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Hill's Route
5.9,
Trad, 5 pitches,
Avg: 2.4 from 7
votes
FA: Oliver Hill, Doug Wermer, 1985
Colorado
> S Platte
> Wigwam Creek/Lo…
> Wigwam Dome
Description
Hill's route starts on the left side of the dome and follows the enormous dihedral for a few pitches.
Pitch 1 starts with a left-leaning crack up to easy ground and an interesting perch in 100'. Continue for another 40' with harder climbing in a hand crack to stemming and nice belay ledge with fixed gear.
Pitch 2 is the crux of the route. Start in a wide crack/chimney and find some tricky pro as the rock gets steeper. Try to hold to your big stuff for higher up. The crux is an offwidth section with a bush or two in it. As the angle kicks back, move onto the face and stretch your 60m rope getting to a nice belay ledge.
From here, you can either climb the crack to the left to a set of chains and rap off the side (awesome looking toprope, too) or continue to the top of the dome. If you continue up, a nice ledge traversing right is reached in two easy pitches. Move out on the ledge and belay below a fist crack where the ledge ends. The final pitch goes through a roof and up to one last steep corner where those big pieces will come in handy again. Keep an eye out for a pocket with some 3 inch, smoky quartz crystals in it! Overall, this is a pretty good route with lots of pitches.
Descent: Walk off to the west and down climb to a tree with a sling for a short rap.
Protection
A standard rack with some extra big pieces. We used a #3 Big Bro and some large cams on the crux pitch.
Portland, OR
Golden, CO