Locked & Loaded

The crux is somewhere between the start of pitch 3 and end of pitch 7, as all five have at least one move that felt about 5.11a. None are desperate and all protect well.

P1: Good warm up, let the blood flow. Bolted belay.

P2: thin moves above the first bolt. Believe in friction and prepare for more further on the route. Fun knobby face climbing above the 3rd bolt to the belay. Bolted belay.

P3: The Window Smasher Traverse. Climb up a left facing flake, place a #2 camalot (extend it) into the roof and commit to balancy face climbing with the crux coming late in the pitch. Bolted belay.

P4. The Head Kicker Splitter. Traverse right, into a left facing corner and execute some difficult moves into the fist crack. #3 Camalot works well to protect the entrance over the overhang and into the crack (crux). Climb the splitter, over another roof and into a lower angle thin hands crack (0.75 camalots work well). Bolted belay.

P5: Undercling the fake to the left while placing small widgets that may blow in case of a fall and transition to face climbing past a few bolts. The crux is an improbable move after the 4th bolt. Traverse further left to the belay with one bolt and #0.5-75 camalots for an anchor.

P6. Climb the right facing corner with a handcrack and stem left, to a huge jug over a roof. Climb up and left past 3 bolts. Thin face climbing. Bolted belay.

P7. Climb up and left up a crack to its finish and trust your feet for a while, as there will be a lot of difficult smearing and edging ahead past several bolts. Place some natural gear in roofs and do more right leaning traversing to a natural belay and a scramble off. This pitch is a rope stretcher to natural anchor. Some people may want to belay the next 100 feet of 4th to mid 5th scrambling. Another 150' or so of hiking will take you to the summit.

Descent: One can go down either side of the dome and contour around to the base.

The route begins in the middle of the face, right of the Best of the West, and slightly right of a flat table-top boulder. The first bolt was placed low (intentionally) to show the people where the start of the climb is.

First two pitches are good warm ups - 5.8 and 5.10. The following five are all hard 5.10d or easy 5.11. The hard climbing is never dangerous, but you do have to pull a few difficult moves above the bolt from time to time. Locked & Loaded involves cool knobs, thin face, crack climbing and some laybacking on rock of exceptional quality.

Single rack to #3 Camalot with doubles in 0.3-#1. #4BD camalot optional for pitch 4.