Bruce Willis

Bruce Willis is another obscure yet worthy line for those climbers with some mileage in The Black and who feel good at the grade. It’s the real deal: adventurous and somewhat difficult to access, sampling the whole spectrum of Black Canyon rock from grungy to impeccable. The second pitch crux dihedral is classic: a beautiful, 5.11, stemming and hands corner that is fairly sustained with excellent movement. Although Bruce Willis may never become a popular line, it deserves traffic from those who know what they’re getting themselves into and may pique some interest for lesser known routes on that steep, tucked away portion of the Guppy Buttress.

There are two options for starting Bruce Willis: either descend the HIH Gully (the steep gully between the

Russian Arete

and Guppy Buttresses, which has six shorter rappels and some scrambling) or approach via the Guppy Gully and climb the initial part of

The Odyssey

. Midway through the third pitch on

The Odyssey

, traverse hard left around a steep chasm to a large terrace covered with grass and cactus. Bruce Willis’ opening pitch is a large, left-facing corner that can’t be missed.

P1. Climb a short crack (somewhat suspect rock with sparse gear for 20-30 feet) to access the massive left-facing corner. Continue up the 5.10 corner on (unfortunately) flaky, dirty, and sharp rock. Tape gloves are pretty nice for this pitch. Near the top of the corner, exit right onto a narrow ledge. Pull a few steep moves of 5.11 (good gear and much better rock) to reach a stance. Continue up the face to a large belay perch.

P2. Move left off the belay to access a short, narrow dihedral leading up to a small “cave” of dark rock in the wall. Pull some steep, bouldery moves out the “cave” to gain another left-facing corner system. Stem, jam, and layback up this beautiful 5.11ish dihedral of splitter rock! There’s good protection, but it would be hard to aid through some of the more difficult moves. Near the top of the corner, move into a steep right-leaning hand crack that terminates in face holds. Pull through this section onto a massive belay ledge. Excellent pitch!

Bump the belay 15-20m around the corner (right) to where the ledge drops away.

P3. This is another fun 5.10 pitch. Climb through an obvious weakness in dark rock, eventually traversing left along a flake to gain a stance below the peg band. Climb through the peg band (mellow) to a higher ledge and locate a right-trending hand crack. Follow this 5.9ish crack to the end, and belay in broken, low angle terrain.

For the rest of the route, terrain is shared with

The Odyssey

, or rather,

The Odyssey

shares terrain with Bruce Willis.

P4. Bump the belay up broken choss to the large terrace above. Locate a splitter hand crack with a black streak on the wall. This is the final 5.10 pitch of both Bruce Willis and

The Odyssey

. On the first ascent of

The Odyssey

, the team was unaware this crack had already been climbed by Jonathan Schaffer a few years earlier. A bolt was placed mid-pitch to exit right and avoid a corner of stacked blocks above. With Jon’s permission, the bolt remained. Bruce Willis continues straight up the corner.

P5. Climb the excellent 5.9 hands splitter off the terrace, stem through a few 5.10 moves, clip the bolt (or don’t), and either continue up the corner, or exit right.

Scramble for several hundred feet up broken terrain to the rim and walk back to the North Vista Trail.

This is in HIH District - West/Southwest Face of the Guppy Buttress. Either approach via the HIH Gully (six rappels), or start on

The Odyssey

(Guppy Gully approach), and traverse to the start of Bruce Willis from the middle of the third pitch. The route starts on a huge terrace above the gully.

Doubles from about blue TCU size to a #3 Camalot, plus singles of purple and grey TCU sizes, (1) #4, stoppers, and maybe a few RPs.