The Flakes is THE 5.10 test piece in the Black Canyon.
Having climbed the Scenic Cruise, Cruise, and Astro Dog my partner and my 12 a.m. opinion was that The Flakes is finally what we expected grade V to be. Strenous, sometimes dangerous climbing from sun up to after sunset. Below are a few details.
Strategy:
See topo for most of the information. Aviod topo for a better adventure.
Rappel the Astro Slog. Leave the piglet and the #5 (save for after the X chimney) two pitches from the ground on a fixed anchor.
Climb first two pitches of The Dog. Traverse left and climb 250 feet of steep, immaculate 5.9 with great ledges.
Climb the 5.9X bombay chimney. This pitch is X. You will probably die if you fall. There is no reason to fall as the rock is perfect and the climbing reasonable. No gear bigger than a 1 camalot is needed.
Climb the pitch after the bombay chimney. This pitch is pretty scary if you do not bring the huge cam. It is harder than the previous pitch. Belay after the perfect 5.7 hands.
Pitch 7 5.10+ Tricky Route Finding. Do not go right or up. Go left on unprotected edges to a weakness in an overlap. Place fantastic gear and go up weakness. Superb climbing. Continue til rope runs out. Belay.
Climb more ambigious broken terrain trending right towards base of right-angling, rotten, chimney monstrosity.
Pitch 9. Crux. 5.10+ Stout. The rock on the lower section is junk, but gets much better the higher you go. Black Canyon Legend Robert Warren gave me one piece of advice for this pitch; bring hexes. Bring Hexes!
There, you've done it... see topo for how to get to the rim.
The Flakes is more serious than Astro Dog, and just as good.
Protection
Rack: Standard Black Canyon rack + 2 hand-sized hexes & #4 & #4.5 Camalots. 2 ropes for Astro-Slog. 1 haul-able bag and #5 Camalot recommended.
If I've been told correctly, the line described above was first climbed on the FFA. The FA took another line near the crux offwidth pitch, does anyone know if they actually climbed the crux pitch of Astrodog?
Did this with ?? (a guy I just met the week before) in 1992 and we both thought it was an excellent route. The contribution here is that we did it by starting on the north rim, hiking down the SOB gully, crossing the river, and then third classing (on pretty scary stuff) to the start. At the top we hiked to the next downstream gully, scrambled down the gully (with one short rappel, I think), re-crossed the river, and then hiked back out the SOB. We got back to camp at dusk. I wouldn't have thought to do this, but my young friend (who turns out to have been none other than Mike Pennings) talked me into it. It's a long, fun day and the North Rim campground is a much cozier hang.
Edit - May 22, 2007. So I just did this again the day before yesterday with George Lowe. What a great, old-school grade V! Got to the base of the route this time via the astro-slog. We actually had a couple of issues that cost us some time on the rappels, which ended taking about three hours.
At the end of the 1st pitch (doing the Astro-dog start) we ran into Mike Pennings and Johnny Copp, who were rappeling the Astro-slog to do a new route. During the ensuing conversation, Mike reminded me that he was the guy I did the Flakes with back in the early 1990s.
Some quick thoughts on the climb. The first 6 pitches are just stellar and clean. The bombay chimney was a non-issue (but you shouldn't be leading this pitch if you are not comfortable soloing 5.9 chimney). On the 7th pitch, the rock starts to deteriorate, but this pitch is an intricate and interesting one. The crux pitch is hard, and the chimney is very dirty. Luckily, the crux section itself is on cleaner rock near the top of the pitch.
Ed and Steve did a one-day, free, version of the Flakes. I'm pretty sure they did their route a week before Bob Sloezen and I did our version. Ed and I spent some time comparing our routes from the Hallucinogen, but my memory is uncertain about how they topped out. To begin, they bypassed the lowest "flake climbing" by approaching from the the Chillum-Stone Gully (left). After the runout chimney pitch, they may have climbed to the top via a rotten and tough looking chimney, left of the Astro-Dog finish.
Bob SLOEZEN and I did the complete version of The Flakes, using some aid, and spending three night out. We brought gear like slung stoppers, hexes, I-beams, a few pins, and a some copperheads, but no bolt kit.
The first day was used getting to the start of the lowest flake. From near the Dragon Overlook, we placed our own anchors on four rappels down to the notch, behind the big pinnacle. Then crossed the river twice and hauled our loads up a couple hundred feet of 4th class to a bivvy. The overhanging, wide-crack, start of the real "flake" climbing was super scary with hexes. When the chimney/crack ended, maybe just below the bolt on A-Dog, a tension traverse was done left to the next flake system and a belay using some horizontal knife-blades in perfect granite. Then we joined up with Ed and Steve's route. Fun cracks led up to the nice bivvy ledge below the runout chimney. Bob led the squeeze and fixed a hanging belay from poor pins on the right wall. (Today's longer ropes must help get to the better part of the crack for a belay)
The next day we climbed another pitch or two of good climbing up to the looming, rotten, headwall. We dodged Ed and Steve's crux chimney via a really long hand-traverse right. After lowering the bag across, the traverse pitch had to be followed, not jumared. Then we pioneered a finish now known as Astro-Dog, finding better rock and high exposure. The crux aid was the same section that is now 5.11 and shown on the cover of Jeff Achey's book, "Climb!" At the crux, a large block had to be tossed off. Even with pulling up rope and getting the belayer sheltered under the haul bag, it was still a near miss for ropes and climbers. This pitch was finished in the dark and the night was spent perched on tiny stances. We climbed the summit corner, next morning, twenty pitches total, and Jimmy Newberry met us at the top.
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