.9 (no S in the Boulder Climbs South) and the route was described as S in the text. The route is VS. About 30' off of the big ledge you will do a balancey mover on poor rock with bad or no protection. Then you will place a red or brown tricam behind a bad flake and do some more 5.8+ moves to gain the dihedral. There is a right-hand traverse that has terrible rock- thus you can not use just any hold. The crux pro was a 2" cam behind a poor flake, 12' below and to the left of the crux on a long sling, then a few brass nuts in poor rock, 5' down, and a #3 BD stopper just below the move.

There is a lot of very poor rock and many runouts on the route, some potentially lethal.

You can traverse from the top of Verschneidung (5.7 sewn-up) to the rap tree above Ghetto Blaster and TR the crux pitch from there if so desired.



Comments on Ghetto Blaster Add Comment
Show which comments
By tooTALLtim
From: Boulder, CO
Apr 2, 2008
rating: 5.9 X

Got on this without reading about it (just looked up, saw it was ".9" in the Rossiter book without reading the description, and went for it)

Shitty rock, not very good moves (because I was afraid of breaking holds), and a huge runout to the lip below the crux. I was able to get two decent cams on either side of the lip (a #1 on the left, and a 0.75 on the right). This is assuming the rock held.

This felt 5.9 probably because I'm 6'6", and was able to reach the better holds at the top of the crux.

I would not lead this climb again, nor recommend it to anyone. Quite the mindf*ck.