[Hide Comment] Micro cams and rps help too Feb 14, 2016

[Hide Comment] If you lead this route and don't think it should be rated R, then you are truly a Lemmon climber. Come on, Greg. May 22, 2017

[Hide Comment] JMo, unlike you and me, Greg learned to place gear right here in SoAZ, rather than on the friendly cracks of NoAZ or Colorado. So he is very much, as you say, a true "Lemmon climber." I've climbed with him enough to know that he's so good with gear (and such great 'hang-on'), and has climbed so little in areas where the gear is actually good, that it's probably hard for him to imagine that someone else wouldn't optimize the placements on a route like Mirror Image.

Edit: worth noting that there have been a couple of huge leader falls on this line. One was at the bottom, a climber fell and crashed into the tree at the base, breaking off limbs. That's all I know about it. Another was a 50-footer out of the flared wide crack at the top, which is a little tricky to protect. It's steep up there though and falls would more likely be clean; I don't think that climber got hurt. May 22, 2017

[Hide Comment] CV- no doubt- Greg is The Man. I just wanted to mention bc I moved down here read this jumped in and had one of the very few truly negative experiences I've had climbing. This way people can read this and know it might be very tricky heady and or dangerous and decide for themselves. I admit I'm soft - you should have seen the 7 pieces I placed after the bolt on Graceland yesterday. But compared to mirror image Graceland is a warm bath. May 28, 2017

[Hide Comment] If you climb sidewinder into mirror image, it’s so dang good and well protected, it is the easiest of the several 10’s down here and one of the most fun. Start on Sidewinder. Clip the bolts (I think 5) up to where Sidewinder traverses left above the great roof. You go up and slightly right instead. You can get a brilliant gold Camelot. After that you are in the well protected upper half of mirror image, having avoided the arguably terrifying first 40-50 feet. May 6, 2018

[Hide Comment] I had the pleasure of following Charles Vernon up this today. Haven't done it in 20 plus years. It has really cleaned up making it much more fun to climb. In the past it felt like a dance through a mine field. With that I didn't feel as nervous, but I was on TR. The gear is still thin and a bit dubious so unless you are fairly experienced and climb above this grade I can't stress enough that this is a Dangerous climb if you fall in the first 50 feet. If you climb 5.11 and are really good at placing gear then have at it. May 16, 2018

[Hide Comment] I'm not sure that this climb deserves an R rating...IF the rock holds, that is. A solid rack of nuts, RPs and microcams sewed up the lower third of the route, with two or three magical "trick" hands-sized placements thereafter easing the breath. Fantastic line with just a tad too much choss to warrant four stars. May 20, 2019

[Hide Comment] Charles, I was the belayer on the lead fall a couple years back in 2016. My leader had a piece of gear at 10 ft (don't remember what) and a yellow alien at 20 ft. He had just passed his gear when a hold broke off and he fell, then his alien popped. That tree definitely saved his life, he walked out under his own power pretty beat up but with nothing broken. My condolences to the tree, it was not the winner in that situation. Nov 15, 2019