Bishop Crack

While Bishop Crack is a two pitch route, the first pitch gets my vote as the best single pitch 5.11 crack in Colorado. Several years ago we headed up to The Bishop with our minds full of sending the whole damn unit, however, there is nothing like having eyes far bigger than our stomachs.

Bishop Crack starts left of center on the perfectly vertical East face, a brilliant yellow wall in the morning sun. A wide 5.8 squeeze gets the juices flowing for perhaps 30 ft. This seques into a fingers thin crack for a bit and then promptly widens up to butt and hips dimension for 15 ft of 5.10 wrestling. I thought that the hardest move was in getting out of the wide crack and onto the thin fingers (read two joints) crack. What follows is brilliant crack climbing for 50 ft on perfect stone. Wires and small cams will sew it up. Look for some fairly good edges on either side of the crack, for the most part you don't ever really have to jam the toes except for a few places where it really lets you turn on the motor.

A sling belay will be found at 100 ft from which it is possible to rap. For the true hard men, a hope we had long abondoned after 100 ft of relentless jams, the second pitch fires up on more of the same in a perfectly vertical crack that gets thinner and thinner the higher you go. From our escape stance below the upper 5.12 section, it appeared that the edges found on P1 had all but disappeared. Even doing only the first pitch, Bishop Crack ticks in as a brilliant climb.

Bring a full rack of wires, slew of thin camming gear, and several wide camming units.