This climb is one of the cleanest and longest face climbs at the Y, and is the classic 5.10 at this crag. It starts just right of the cave.
Begin with a traverse to the right, then up 5.8 cracks to a slot with an awkward mantle move (well-protected with nuts). Above is the crux of the route, where you reach the cracks whose outline resembles the state of Wisconsin. Gear is tricky to find here, but is good. This section is usually passed with a funky lieback on the right side to a high reach. Small gear can be placed atop the 'Wisconsin' flake, then run it out to the top on 5.8 cracks, or place marginal nuts.
Some longtime locals say idiosyncracies such as "if you know what you're doing, you don't need to do a move harder than 5.9". Maybe so, maybe it's only 5.9 after your 25th time?
Location
This climb is on the north side, starting just to the right of the obvious cave. It heads nearly straight up a slightly overhanging crack system with the cracks 2/3 of the way up describing a shape that loosely resembles like the state of Wisconsin.
Protection
I protect this with 1 set nuts + 1 Yellow #2 Camalot (or other big hand size cam). Some may want some finger size cams too. 2-bolt anchor, reachable from the top, was installed by unknown parties to prevent further damage to trees.
This is a memorable route. How can the FFA occur before the FA?
By George Perkins Administrator From: Los Alamos, NM May 23, 2008
Thanks, my mistake... corrected. A whole paragraph about the interesting history of this climb can be found on this page of the LA Mtneers history section The history section of "Jemez Rock" also mentions this climb.
This climb has seen a recent solo ascent by Mark Schraad.
Glad you enjoyed it. On a personal note, leading this climb opened my eyes to view harder 5.10s and 5.11s at White Rock as being within my ability to try.
By Jason Hundhausen From: Los Alamos, NM May 23, 2008 rating: 5.10c PG13
Correction: This climb has seen an inadvertent, toprope-turned-freesolo ascent by Mark Schraad, when an extraordinarily inane student in the LA Mountaineers' course took apart the anchor before checking to see if anybody was climbing up. Needless to say, it was the last time Mr. Schraad volunteered to teach with the Mountaineers.
Yipes! My dad threw up a bunch of topropes on these cliffs in the mid 70's, it was my first rock climbing experience. I don't think I managed to make it up this route back then, but I came back 20 years later to finally climb it (on toprope). The basalt was always so slippery and hot in the summer!
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