Ben hoping his small nuts and cams will hold in th...
Description
Pretty good lead up a thin crack for 40ft. Start in the small left-facing dihedral just left of a roof and a large left-facing inside corner. Jam and stem your way up to some good ledges. The pro is decent, but a little unnerving when you're making moves over a no. 2 rp in sandy rock... Continue up the finger crack to a large ledge, then stem up a right-facing dihedral to the bolts.
Protection
Somewhat marginal pro in spots because the rock isn't very solid. Full set of RPs, some Aliens, TCUs, micro cams or the like. Rack up to #1 Friend. A #3 Friend is useful for the last short section. Two bolts on top of the wall.
Man, someone musta got that cam before me. Didn't see it anywhere. Led the thing with only stoppers. A good moderate lead. Gets a little dicey about half way up. Not too bad though. Has anybody taken a fall on trad at Castlewood? How did the gear/rock hold up? Leading here has got me pretty scetched but I keep on doin it for some reason.
I've taken maybe two falls doing trad at Castlewood and both times my pieces held. The first was a firteen footer onto a #9 hex and the second onto a few fall nuts. The nuts were only in some face features and held after about a 6-8' fall. However, in some places where the rock does get soft, I would't like falling onto the pieces as a rule. I have practiced aid on cams in horizonal cracks and have had them blown, I believe because they hit irregularities in the conglomerate rock. Tri-cams would work better here, and with any cam placement watch that the lobed are on good rock and not resting on a protuding pebble.
I've taken a couple of trad falls, one on purpose. The "on purpose" fall was an alien placement, on a screamer, right above a bolt. The alien was well-seated and the rock looked good, but the rock blew out around the alien before the screamer even activated. The other fall(s) were on perfect #2 Camalot placements in a big roof crack, which held. Dan is right - the passive placements are generally good where you can get them, but SLCD's should be treated as suspect in all cases, particularly in the smaller sizes.
If there is anywhere to place early place often it's in Castlewood. I lead this today and it took small and medium nuts until the top where the crack widens to #3 Camalot. I did get a little off balance switching the corners half way up but never came off. Used a red c3 for a directional off the deck which "seemed okay". My experience is that I can get bomber nut placements here.
Cam placements need to carefully considered but a) because the rock surface has pebbles that break off and b) because the cracks are often a bit funky (not splitter) shaped causing cam placements to walk easier.
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