Best Long, easy-moderate, bolted routes???

Recently climbing Chase The Sky in Staunton State Park (CO) and Black Gold in Clear Creek Canyon has made me think, I don’t ever want to climb a hard or short route again.

What are the best long, easy routes in North America?  And by best I mean fun. And by easy I mean easy for an experienced climber (not a new climber) to climb, route find, approach and descend.

Edit: adding route suggestions which look long easy and awesome IMHO.

Royal Flush 5.8 (5.9) eight pitches (formerly 20)

Moonlight Madness 5.8+ five pitches (CA grading scares me)

Sinocranium 5.8 six pitches

Estrelitta 5.10c 12 pitches (variations take this down to 5.10b; a climber from Gardiner NY characterizes the 10s as 9s).

Cross Trainer 5.8 four pitches

Young and Rackless 5.9 four pitches 

Fractures Fairytales 5.8 six pitches

Theater of Shadows 5.6 four pitches 

Could be helpful to be a bit more specific in terms of grades and pitches- but Flyboys comes to mind!

Flyboys fits the bill. Crest Jewel is absolutely phenomenal. Easy is relative. Do you mean 5.6 or 5.10?

Since you said North America, not just USA, I'd suggest you book your plane tickets now for a winter trip to El Potrero Chico.

The good long routes generally start at 5.10, but the 5.10 grade there is very good and plentiful for long routes.

I suggest you learn how to climb on gear if you enjoy this style of route. It opens up so much more potential and generally reduces the crowds.

AFAIK in North America - there are some huge bolted routes going up in the Canadian Rockies lately, Potrero Chico in Mexico is very approachable (although concentrated around the 5.10 range), and I think there are some good ones in Washington as well (Flyboys, etc).

royal Flush in Summit County is quite popular with front range climbers too, though I’ve never climbed it.

I’ll Tell You What’s Cool in Cody is a super accessible and well-bolted multi-pitch 5.8. Not a single bad pitch on the whole route!

In my understanding, Moderate starts at 5.10 or maybe 5.9.  Easy is easier than 5.10.  Funny considering 5.10 originally designated the limit of human ability.

I climb trad.  But carrying gear seems sooo difficult now that I am spoiled by bolted routes.  I am looking to go soft and stay soft. Never really been hard anyway.

Royal Flush looks very sweet.

5.10 R on gear is an easy route?   Not for me it’s not.  

Banff sure seems to fit the criteria

Do any experienced climbers actually think Flyboys is a good route?

Prime Rib and Flyboys are the two longest bolted routes in Washington and maybe the USA. They are very popular, but in my (totally subjective & unimportant) view there just isn't much that makes them good climbs, they are just long collections of mediocre pitches in an inconvenient spot. I'm amazed how popular they are given the lack of redeeming features on either. If someone only ever wants to do bolted climbing and also wants to once experience a long climb, they simply don't have many options, so quality hardly matters.

• Very few or no standout high quality pitches
• Lots of gravel ledges and moving the belay between stances
• Direct sun all day and dark rock + low elevation in an area with very hot summers
• Neither takes a striking or prominent line on the feature
• If you rappel, it's hot/slow/tedious/dangerous with low-angle sections and re-traverses. If you don't rappel you have to bring shoes to walk up through the woods to a steep washboarded road requiring a stashed car shuttle or bikes shuttle which also means you've already been higher (and had better views) than the "summit" of the climb before you begin climbing it.
• Some of the hype for these routes is about the scale of doing an "18 pitch" route, but that's pretty arbitrary since the equippers might instead have made fewer (longer) pitches.

There aren't many excellent non-bolted long routes in that grade either though. Seems like it's basically just some granite ridge climbs around the Sierra/Cascades, or else stuff in Red Rocks. 

Moonlight Madness if you like slab. 

Live Perched wrote:

Recently climbing Chase The Sky in Staunton State Park (CO) and Black Gold in Clear Creek Canyon has made me think, I don’t ever want to climb a hard or short route again.

What are the best long, easy routes in North America?  And by best I mean fun. And by easy I mean easy for an experienced climber (not a new climber) to climb, route find, approach and descend. 

Define "long" for you.

blakeherrington wrote:

Prime Rib and Flyboys are the two longest bolted routes in Washington and maybe the USA. They are very popular, but in my (totally subjective & unimportant) view there just isn't much that makes them good climbs. I'm amazed how popular they are given the lack of redeeming features on either. If someone only ever wants to do bolted climbing and also wants to once experience a long climb, they simply don't have many options, soquality hardly matters.

• Very few or no standout high quality pitches
• Lots of gravel ledges and moving the belay between stances
• Direct sun all day and dark rock + low elevation in an area with very hot summers
• Neither takes a striking or prominent line on the feature
• If you rappel, it's hot/slow/tedious/dangerous with low-angle sections and re-traverses. If you don't rappel you have to bring shoes to walk up through the woods to a steep washboarded road requiring a stashed car shuttle or bikes shuttle which also means you've already been higher (and had better views) than the "summit" of the climb before you begin climbing it.
• Some of the hype for these routes is about the scale of doing an "18 pitch" route, but that's pretty arbitrary since the equippers might instead have made fewer (longer) pitches.

There aren't many excellent non-bolted long routes in that grade either though. Seems like it's basically just some granite ridge climbs around the Sierra/Cascades, or else stuff in Red Rocks. 

^ this

Estrellita, El Potrero Chico.  1100 feet / 12 pitches (11 climbing, one 3rd class).  Nominally 5.10b as usually climbed -- but rarely harder than 5.9 and the crux 5.10b section can be avoided by going off-line on 5.7 jugs.  Good climbing, ending on a an exposed ridge with a lone palm tree.

And, EPC is, as noted, a very good source of may moderate (approachable by a 5.10 sport leader) bolted routes.  In fact, it probably has the absolute best collection of concentrated bolted multi-pitch sport routes in North America.

Marc801 C wrote:

Define "long" for you.

More than three pitches.  

Washington has a bunch, including alpine sport 

infinite Bliss- 23 pitches at Mt Garfield( says trad but has bolts) 5.10c ( but not at pitches are hard)

Mike High Club- 7 pitches 5.10a alpine

Juniors Farm- 8 pitches 5.8+

Beyond Redlining-  11 pitches  5.10+

The tooth- 6 pitches 5.9 alpine climb

there’s many more 6+ pitches 

Sinocranium.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105740942/sinocranium

Surely in Boulder you will have to check out:

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105762150/the-young-and-the-rackless   (4p, 5.9)

Snake Dike is a very fun long route with only 1 piece of gear for p1.

Pretty long approach and descent, though.

It's #6 in the Top 20 list on the MP home page.

Extra bonus - you don't need to bring many draws.

Guaranteed rugged in marble canyon (Canada). 33 pitches. 10d but only 8 pitches of 5.10.

I you come to Washington for the goat wall, you will be highly disappointed. But at least it's "sport" climbing.  Most of Washington's long routes equipped with bolts are far from sport climbing. Unless a 30 foot cheese grater fall on ledgy slab is part of sport climbing. In that case, there's bolts on well over 200 routes of at least 4 pitches here. Bring a rack and that number is probably closer to a thousand. 

https://www.mountainproject.com/area/121275708/the-mouth