The Friar

This route is relatively easy to find as it finishes on a large boulder perched atop a column of rock roughly 250-275 feet tall. As you are following the trail into Oak Creek it would be most efficient to keep your eye out for a faint trail near the mouth of the canyon that breaks off northwest at a large, scoop of vanilla ice cream boulder roughly the size of five golf carts or 8 donkeys of relatively equal mature stature. Continue the approach as for Johnny Vegas and its neighbors but cut north earlier - when you are even with the column of rock with the boulder on it - and aim for the southeast section of the column where you will find an obvious varnished right facing corner. Red Zinger will be visible directly to the east across a small gully.

P1, 5.7: Climb the beautiful corner to a comfy ledge where you could bivy if you got lost on the approach. This pitch is as sweet as a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk.

P2, 5.7: Continue from the belay up and right on some peanut brittle to a short left leaning hand crack. Fire this wicked, two move splitter and head up and left to a small ledge with a bolted belay. Keep looking left for the small ledge or you will miss it like I did and have to build a belay on another ledge the size of Missouri, which works out well when you have to pee in the middle of belaying your second. Hint: if you are on a ledge the size of Missouri, you have gone too far...unless you have to pee. A decent pitch - Albertson's French Vanilla maybe.

P3, 5.6R: Climb straight up from the bolted belay to a steep but short section off of the Missouri ledge; get what will probably be your last piece of gear for 25-35 feet, then meander up and left on white slabtastic rock to a two bolt anchor. Clip this and keep going up and left on a ledge around the summit boulder until you see an obvious and perfect belay crack at about waist height. Mediocre pitch - Ice Cream Sangwhich.

P4 5.9PG: Climb up and left from the belay on steep jugs in a flakey cracky thingy, then rock over to your right and traverse the face (bit of sphincter pucker possible) to an arete. Get a good horse stance and clip an archaic rusty bolt. Head straight up to the summit and a bolted anchor doing some more cool steep moves. A good pitch with some nice monkey moves on it, well worth doing but very short. Pint of Chunky Monkey.

Descent: Rap the route with one rope. Rap from atop the boulder to the anchors you clipped and passed on the 3rd pitch.

A good alternative to the overpopulated Johnny Vegas, Beulah's Book area. 372 rope catchin', lethargic leadin', traffic jam rappin' muthas on those two climbs when we were there (wanted to do Beulah's). Not one soul on The Friar.

A standard rack to a #3 Camalot will suffice.