Excellent Crack 5.8
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| Type: | Trad, 1 pitch, 80 feet |
| Consensus: | 5.8 [details] |
| FA: | ? |
| Submitted By: | Kaner on May 24, 2008 |
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Blue line, as seen from the summit of first sectio...
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Description Climb the East Face to a grassy break on the 2nd section of the 4th Flatiron. Aim belay for an obvious, nice looking crack on the right (northern) side. We found a good root to sling and a solid nut for belay, but you're on a very comfortable grassy break in the rock with an easy walk off 20 feet to the right.
This is set us directly beneath the best pitch I've led in the Flatirons- maybe ever. It was a wide crack (accepted my full calf for bomber one-legged locks; wish we'd have brought along 2,3 and 4 cams), angling up and right (my guess, 5.8) to a small roof that topped out to more easy, Flatiron, featured slab.
Slung a solid pine tree and belayed at wide break in the rock and then scrambled down break to a walk off in the dark.
To descend back down to Royal Arch trail, we moved north and found a climber's trail downhill, eventually hitting a talus field and then the lowly lit forest before stumbling upon it, slightly downhill to the north from Sentinel pass.
This last pitch was maybe 20-30m long and phenomenal. I haven't sat in blissful adrenaline at a belay after many other climbs. Every Flatiron climb I've done has been an easy face, mostly solo. To find this great crack was a treat.
Protection Light rack but a 3 inch piece would have be welcome.
Robby spiraling up cave staircase.
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Looking up easy OW start of Excellent Crack.
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| Comments on Excellent Crack |
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By George Bell
From: Boulder, CO
May 25, 2008
| From the photo, it looks like this route climbs the 2nd piece of the Fourth Flatiron, called Green Mountain Pinnacle. The Excellent Crack would seem to be close to Fern Alley, and possibly they are even the same thing? Either that or it is the next crack to the south. Your descent info confuses me, as it isn't so easy to get off the top of Green Mtn Pinnacle. I'm just trying to understand where you went.
Looks like an interesting way up this giant expanse of rock! |
By Jason Haas
From: Broomfield, CO
May 25, 2008
| This route is a combination of several routes, including the Fourth Flatiron and Green Mountain Pinnacle as George indicated. The main offwidth referenced in this online route description is a combination of Fern Alley and East Face of GMP. |
By Kaner
From: Eagle
Jun 2, 2008
| Thanks for the feedback George and Jason.
We didn't descend off the summit. We were losing daylight so finished this pitch and bailed down a 3rd class gully to the north(quite possibly Fern Gully). No GMP or 4th Flatiron description I've seen on this site or in the guidebook.
Really had no idea what we were on, just saw a great looking feature and went for it. I looked in the current Flatiron guide and couldn't find anything resembling any of the 3 routes I did up there. Actually, both times I was lost. First I was looking for the 5th Flatiron and soloed the north side of the 4th instead. This lead to discovery of spiral staircase and inspired a trip the following day too. This time we were hoping to find "Takin' care of Business" and found this great looking crack instead. So we were aiming for GMP, but I'm not real familiar with the area and don't know if we were actually on it or not.
I was wondering if Roach's book would have this route, but I can't find a copy.
ADMINS- if this route is already on here or needs to be moved to GMP (consensus from those with more flatiron knowledge?) please do so. |
By EMT
Oct 18, 2008
| We soloed this today and it was not 5.8. Nice climbing.... I would say 5.4/5 IMHO. |
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