Red C3. Small gear on this route. Nuts protect it ...
Description
A White Rock mini classic.
Stem up the funky shallow chimney using a reachy crimp with no-good footholds (crux?). From here, a few feet of easy section, step left and follow a thin finger crack with fun moves requiring good footwork on the face to the left, or lieback, with TCUs or nuts for pro in the thin finger crack. Committing to a thin section just after the corner changes to the left side is probably the psychological crux for the leader.
Flying A eats up small gear, but the stances to place it from are sometimes strenuous.
Location
Start 10' right of Texas in a A-shaped chimney 8 feet high. (This climb is the next crack right of the obvious Texas flake).
Protection
1-2 ea. cams from smallest to #0.3 camalot or equivalent (Two of the #0 TCU/#0 C3 camalot size is recommended.) 1 ea. #0.4 and #0.5 camalot 1 set wired nuts No need for any bigger cams. A 2-bolt anchor can be found on the rim just below the gigantic boulder.
By LeeAB Administrator From: ABQ, NM Mar 1, 2009 rating: 5.11c
The 5.10d grade of this thing is a joke...right?
It was harder than Unrelenting Nines. The two small fingered folks I was climbing with would also agree.
By George Perkins Administrator From: Los Alamos, NM Mar 2, 2009
I took the .10d grade from 'Jemez Rock' when I posted this climb, but I'll bump it up a notch since most of us think this is too hard for 5.10 too. Flying A is much tougher than Blow Hole (10c/d). IMO, Flying A might be a scarier lead than Nines because #0 TCUs aren't very inspiring (but I know at least 3 of us White Rock climbers who've redpointed Flying A, but haven't led Nines clean yet, so I think that "9s" is harder overall).
By Daniel Trugman From: Los Alamos, NM Jun 24, 2009 rating: 5.11-
George Perkins says: Some other sandbagged 5.10s that I try to avoid at the Playground: "T2 Flake" ("5.10b") Moment of Inertia ("5.10c") Fingertip Lieback ("5.10d")
Yeah right, you get on those all the time! And I agree that U9s is harder - it's certainly more burly but it might involve less trickery so I could see that a climber as strong as Lee would have an easier time onsighting Nines than Flying A. Still probably cruised both though...
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