"Just Show Up"

These towers are soft for wingate, but not as soft as entrada. Still, they are not for the faint of heart, with the start and finish of this one being particularly "heady".

P1. Start up just left of a cedar tree. Placing small cams and the odd pin behind flakes (one expanding), plus clipping a couple of hangerless studs, work your way to a thin spliter. The rock at the start is pretty weak and is the crux of the route. Follow the splitter on blue and green aliens and some .75 friends. Occasional places for mid to hand size gear should be taken advantage of if you don't have A LOT of .4-.75 pieces. The crack is very parallel. The smallest ball nuts might work, too. Pass through a small chimney with a hand crack, then continue on the thin stuff. Just when the crack deteriorate and widens, move out right on a bolt ladder (6 studs). This leads to a stance and two big bolts with chain. The pitch is 170 feet and perhaps A2+... maybe A2. Its so hard to rate those things when you know a fall won't be that big, but might put you on the ground.

P2. Free climb up soft rock to the good corner using two bolts. Get in the aider and move up on the thin crack, then step out for some 5.8/9 free moves to a big pod. You can see through to the other side from here. Go out the roof on bolts. I tried it on knife blades, but the wingate vehemently (r)ejected my attempt... so I used the bolts. A spicey soft move puts you on a large ledge. The pitch is probably 5.10-, c1... hard to tell how rough the free moves are in guide tennies and alone... it could be easier, like 5.9.

P3. Use a two bolt ladder, then get out of the aiders and climb 5.6R to the summit cap. Pull onto it with the anchor. The gear you need for this is two quickdraws and a big sling at the anchor... don't slip.

Rap the route. I suggest single rope raps for pitches 2 and 3.

The bolts on the first pitch were placed without hangers so as to lessen the visible impact... Muggles hate to see bolts and slings on rocks. All anchor bolts are 1/2 by 4 inches, with one stainless and one "strike" anchor at each (strike anchors work better than 5 pieces in soft rock). Anchors are chain and shoul not require slings.

The route climbs the northwest face of the Groom. Go to the cedar tree and look for a couple of brown studs about 20 feet up.

You need a lot of .4 to .75 pieces. If you don't like to leapfrog, then 6-8 green aliens, plus 4 or 5 blues and 4 or 5 .75 friends, would not be too many. Two or three sets up to wide hands is enough, and you might be more comfy with a #5 friend (though its not necessary). Nut placements are hard to find on the first pitch, but a couple of mid sizes are useful on pitch 2. For the time being a couple of Lost Arrows, the fatter ones, and perhaps an angle or two, are needed. You might be able to figure out how to do it clean on really small ball nuts or rp's... but its pretty soft where you would be on them and would add to the grade.

You also need hangers or nuts to sling on the studs (8) and a few draws.