I did a linkup of Grand Central and Alphonse. I went around the arête from Grand Central from the belay and traversed left on super thin, balancy, sequency 5.9ish territory with almost no gear. Got a nice pink tricam placement about halfway across. Cant find the variation anywhere. Has anyone else done it? You end up about 40 feet below the Alphonse, maybe a little closer.
Have not done that, but have done a challenging variation on Grand Central where you climb straight up before the traverse on the first pitch to the crux of the second pitch thereby eliminating both traverses and bringing in some 5.10 climbing. I think it is called Penn Station.
AH Yes lines in the gunks 30 yrs ago Dick said that it was just going the wrong way across a lot of other routes. Swain climbed a route that Tor and I had been climbing for years,near the Baskerville;calling it the hounds(?) Times now deserve an outing of routes and variations climbed in old school fashion; No small springy things; Wobs and Tri-cams ground down to match slots and other trickery now obsolete,minimal gear and then only at the hard bits actually blowing off placements in acts of showboating and bravado(and to reduce rope drag) climbing with 4 pink Tri-cams and 4 nuts,(or less) that was The 80's.the good old days.
That's just about exactly where it is. Felt about 5.9ish but super thin, balancy stuff not pumpy and without that pink tri-cam I wouldn't have been able to protect it with my rack. .5 camalot was too wide for the pocket but the tri-cam was pretty solid.
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