Black Orpheus wanders up the large hindquarters of Solar Slab, culminating in a giant arcing right-facing corner that has by far the best climbing on the route. The route is long, but much of the climbing is easy and a fair bit of it is mediocre. Two stars is generous, but it makes for a pretty fun adventure with a little bit of challenging route-finding and more commitment (due to the wnadering line and lack of fixed anchors) than many long routes in Red Rocks.
Hike past the main face of Solar Slab into the main Oak Creek drainage, continuing until the large and complex wall in the photo below appears. Leave your stuff below 600' of slabs, and scramble up to a long left-facing corner approximately in the middle of the wall, and left of a large flatiron feature. Locate the large RF corner on the upper left portion of the wall; the final 4 pitches follow this corner, and the route starts quite a ways to the right of it before wandering up and over.
Pitches one and two are long 5.8 leads up the corner (bypass the bolted anchors in order to stretch these leads).
P3 is easier and wanders left and then back right at about 5.5.
P4 is very easy fifth class and over 300 feet long; basically, simul-climb while finding the easiest path up and left to the main corner system on the upper wall. Belay in a comfy alcove down and right of a clean V-slot corner.
P5 is the jewel of the route: do exciting face moves up and left past a bolt into the corner, and climb for 150 wonderful feet, passing a cool chimney en route to a good belay ledge below 2 bolts.
P6 climbs past the bolts with a cool, tricky 5.9 move which for some reason has been upgraded to 5.10 in Supertopo. Continue up the cracks above which are are really good. Several belays are possible.
P7 continues up the huge corner with stiff for 5.7 liebacking past a bolt. Where the corner arcs right, traverse the face straight right to a fixed belay.
P8 is one of the wilder 5.5 pitches I've done. Follow a few bolts right and then up on runout, loose, exposed but awesome face climbing. Cut back left through the main corner into a groove that leads to the top.
The descent is fairly involved. We scrambled up to the next ledge (well short of the buttress top), then followed this left (west) and down a ramp to a new bolted rappel station. Two double-rope raps got us to a large bowl, which we followed down and skiers' right to a terrace with a large boulder. From here, take the ramp west into the Oak Creek drainage and follow that back to your packs.
Another rappel route from the top of the buttress uses several single rope raps to get into the bowl, and ours would likely have been possible in three raps with a single 60 (there was an additional anchor). It may also be possible to traverse across the top of Solar Slab and descend the gully east of that route.
In the photo below, the route starts not in the huge left-facing corner, but in the smaller corner a ways right (marked in the photo by a little red dot).
By George Bell From: Boulder, CO May 4, 2005 rating: 5.9
The "normal" descent can be done with one 50m rope, but it is tricky. The first rap doesn't quite reach the end of a huge ledge. It is possible to make the transition to the ledge at the end of this rap, but it is a dangerous transition (you end on a steep slab). This is why (I believe) somebody added another set of anchors just 50' below the first. So do 2 raps here, the first one only 50', from the lower set of anchors you can easily make the big ledge (you would normally continue straight down here if you had 2 ropes).
But with 1 rope, walk towards the Eagle Wall (west?) on the big ledge, and you will find another anchor at the opposite end for a final rappel over an overhang and into the bowl.
Also, last time I did this descent (with 2 ropes) there was a suitcase sized block resting on a steep splab in the middle of the first rap. My concern was that our rope after pulling would snag behind this, releasing it onto us. This block may well be gone by now, but until then it is an accident waiting to happen.
Fun route - big day, not because of the climb itself but due to the approach and the descent. This may be it's only drawback- you are expending a lot of energy to climb only 4 or 5 good pitches. The single rope descent described in supertopo seemed flawless - we found an anchor just above the final slab portion of the descent which avoided a steep downclimb. I would guess that many find the crux pitches to be far more straight forward than the 2nd pitch (5.8) with its awkward section and the final 2 "easy" pitches. Is that really what 5.5 slab climbing is supposed to feel like?
By d-know From: electric lady land Jan 26, 2006 rating: 5.9+
super fun day. not another soul to be seen or heard. we did the walk off in the dark and 1 head lamp between the two of us. some easy down climbing and scrambling and fairly straight forward. saw some big horn sheep too in the last remaining light.
Did a Solar Slab link up to the start of the upper pitches of Black Orpheus. We branched off from Solar Slab, climbing a couple of fun pitches, which brought us to a ledge, beneath the ramp (Start of upper pitches of Black O.)
We were able to top out at 2P.M. after experiencing full satisfaction of the awesome upper pitches of Black O. (Started up the S.S. Gully at 8:30 A.M.)
We rapped the Upper S.S. Gully to the climber's right (I love this beautiful, scenic descent!) Single rope raps, and easy,intermittent down-climbing/scrambling to the S.S. terrace, then down the Lower S.S. Gully to our packs.
It was a beautiful day today in Oak Creek. Perfect weather!! Only saw two other climbers in canyon. I don't get it.
By Floridaputz From: Oakland Park, Florida Mar 19, 2006
Pitches 8-11 were the most fun. There is some loose rock to be found on those pitches. I enjoyed the route. The traverse to start P8 is pretty cool. The summit is pretty cool. Darkness found us right after the rappels, and we still had no problem with the descent. Stay right on the upper bowl. Find the IBM boulder (looks like an element) and start down a gully heading west. it comes back East again then west again along some slabs right atop a short cliff. The last slab to the creek is polished like marble, and extreemly slippery. If you end up here you nailed the decent.
By Aimee Rose From: Flagstaff, AZ Apr 5, 2006 rating: 5.9
Definately just bring one rope and do the single rope descent. Supertopo does have the description nailed and I posted a pic of the "cool little arch" you climb through right before you head left and downclimb the chimney (which was wet when we did it on April 2). On the 3rd pitch after the 4th class section, make sure you don't place all of your small gear before the bolt! You'll need some to get up that dihedral!
Also, if the forecast says 15-20 mph winds in town, expect them to be 60mph up top. It was pretty scary, rope blowing sideways and having to cling onto the rock when the gusts came up.
By George Bell From: Boulder, CO Apr 6, 2006 rating: 5.9
The "IBM Boulder" is perfectly named, but young people who have never seen a typewriter will get lost looking for it! It's named after the bizarre ball found in an IBM Selectric Typewriter. Imagine a metal golf ball covered with all the characters in a keyboard, sticking out so it can make an impression of each when pressed onto an ink ribbon. The real boulder looks just like this but is about 8' in diameter. I took a Photo of it last time I was up there.
My wife & I climbed Black Orpheus on Thursday, Nov 23rd, 2006 (Thanksgiving day). Thoroughly enjoyed it. I am 5'10" tall, and the bolted section that is supposed to be the crux felt quite easy, like 5.7, or maybe Red Rocks 5.8. I would say that the crux for me was the liebacking above that, which is supposed to be only 5.7, but felt harder (slick feet!), but great gear. Not a soul in sight other than the bighorns on the lower slabs, although we could hear folks on Solar Slab. Leave anything you're not bringing up the route all the way down in the wash. Great day!
Great route! Gotta agree with the comments above though that somehow the last 2 pitches felt harder than the "real crux"? Is it because mentally you think you're done after that 9+ bolted move (which itself is quite reasonable if you're tall)? Or is the runout on the "5.5 slab"?
By Jordan Ramey From: South Pasadena, CA Nov 29, 2007
A fun outing! Id recommend ignoring the grades and not letting your guard down till you are back down! The 2nd to last pitch seemed the diciest to me and I was on toprope for it! It seems like simulclimbing pitches to the base of the 5.8/9 diehedral w/the stronger person on the back of the rope due to that awkward move on P2 is a good way to expedite the ascent.
The 1 rope descent was pretty straight forward once we determined we were on it. Id recommend paying more attention to the text than the topo on the SuperTopo. You actually ascend all the benches of rock then go left in the gully. Downclimbing looked fine in retrospect but we were cautious and rapped from a nest of slings on shrubbery. We were forced to rap the last bit to the ground since an ice flow blocked our way for the last little bit. This was December and the climbing was pleasant in the sun and frigid in the shade.
On Oct. 12, 2008 Maura Hahnenberger and I climbed a variation to the right of the first part of Black Orpheus. Surely it has been climbed before, but it is actually a pretty good line and isn't in any books I've seen, so figured I'd post what we climbed.
Begin approx. 150-200 feet right of Black Orpheus. Pitch 1- Climb a loose looking face up into a left facing flake/chimney. Climb the smooth walled chimney and at a good stance, move left and then up a good face to a sloping ledge and belay from good stoppers. 225 feet, 5.8r Pitch 2- Follow weaknesses directly up the face above. Move up and left to a large ledge near the end of the pitch. This pitch was about 15 feet longer than a 70 meter rope, so a tiny bit of simul-climbing was involved. Belay from the large ledge. From here it is easy to walk left to the easier middle pitches of Black Orpheus. 5.8 Pitch 3- Climb a steep, short corner to a left leaning, shallow, black dihedral. Some insecure moves in the dihedral lead to a small roof which is surmounted to easier ground above. Then move left into the leftward traversing pitches of Black Orpheus. 5.9+r. I'll post a photo/topo of the variation that we climbed. We did not see any or leave fixed gear on this climb.
By Sherri Lewis From: Sequim, WA Nov 29, 2009 rating: 5.9+
Count me in with the folks upthread who felt that the last two pitches were, in some ways, harder than the crux. Maybe I was just tired by then, but the sustained lieback on P10 and the heady runouts on the thin, soft edges of P11's face had me going.
After the twin cracks just above the crux on P9, I wasn't sure whether to climb the featured corner on the right or to go straight up the smoother, black face to the left of ledge. The varnished face on the left looked more my style, so I gave it a try. When I groped for what I hoped was a jug at its top, I was suprised to find a flat ledge that I'd need to mantle. I think there was a pocket to latch into in a far corner but my reach wouldn't allow. Exciting times!
The rap descent out of the Painted Bowl(next to Plate of Fate) has experienced recent, significant rockfall. I'm no expert, but it looks dicey around there. Piles of debris and boulders sitting just above the first station.
We did this climb just before Thanksgiving with temps forecast to be in the upper 50's; wore all of our layers(incl. puffy coat and hat) on the first few and last few pitches where we got little or no sun, but were comfy in shirt sleeves for most of it. Extremely windy conditions kicked up as we topped out, making the descent very difficult. We noticed a well-used bivy cave near the first rappel station at the summit...I can see why.
By jpvandever From: San Francisco, CA Dec 2, 2009 rating: 5.9+
climbed this on saturday of thanksgiving weekend. only one other party on it. left parking at 530 and arrived at base of route around 730. started climbing around 8 and topped out around 2pm. we simul-climbed the middle pitches. from the top we walked down the ramp to a rap station (required a leap to a boulder and scramble down a chimney/gulley). the first rap diagnols down towards the ledge visible from the first rap station. we did three raps with a 60m rope. got back to car around 630 just as the rain started falling.
great day except we returned to our packs in the gulley to find that they had been stolen. hide your packs well!
By Daniel Trugman From: Los Alamos, NM / Stanford, CA Jan 1, 2010 rating: 5.9+
Really fun route with more of a mountaineering feel than the other few routes I've climbed at RR. I thought P2 felt like 5.9 but with good gear when you need it. P5 (as described above) is a truly incredible bit of climbing with everything from airy face climbing to jamming to stemming to chimneying; 5.9 (if you brought doubles of medium sized cams, you brought em for this pitch!). P6 and P7 are very nice as well, I would rate them as 5.9+ and 5.7, respectively.
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