Orange Clonus is a wonderful traditional multipitch climb. It has a good variety of face and crack climbing with excellent position and exposure. Also a plus, all belays are on huge ledges if done in 4 pitches. The heart of the route is a huge 200 foot widening splitter which may be done in as little as 1 pitch or in as many as 3 which is what the guidebook suggests. The nature of the climbing and the non-trivial descent make for a fun adventure.
P1 (100ft, 10d): The first pitch is the technical crux of the route. Climb the clean varnished dihedral past 5 bolts to a small ledge (10d). Continue up the corner on more fragile rock to a big ledge with a tree (5.7).
P2 (150 ft, 5.5R): Carefully climb the very delicate and runout face for 20 feet until you reach a wide crack which you can chimney inside. Continue until you reach an enormous ledge at the base of a chimney. Belay with a great view.
P3 (80ft, 5.8): Avoid the ugly chimney by going straight up the steep face (5.8) to a ledge system. Walk rightwards across the ledge, battling trees and other desert flora (2nd class). Belay underneath the obvious crack system.
P4 (200ft, 10d): The heart of the route. Climb the widening splitter crack for 200 feet. The pitch ends when the crack ends, at a huge ledge. (Alternatively, this pitch may be broken into three pitches as the guidebook suggests: 60ft of 5.8 fingers to a piton belay in a slot; 60 feet of 10d thin hands to a belay in an alcove below a roof; 80 feet up the 10a hands and fist crack to the big ledge.)
Descent: Three rappels and downclimbing into The Beer and Ice Gully. Rap 1: Walk across the ledge and rap off a tree. Rap 2: Downclimb to the right (towards the gully) to another ledge and rap station at a tree. Rap 3: A short rappel off of another tree will get you to the ground. (This last rap is very cool!)
Location
The first pitch begins in a very clean left-facing corner on the rounded buttress to the right of the entrance of The Beer and Ice Gully and to the left of the Straight Shooter Wall.
From the Straight Shooter area, walk leftwards contouring the wall. The clean left-facing corner with bolts marks the first pitch.
Protection
Standard traditional rack to 3.5 inches, doubles or triples of 1.5 to 2.5 inches, and many long slings.
Crux pitches beta: P1: 5 bolts, single set of .5 to 2 inches P4: If done in a single pitch, I recommend taking 2 purple, 3-4 green, 2 red, 2 gold, 2 blue, and 1 gray Camalot (and no more).
I can’t believe this climb doesn’t get more traffic given the short approach and rad climbing. Here are some comments after climbing this the other day.
--- The Handren guide lists the 4th pitch as 50’ 5.6. It’s more like 300’ of third class. When you get to the ledge atop p.3 un-rope and scramble up a gully to the right. This will lead you to a wide open brushy area where you can walk to the base of the splitter.
At the bottom of a small chimney you stem across for the scramble there is currently a large skeleton. I don’t know what it is but it’s bigger than any bighorn I’ve ever seen. Do mountain lions ever venture that far out? It kind of gave an ominous feel going into the business pitch.
--- I highly recommend doing the splitter in two pitches. First is about 80’ of 5.8+ to a decent stance with a fixed pin and some small alien placements. Next pitch starts with the 10d section then eases off towards the top. Doing it this way allows you to bring a lighter rack and avoid rope drag for the upper part.
--- The rack, doing it the above way, would be doubles to #2 with a single #3 and #4.
--- The descent is pretty easy to find but the raps kinda suck. About 40’ below the first rap station is a rope eating crack. It’s not really visible from the station but try to cast your rope out far. A section of ours completely stuck itself way down out of sight in the crack. Not fun. It would also be a good idea to bring some webbing and another rap ring or two.
The hard sections are all on great rock. There are a couple easy run out spots with marginal rock but overall better than expected for an obscure RR route. The last pitch is one of the best I’ve done in RR. The others range from decent to quite fun. Hopefully this route will get more traffic now that it’s up on MP.
really fun, demanding route. i thought the first pitch was a bit of a sandbag at the grade- definitely harder than the last pitch, but maybe i'm a wimp at face climbing.
we did the last pitch in two, but we belayed on top of the pillar at the actual start of the splitter- done this way, the last pitch is about 150', with a single purple, 3/4 greens, and doubles of 2/3 working nicely. the #4 is also handy.
the descent is a challenge- we added a rap station where we felt that the downclimb, while doable, is steep enough with enough exposure that another short rappel made more sense. i think, though, that some more exploring, a southern rappel route would be better and faster.
oh, we lost about 2' of rope in that crack- we filled it with some small rocks to hopefully prevent it happening to future parties, but be aware that losing rope is a distinct possibility.
By Luke to Zuke From: Trying to go to santa cruz Feb 12, 2009 rating: 5.11b/c
I think this is a total sand bag... I say its a 11b or +...10d my ass
By Josh Audrey From: LAS VEGAS Feb 25, 2009 rating: 5.10d
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