The Velvet Pedestal
5.10a YDS 6a French 18 Ewbanks VI+ UIAA 18 ZA E1 5a British
Type: | Trad, 250 ft (76 m), 3 pitches |
FA: | D. Pearson, J. Nelson |
Page Views: | 5,020 total · 41/month |
Shared By: | Jon Nelson on May 23, 2015 · Updates |
Admins: | Jon Nelson, Micah Klesick, Zachary Winters, Mitchell McAuslan |
Description
P1: 5.9. Start in the blocky corner. It gets cleaner and nicer as you go up. After an intermediate chained anchor (~50 ft up; do not belay here), you soon arrive at a wide platform known as "Rojo". From Rojo, you have two choices, both nice and clean cracks going to the same ledge 30' above, and both about 5.9. a) On the left side, a right-leaning offset hand-to-finger crack. b) On the right side, a finger-crack and layback that first trends right, then left. Both end on a sloping ledge with a chained belay anchor.
P2: 10a. Go left to the tree. Then start this pitch one of two ways. 1) Traverse left on the slab below the bolt. Then move up. 2) Go up and left along the crack and hand traverse above the bolt. This way avoids the bolt. Both ways join after the traverse. Climb past a second bolt up to a small overlap.
Follow the cracks up and left. Good friction on the slabs, but no real footholds, so it may get pumpy. Chained anchor on the ledge above.
P3: 5.8. Several ways. If you belay at the anchor for the top of P2, take the first way: from the right edge of the ledge, follow the pair of cracks to a ramp feature that takes you to the corner. Near the start, you could clip a high bolt on the face, though it is probably not needed. (That bolt is for a face route "City Bobcat".) Then just follow the corner (5.7-5.8).
If you move your belay over to the base of the corner (next ledge to the right), then you can either start at the base of the corner and do thin laybacking or stemming for the first 20' (at ~5.10) and then continue up the corner as with the first way. An intermediate way is to start here at the base of the corner, but undercling out left to bypass the difficult laybacking-stemming section (~5.9).
Also, a direct face-crack finish to the right is possible (5.10). Veer off right of the main corner for the last 30' and go straight up. This is the variation "...Sounding the Alarm".
Decent:
Several rap anchors exist near the top. From the top of the pedestal, a 70 m might make it to the p2-3 anchor. With two 70s, you can rap directly to the base of p2, and take a few options down from there.
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