Moonscapes

I climbed Moonscapes with Steve Curtis last weekend and Kerry is wrong about some things. His description is enough to get you up the route but you'll be in for some real surprises, so stop reading now if that kind of outing sounds appealing to you!A note on the name: although listed as "Moonscape" in the Kerry guide, the correct name, according to Damon Williams, is "Moonscapes." This is a really spectacular and serious route, I give it three stars with the understanding that some will probably violently disagree with that take. I don't know anyone else who's done the whole route other than the first ascentionists, although Jim Scott told me he did the first three pitches and rapped after the crux, but it's certainly possible a few other parties have done it. It has incredible position on Babo's east face, with an overhanging crux pitch high over Lion's ledge and the wild valley below, and steep, thought-provoking climbing continuing up the exposed face above. The rock was pretty good even with the absence of traffic; the pro, not so much. Anyone who fancies him/her self a rock-solid 5.11 climber is welcome to give the overhanging crux pitch a whirl and reevaluate! I was thankful it wasn't my lead and question whether I could lead it at all.From Kerry's description, we thought the route would basically be over after pitch 3. Boy were we wrong! Pitches 4-5 had steep, sustained 5.9/10 groove climbing with rounded and insecure holds as the main features.Steve led the crux pitch (and did a brilliant job); here's the beta-intensive description he wrote for another site (don't click on the link if that sort of thing offends you).Edit: Steve's description seems to have gone down in flames along with the rest of rockclimbing.com, so here's a description from memory ten years later (it was, after all, a very memorable route). There are anchors on top of pitches one to three, although from hazy memory one of these might have only had one bolt? Locate the start by traversing Lion's Ledge past the spring and the obvious "Cougar Cave." The start is a little ways past Cougar Cave, look for a small broken buttress of rock with a bolt (the first bolt on Don's Crack) above it. The big gash of Don's Crack, which doesn't reach the ground, is about 100 feet further left along Lion's Ledge. Pitch one: climb easy rock to the bolt, then continue straight up past 4 (?) more bolts and a couple of gear placements to an anchor. 5.10 R, ~100-120 feet. You can also veer left above the first bolt to clip the second bolt on Don's Crack to shorten one of the run-outs, but this will create rope-drag unless you back-clean. Pitch two: move out left into a left-leaning undercling feature, then up following the vague crack system past two bolts all the way to a two-bolt anchor. This pitch protects okay, still a little spicy in places. 5.10, 120+ feet (?)Pitch three: the money! move up right of the belay and clip a bolt, then move up and left into the obvious, thin undercling. Load it up with marginal gear, then move up and left (scary .11- move), to two more bolts protecting more .11- laybacking. Reach a good stance with some good pockets for gear, then commit to the overhanging .11-/.11 terrain up and left (not straight up as Kerry says!), reaching a hidden bolt and eventually the obvious, right-leaning 4" crack (also 5.11, or at least feels like it since there's no real rest beforehand). Belay at the top of the crack (at least one bolt here, possibly two). A wild, steep pitch with plenty of climbing above gear and four or five distinct 5.11 sections, but mostly seems safe except for the initial .11- undercling. The total package felt like 11+, and the rock is mostly good. ~130+ feet? Pitch four: move up and right into a flared .9ish groove that's tricky to protect, but good climbing on good rock. I think there was an anchor at the top of this pitch but either way the belay spot is pretty obvious. Shorter pitch, around 100'. Pitch five: continue up the flared crack system through sustained.10-/.10 climbing with consistently tricky gear - offsets could be useful here, I can't remember if we had them. At the groove's end, finesse a path right and slightly up on .10 face climbing to a tree belay at the left edge of a bowl of sorts - be mindful of your second here as well. This is a great pitch on good rock, but fairly serious. 5.10 PG-13 or quite possibly R, ~140+ feet?Pitch six: it's over - romp up .7/.8 terrain for a full rope-length until you reach third-class scrambling where you can unrope and scramble to the summit.

Shares the start of Don's Crack. Past the spring and just past the obvious Cougar Cave, look for a broken buttress with some bolts above.

Double set to #3 camalot, single #4 camalot (new or old). Offset cams, totems, and/or tricams could be useful on the upper pitches, but I don't think we had any. The first pitch requires only a light single set of gear. On the crux, Steve left the extra .75, 1, and 2 camalots and was fine. Pitch one has 5 or 6 bolts, pitch two has 2 bolts and the crux pitch has 4. Anchors atop pitches 1-4 have either one or two bolts. Pitches four through six have no lead bolts. All of the bolts were in good shape and looked to be of recent enough vintage that it's possible someone has replaced them since the FA.