Millenium Falcon TR - some great shots

[squamish climber]

Sibylle Hechtel is at it again posting a great little TR of Millenium Falcon, 5.11 14p a route that seemed to fade a little into obscurity after the Europa saga. Recent comments here and on mountain project suggest this a great long route up the Dihedrals that should be climbed more often.

Here is a photo from her blog post on the climb

Read the rest of her TR at Fun Climbs around the world

Andy Cairns climbed Millenium Falcon with Sybelle. He mentioned on the Europa TR thread that Russ Clune and Eric H (one of the FA's of Borderline) were on the route ahead of them.

Russ Clune, is a long-time climber from the East Coast and well known for putting up hard routes in the Gunks. He's also featured in the great book Fifty favorite climbs: the ultimate North American tick list, Clune selected the Grand Wall for the book. This is what he say's about that route:

The Grand Wall is where things start to get interesting. If you can do the Grand Wall without any problems you're probably ready for the other Squamish classic Freeway. If you can do Freeway you can easily do the Rostrum. After doing that you should be able to do the West Face of El Cap. And with the fitness you gain from the West Face you might be able to go up and do the hardest of them all -- Astroman. Basically anyone who aspires to do the classic granite free walls in in North America should start by doing the Grand Wall

Finally, here is a video of Russ Clune and Sonnie Trotter climbing in Gunks:
Vimeo so it's not viewable on Ipad or Iphone


So let's hear more feedback from folks who have climbed MF

[scrubber]

I climbed MF yesterday for the first time in four years. I was pleasantly surprised to find the portion below Europa very climbable. I'll probably head down it next spring for a quick brush, but overall there is very little dirt on the route. There was lots of chalk as far as Bellygood, and we shared that part with another pair from California. Above Bellygood, we only noticed chalk on the first pitch.

Thanks for posting the picture of the end of the second pitch. I'll have to check out Sybille's blog

Kris

[solojourneys]

I've recently led this route and found it very clean, highly enjoyable with varied climbing.

I would, however, suggest one more bolt on the 'tiptoe traverse' (10d) pitch ... I stupidly handtraversed this pitch, despite admonitions from the book to the contrary. Almost blew it, and would have departed the mountain in a body bag ...

[sibylle]

Thanks for your kind reference to my post. Andy Cairns took the photo of me on pitch 2 ( and most of the photos on our climbs), so should get credit for his stellar photography! MF was my favorite route on this trip. I talked it up so much, that now my son ( in college in Portland) wants to go climb it next summer!
The tiptoe traverse was a bit scary -- luckily I had a good toprope! I tiptoed it -- felt safer that way. Good job on the route.

[RocksArePeopleToo]

Hi Sibylle, Andy, et. al. Getting on MF (and, the next day, the Bulletheads East pitches) really got me excited again about Squamish after many years of absence. That was a really nice piece of vision to recognize the potential there and make it happen. The line looks like nothing from the parking lot, but the climb unfolds beautifully and just keeps yielding great surprises. The Europa crossing on the short 5.9 pitch also may lower the commitment factor a bit -- one could skip the wacky foot traverse and Magic Tree pitch and just bail off R if they decided they were in over their head at that point.

Great work, Kris.

(If you do go back and clean some more, you might focus on the start of p1, where everyone was getting lost and going too far R, and on the eroding rock/gravel patch at Bellygood. I don't have any good ideas on how to stabilize the latter, though, unfortunately, although maybe someone who worked on the backside trail might have suggestions.)

-Eric H
P.S. I wasn't actually climbing with Russ that day, but did have the honor of letting him & Merridy pass us. They were moving at a rather comfortable clip.