Men Only

This is a climb of questionable origin that lost 50% of its good holds on the last attempted ascent. A chipmunk could have pulled some of these off.

The books suggest that the route lies 50 feet down the hill from the obvious corner of

Fertile Crescent

, atop a large boulder. This place is pretty clear. The book suggests keeping to the left crack alone, but this is something I take issue with, as almost everything I touched broke or outright fell off the wall. After a few attempts at climbing the choss and seeing the fall, despite protection, would land me on the boulder-spike just below, I decided to include the crack on the right. The difficulty was still ~10b.

This climb steps onto an overhang at a knobby, flaky crack. I broke off the first foothold the first time I stepped up. I cracked off the flake I was pinching the second time I stepped up. The third time I went up I broke off the edge of a crack with my jam. The gear was grinding out flakes when I attempted to set it.

I have NO IDEA how this could get a star.

Eventually I pulled up and onto the rock and decided to head right into the other crack. I bumped the face with my left elbow when moving, and as if to punctuate my decision, a chunk of choss fell off of the wall where my elbow had touched.

I finished on the crack on the right. Coming down, I cleaned the crack on the left. In fact, I cleaned most of the holds off of it. Maybe the next guy up will find it enjoyable... or at least have a shot at survival.

Downhill 50 from

Fertile Crescent

, there is a steep overhang at the base of the wall. In one place, a large boulder looms just below where a crack through this overhang converts to a shallow, overhanging, right-facing corner. Just right of this corner is a second crack in darker rock. Climb up these crack systems (buyer beware) and to a tree on a ledge above.

Bring protection from small-to-medium nuts and cams and up to 3". If the rock were good, the pro would be too... but it isn't. The webbing around the tree up top is a record breaker in terms of bad quality. So old it has rock-matching lichen on it. Do not use it! (Replace or rap off of the tree directly.)