Dr Demento's Descending Demise

Dr. Demento is an interesting, varied route on the far left side of the snake buttress. It is difficult to rate the quality of this route, as it has good climbing that is complicated by old button heads and cat's claw bushes. I put in 3 stars, figuring that other people will put in fewer, and it will even out.

The climb is generally done in 2 pitches, but it actually works better to do it in one. Start behind the big pine tree on the far left (west) side, directly beneath a steep face with 3 old buttonheads. surmount a pinnacle, clip the first bolt, and climb somewhat non-typical, slippery, South Platte granite without exfoliating flakes, 11c.

This gets you up to a bushy ledge with a single buttonhead beneath a large roof. Back this up with good gear ranging from fingers to hands, and move out the right side of the roof into a right-leaning, offset, flared splitter. Follow this up until you can make a belay in the cave above. The pitch takes small hands to big hands/tight fist sized gear, and the belay in the cave can take gear from large stoppers to hand sized pieces. The books give this pitch 11b, but it feels very similar to a lot of the leaning cracks at Vedauwoo that are in the 5.10 range.

From the cave belay, you can climb the rest of

Hodge Podge

, or you can climb up and left in the cave and prairie dog out a rotten talus hole and do a complicated walk off.

Left side of the Snake Buttress. You can't miss the obvious, right-leaning crack in the left face of the '

Hodge Podge

' pitch 1 dihedral.

3 old buttonheads protect the lower face climbing, gear from #0.5 camalot to #3 Camalot, possibly #3.5 or new #4 Camalot for the crack. Large stoppers to #0.75 Camalot for anchor.

Note that the crack leans hard to the right, and is located in the left face of a lower-angled dihedral. If it is at your limit, it might be best not to run it out too far and pitch off onto the thorn-bush infested slab below.