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Grizzly Creek Wall (aka Mudwall)
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Mudflap Girl 

5.10

   
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Type: Trad, 10 pitches, 700 feet, Grade IV
Consensus: 5.10c [details]
FA: Jeff Achey & Chris Kalous
Submitted By: Michael Schneiter on Oct 2, 2008

You & This Route  |  Other Opinions (7)
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BETA PHOTO: View of the section of wall with Mudflap Girl.

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Description 

This unique route offers a fine day of climbing for the adventure-seeking choss connoisseur.

Pitch 1 (5.8): This is the Fishers Towers-esque pitch. The pitch is kind of funky, because you’re climbing a crack, but it’s kind of wavy, making for scant gear placements as most of the time you’re climbing the face and the crack is wide. It is easy climbing with one distinct crux through a constriction in the crack. Belay has one bolt and gear (purple Camalot) for anchor.

Pitch 2 (5.10): Climb through a short roof with exfoliating rock to an easy face above with good rock. Two bolt belay.

Pitch 3 (5.8): Climb more easy terrain on good rock. Short pitch. When you get to the ledge, look for the two bolt belay on the right. May be easy to miss. Don’t climb through the roof above.

Pitch 4 (5.9+): Go left to a bolt and climb up steep face to a corner. Don’t climb the corner to the left of the bolt. Climb straight up above the bolt and into the corner. Above, you will find another bolt on the arête. Belay on large ledge from two bolts.

Pitch 5 (5.9): Angle up and right to two bolts on the face then trend left to the belay. Belay at two bolt belay on big ledge.

Pitch 6 (5.10): Climb the nice, left-facing corner, complete with bat guano and crumbling rock. A couple of bolts help protect this pitch, including one at the top of the pitch. Belay at one bolt belay and missing bolt (sleeve remaining). Supplementary gear is available up and right. Or, the more logical way is probably to link this with pitch 7.

Pitch 7 (5.10+): Climb underneath the roof and clip a fixed pin and place a #4 Camalot, if the pin isn’t enough, before pulling the roof. Continue with easy climbing to the two bolt belay on a big ledge.

Pitch 8 (5.10): Pick your poison (death blocks) on the face immediately above the belay to gain a ledge. Then, climb the corner up and right where fixed pins should be visible. Clip some fixed pins and one bolt with gear intermixed. Halfway up you go right on to the face at a bolt. Go up the right side of a somewhat ominous-looking pillar before trending left underneath some roofs to the belay. There is a bolt just before the belay. Belay from two bolts at a small stance, the smallest belay ledge of the climb.

Pitch 9 (5.8): Climb up the corner on the left of the belay to a good ledge. Surmount a short corner to a the belay - one bolt and one fixed blade.

Pitch 10 (5.5?): Super easy climbing on big holds to the top. Two bolt belay, set a good distance back from the edge.

If you’re going to link pitches, you would probably want to do it like this: 1, 2&3, 4, 5, 6&7, 8, 9&10. Could do some other combination but the climb has a lot of ledges and some traverses that would make rope drag an issue. However, a lot of the pitches are short, making it possible to link pitches.

Many of the pitches have runouts, but all are on easy terrain and all of the cruxes are well protected. You could probably call this 5.10 (5.8 R).

Descent: You can rap the route, but beware, there are some difficult pulls and rope-eating snags. The better option seems to be to descend the gully north (or right of the route) of the Mudwall, which includes some single-rope rappels.


Location 

When you reach the base of the wall, hike a few minutes to the right until you reach the base of a Fishers-Towers-esque crack pitch with an unmistakable route marker.


Protection 

A set of medium to large stoppers. Double set of cams at the most. Single set up to #4 Camalot with doubles of green, red, and yellow. A few small Ball-Nuts are also helpful. Single rope if you’re doing the gully descent and two-60 meter ropes if you’re going to rappel.



Photos of Mudflap Girl Slideshow Add Photo
When you find this marker, you know you're at the base of the Mudflap Girl.

BETA PHOTO: When you find this marker, you know you're at the ...

Mudflap Girl with location of climbing line drawn in, approximately.

BETA PHOTO: Mudflap Girl with location of climbing line drawn ...

First pitch of Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

First pitch of Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

Pitch 3 on Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

Pitch 3 on Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

Pitch 5 on Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

Pitch 5 on Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

Pitch 6 on Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

Pitch 6 on Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

Pitch 7 of Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

Pitch 7 of Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

The final pitch of Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

The final pitch of Mudflap Girl, Glenwood Canyon.

Wyatt starts up pitch 2.

Wyatt starts up pitch 2.

Pitch 6.

Pitch 6.

The crux overhang.

The crux overhang.

Steve Levin on the Mudflap Girl, 2009.

Steve Levin on the Mudflap Girl, 2009.


Comments on Mudflap Girl Add Comment
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By Dustin B
From: Steamboat
May 11, 2009

After thinking a bit, I'm giving it 3 stars. Normies might give it none, but adventure geeks will have a blast. Many thanks to the FA party for all the hard work it must have been, and to Mr. Schneiter for the accurate, adequate info.

By mlloyd
From: denver
Sep 17, 2009

The descent, by means of the gully, can be quite hard to find. I spent a hour figuring out where the hell to rap from. So, here are some details that might help. Walk to the east most point of the gully, the rap anchors are on a tree a hundred feet in front of you on the north side of the gully. Scramble down to the anchors. THEY ARE NOT EASILY VISIBLE. watch for falling rocks because they will definitely hit the person below you. Make a 100 rap into the gully where you will find a decent 3 piece anchor with red tat. From there, rap another 100 feet and run down loose scree to two more easy raps. The 1st one is on your right, and it is 3 old pitons, and the last one is on a tree to you left. The route was fun, and I would definitely recommend it. Nice job, Chris....

By Bill Wright
Oct 23, 2010

Super cool, very fun route. Since I used this site as the guidebook, I thought I'd give back a bit. I did a trip report here:

web.me.com/billwright510/Mobile_Me_Site/Climbing_Blog/Entrie>>>

There is a link to tons of photos there, as well.

Unfortunately, we did not print out or read the comment about the rappel route. Our bad. We did not find it and retreated back to rap the route, which went very nicely, except for one brief, stressful moment when our ropes were stuck.

Also, here are my guesses at the pitch lengths: 120, 60-70, 50, 90, 120, 90, 50, 120, 50, 80. The protection at the 5.10 sections were good and the climbed seemed a lot easier than Pervertical on the Diamond. The 5th pitch (5.9) was the only bad pitch on the route. It is probably easier than 5.9, but it feels that hard since it is very runout, loose, and difficult to figure out exactly where to go. Also, the 2nd last pitch has a harder boulder problem on it that is probably 5.10- instead of 5.8.

Very fun adventure route. Kudos to the first ascensionists. Recommended but feels more like an alpine route.

By martinharris
From: Glenwood Springs CO
Sep 14, 2011

Killer adventure and some nasty climbing.
I would call the crux pitch a bit of a sandbag at 10a. It was a hard, exposed, scary lock off.

By Wayne Crill
From: an Altered State
Sep 26, 2011
rating: 5.10+

I was able to enjoy my first climbing experiences on the Mudwall 9/25 Saturday on this route, which I thought overall was rather fantastic. Kudos to the FA party! Really enjoyable, adventurous climbing, steep and juggy in places, techy-face in others, most on very nice quality rock. The first pitch and some other is rather sandy, and with the ledges, loose rock abounds, but the vast majority of the climbing is on really cool quartzite. I see a comment about 10- sandbag, that's for sure, I see the description (now?)suggesting .10+ in the crux roof and that seemed about right to me.

Since there is still discussion of best descents and such here, I'll add what we found which may be helpful. Although we rappeled, so I have not done the 'gully descent' I will never look for this, rappelling the route seemed straightforward and the way to go.

The 2006 Rifle/West Slope guidebook lists this as a 9 pitch route, combining pitches 6 and 7 as described here on Mtn Proj. We climbed the routes in 4 full, 60 m rope lengths and one ~100' pitch which worked well, although this could create excessive drag if not atentive to this concern.

We combined p1 and p2; p3 and p4; p5 6 and 7; did p8 as described; and p9 and 10. This was relatively efficient and nice because all of the combined pitches contain interesting and fun 5.10 climbing. A little bit of moderate simul-climbing was required after the roof on this site description's crux p7 for the leader with the terrain the second simuls also being quite moderate. I think I would try to do the last three pitches as one next time which would require ~ 40' of moderate simulclimbing and allow the route to be done in 4 super fun '60m' pitches. We followed the descent beta in that same Rifle/W. Slope guide which was good and the anchors used are quite in line for the rappel (hence why I believe some appear a bit off to the climber's L for climbing). As described here, we used anchors systems 10 ('summit'), 9, 7, 5, 4, and 2.

Highly recommended route, big fun, I'm look forward to other routes here.