Movable Stoned Voyage

The MSV is a recommendable tour of the South face of North Chasm View. Clean cracks and flakes on the Movable Feast--the kind of pitches one would actually climb on a cragging day-- link into the exposed upper pitches of the Stoned Oven via moderate rockaneering in gullies midway up the route.

Locating the start provided a few moments of uncertainty, although the information in the guidebook proved adequate and accurate as given. Once on route beta is sufficient; listed pitches are evidently long ones as even with a 70m cord we were unable to shave belay stances from the Movable Feast topo. As the guidebook beta is basically accurate, I won't detract from your adventure by providing unnecessary minutiae. I will add that on p.11 of the Stoned Oven we continued past the traverse move at the 1/4" bolt to belay around the corner on a spectacularly exposed ledge, which au cheval stance gives great views of the leader stepping across to a nice hand crack free of the rope drag which would have begun the pitch had we belayed from the bolt.

Thence follows the Womb Fight, a pitch that you pray your sport climber friends never catch you 'climbing', as it embodies all of the distasteful qualities for which bolt-clippers shun the rack. An awkward, graceless wriggle across a dirty ledge brings your face perilously near to ammonial slicks of ancient guano. The rope, your gear, all you've brought with you conspires to impede horizonal progress, while you struggle to clip dubious gear crammed between crusty flakes and dirt. Your partner isn't quite laughing, knowing that he must follow it with the pack. Hopefully no one across the way on the South Rim has binoculars. Although this pitch is indisputably classic, I did wonder what lay directly above, where a peg dish with a bolt appeared to lead into more a conventionally vertical escape. Anyone know about this one?

We were able to pull this off in 8 pitches, climbing at a moderate pace, with no threat of nightfall, so the Grade III tag sounds about right. The 1300' figure includes a lot of moderate terrain and traversing; vertical gain is less. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this route, and the way it enabled us to access incredible locations with a relatively moderate standard of climbing.

Stoppers and hexes, a double set of cams to 3.5", one #4 Camalot, and many long runners sufficed for comfortable leads with a 70m rope.