We share leads on a fun route on Slick Rock.
- August 30, 2008
- Team: Tom and John
- Route: Memorial, somewhere around 5.8
- 3 hours car-to-car
I've been up Slick Rock something like 25 times, starting back in the early 70s when we did it with pitons, goldline, and mountain boots. I did this route back in the 70's with Mr. Takeda before there were any bolts on it. I've posted several reports on this site that include pictures:
Tom and I left Boise a little after 8am. Tom had been up late the night before, but was excited to be heading off for some good climbing. It was, after all, a beautiful day; sunny, 70s, with a light breeze.
As we drove up Lick Creek road, Tom bet me $5 that there wouldn't be anyone there, a bet which I took, and won. There was a single car, and the pair of climbers appeared to be at the top of pitch 1 of our route. Bummer. Oh well. We casually grabbed out stuff, threw out all the pro except a mess of quickdraws, and headed up to the rock. By the time we got there, the pair had only moved about 1/2 a pitch, but they seemed to be traversing? Whatever.
We scrambled around a bit looking for the start of our route, using beta I'd gotten off SummitPost. Of course, it was a little different in my head, so we were looking about 50' from the dihedral that begins the standard route. I finally spotted a cairn further to the right, which led us to a bolt...and we were good to go. At Tom's suggestion, we gulped water as hard as we could and left everything on the tie-in ledge except our hiking shoes. We were going light, so no camera, sorry. Just our rope and what we were wearing. With our shoes clipped to our harnesses, we were off.
Photo: Dan Robbins from IdahoSummits.com
My beta:
(with ratings from SummitPost)
- Pitch 1- 5.7: Tom led this one. We thought it was much easier than 5.7. Sort of boring, but a good warm-up for someone who hadn't had rock shoes on in the last year.
- Pitch 2- 4th class, 1/2 pitch: I led, and clipped every bolt. Not much different than Pitch 1.
- Pitch 3- 5.4: Tom leading. Getting more interesting as the wall steepened. I think this was harder than Pitch 1. By this point, we were as high as the other guys, who had moved way over climber's left onto Slippery Slope.
- Pitch 4- 5.7: My second lead. I felt pretty good, but on the sharp end you definitely have to focus more. I found one or two clips required me to stand on thin hold with no hands... spicy!
- Pitch 5- 5.8: Tom led, and now it was getting hard. At the top of this one, I let Tom have the next one, too.
- Pitch 6- 5.8+: After that last pitch, I let Tom keep the lead. The beta indicated that an inverted ledge was the crux of this, and that you could go around it, but Tom and I agreed that getting up TO it was the crux of the route. Quite thin for handholds. This pitch ends about half-way up the second crack of the Three-cracks route.
- Pitch 7- 5.8: Tom led again, but I thought this one was easier than the previous two. At the end of this pitch, you are near and just above the "Lunch Shelf" of the Three-cracks route.
- Pitch 8- 5.7: Tom gave me the lead for our last pitch. I had some problems following the bolts on this pitch- they are hard to see and seem to wander a bunch. At the end, they cross the old, dirty exit crack we used to follow in the 70s. Good thing, because this is a much cooler finish.
When we got back down to our stashed backpack, the other pair were a pitch short of finishing. When we got back to the car, they were still a pitch short of finishing. But we didn't stay ... there was an ice-cold beer calling my name back in town.
Epilogue
That evening, the expected change in the weather came in. After dinner in town, we felt a few sprinkles. When we got back to the cabin, the wind was up and the lake was white-capping. Then the all-night light show started. Art and Carol were attempting Victor Peak, and woke to snow on the pine needles. I sure hope those guys figured out how to finish that last pitch!
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