Xibalba  5.10d

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Type:  Sport, 2 pitches, 190 feet Consensus:  5.10c/d [details] FA:  Jason Halladay, Allison Fritz. February 2011. New Route:  Yes Submitted By:  Jason Halladay on Mar 1, 2011 You & This Route  |  Other Opinions (7) Your todo list: Your stars: Your rating: -none- [change] Your ticklist: [add new tick]

Alex Scott moves across the steepening face toward...

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Description 

This route climbs the face left of the gear/bolts route Basalt Therapy finishing up a nice arête with great position. It’s the first route you’ll encounter as you head up the approach trail to the winter wall proper.
It can be done in one long pitch or two shorter pitches. If done in one long pitch, bring ~22 draws and back clean a few in critical spots to reduce rope drag up high.

Pitch 1 (105'): Start up just below a large block with half a chalked “X” on it (I worked on this block for 10 minutes with a crow bar and while it wiggled, it wouldn’t come out) and make leftward moves to the first bolt. Loose fourth class action gets you by a couple more bolts well to the left of Basalt Therapy to preserve that route’s integrity to the roof (but resulting in bad rope drag later). Turn the roof on its left side into some dubious but easy climbing to the next bolt.

Continue up the face and shallow dihedral through a tightly bolted section (due to rock quality) to eventually work leftwards to the arête and better rock. Strongly consider back cleaning the draw from the bolt closest to the "crack" to reduce rope drag. Continue up trending left to the cool, airy belay on faint ledge on the arete.

Pitch 2 (85'): Continue up the fun and airy arête on increasingly better rock through some tricky sections and up to the nice-but-small belay ledge just below a roof. Metolius rap hangers will set you up for the rappel back down.

Note: We spent many hours the on a couple of weekends cleaning the route. It still has some loose surface rocks on it but the big killers have been removed (some even bounced all the way down into the sandy wash!) Expect some loose rock and a “mountaineering feel” to the route until it cleans up a little more as it sees some more traffic. We are continually impressed how much cleaning is necessary on this wall. That said, it's a safe lead now in its current state (I was just damn tired of the sketchy and scary rap in from the mesa top to the anchors).

Location 

This is the left-most route on the Winter Wall proper. The start is just below the large block with the "X" chalk mark on it. There's a decent man-made belay platform at the base.

Protection 

13-14 quick draws if climbing in two pitches. Bolts/carabiners atop P1. Metolious rap hangers atop P2. Rap the route in two rappels with a single 70m rope. 60m rope reportedly works, with stretch, on the P1 rappel, tie knots in the end of your rope.

Photos of Xibalba Slideshow

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Starting up the steep arete on the crux 2nd pitch ...	High up on the route - an inobvious rest on the ar...	Airy, fun climbing on the arête high on the route....
In the middle of the exposed arête climbing of the...	BETA PHOTO: Scott and Sue on "Xibalba".