Wild Turkey

A good route, but not for everyday use. While I am downgrading the difficulty slightly from that assigned in Rossiter's book (5.9) I do not mean to down play the severity of this route. The 5.8 cruxes are marginally protected, and if you fall from the cobblestone face (5.7), you will die.

That having been said, this climb passes through some very nice terrain and is very high quality.

The cobblestone face is like a low-angle 'Velvet Elvis' (on the Ironing Boards) and most of the cobbles are very good.

Find the base and pull up onto a broken-looking hold (pretty clean now that I broke it) into a distinct chocolate brown smooth band with a high right foot. Stand up on some slopers (careful!, 5.8, R) and into a large diagonal inset in the cliff. A few large cams can be placed on a long sling up and left here is some so-so rock (#4 & #5 Camalot) A few large huecos, the larger of them being the size of a volleyball, provide good holds to lean back and right to pop over the first roof and up. Going down and right, low to a rotten seam, provided more difficulty, but no more pro, going up and right over the roof was good (5.8+, PG-13). A very solid #3.5 Camalot placement would have fit over this roof, but I didn't have one, so my #3 was tipped out. Somewhere around here I got some small aliens in a shallow horizontal. Pulling over a second roof onto the vertical cobbled face was 5.8, then the face become lower angle, going up cobbles and then giving way to classic Flatiron's rock for 100' of climbing, to reach the ridge of the slab. Pop over and belay on the slab, having joined up and west of the second roof of Satan's Slab. This is a 60M pitch and was very good. I found that a 70M rope and 3 meters of simul-climbing set me down on a great belay ledge, from which Satan's Slab can be completed in 2 more very long pitches.

This route starts perhaps 25 meters up the hill on the West Side of the Ridge 2 of Skunk Canyon from the SW corner of the ridge, where it becomes distinctly West-facing and has a low roof band. The climb starts above a large flat boulder with a drop-off to the South. A few large pines are just uphill from the boulder. The wall at the base is full of tiny, black pockets.

Some optional big protection (5"+) for a horizontal slash down low before the first roof, if a few are placed, would probably hols a fall in the marginal rock, but it would NOT be fun. The second crux is less protected, but both are done on large holds. Perhaps getting off of the ground is the least secure, and since it is started from a boulder, this is of consequence- falling from 2' up would be a 10' fall.