Trail of Tears 5.9-
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| Type: | Trad, 5 pitches, 700 feet |
| Consensus: | 5.9- [details] |
| FA: | ? |
| Submitted By: | Luke Clarke on Aug 17, 2009 |
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Pitch 3 is the best pitch on Trail of Tears, even ...
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Description This is fine route with lots of slab climbing, jamming and liebacking. Guidebooks vary on exact route and difficulty -- 9 or 9 minus. This felt soft for a South Platte 9. It's a good route for someone breaking into the grade. The rock is classic S. Platte granite: hard and knobby.
Pitch One: Lieback and jam an obvious 5.7 dihedral or follow a crack system angling up and left in the middle of a face. Find a belay in a spacious pod at the base of a huge right-facing dihedral.
Pitch Two: Ascend easy ground up and right to a belay ledge about 100 feet up.
Pitch Three: Climb the clean, right-facing, right-leaning dihedral. The crux is a traverse to cracks at the end of the dihedral.
Pitch Four: Either take the sweet finger crack splitting the face on climber's left(as depicted in Peter Hubbel's South Platte The Rock Climber's Guide) or climb the wide chimney on climber's right (Ken Trout's South Platte Rock). The finger crack protects easily. The wide crack would take a No. 4 Big Bro if you have one but only where the crack narrows a bit and the climbing gets easier. Either way, climb to a cave under a large overhang.
Pitch Five: We traversed out right(east)and made a couple slab moves with ledge-fall potential before you can place gear. Continue up obvious cracks to easy ground and on to the summit.
Location The start of this route is hard to find. Traverse along the base of Wigwam far to the east of Hill Route and Ramblin Rose. Fight through brush and boulders about 40 feet up to a clearing on a wide ledge and walk back left until you see an obvious right-facing dihedral with a hand size crack leading to a bushy corner. There is probably a better way but that's how we got there.
Protection Double cams to 3" and at least one No. 4
The lieback, jamming option for pitch one, easy 5....
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Starting the finger crack on P4. I recommend this ...
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Chuck Graves steps up onto the slab. This start is...
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Finger crack variation on pitch 4 of Trail of Tear...
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Pitch 1 of Trail of Tears (5.9-).
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Pitch 1 of Trail of Tears (5.9-).
www.patrickbett...
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Route we took to the top. We missed our first bela...
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| Comments on Trail of Tears |
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By Andrew
From: Lakewood
Sep 1, 2009
| We took the wide crack on pitch 4. You can get a orange TCU in a pod just as the chimney starts to shrink that will protect you through the crux. The finger crack looked excellent and more exposed, but the chimney was super fun and classic in my opinion. Great climb. |
By Patrick Betts
Jun 20, 2012
rating: 5.8
| It's good to note that, personally, I believe the lower you traverse on pitch 3 the easier it is. However, you better be comfortable with a 40ft traverse on 5.7/5.8 slab. It seems the higher up the dihedral you wait, the more water-worn the slab gets. My 2-cents. Great climb! |
By Patrick Betts
Sep 22, 2012
rating: 5.8
| Climbed it again yesterday, 9/21, and did the finger crack variation on pitch 4. Stellar. With having done both options, the finger crack variation is definitely the way to go, in my opinion. Used just a #1 and 0.75 in the finger crack and that's it for the pitch. It does eat up gear though. Do it! |
By LawHous
From: colorado springs, CO
Apr 21, 2013
| Just climbed this route today. There was some icefall and some water on the climb, but it will still fun and climbable. Nobody talks much about the descent, and the little that is mentioned says to go southwest (climber's left at top of route) to rap and walk off. There isn't much to rap off except some trees, and it takes longer to get back to the base of the climb that way. If you go east (climber's right), there is an easy, all walk off descent down a gully to the right of Wigwam Dome. |
By LawHous
From: colorado springs, CO
Apr 22, 2013
| Also as far as gear goes big stuff is certainly beneficial, but we took double cams from 0.4 to 3 and used all of them more than once. Take everything you've got! This climb likes gear. |
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