Sunset Strip horror show

[original gorby]

jesse james, you've been on here spouting bullsh*t on several threads.
I've not met you IRL but your online persona is one of a total dickwad.
maybe you should stick to posting about your climbing meetups at the Smoke Bluffs and Murrin Park.

[pepe]

Hi all.

First of all Awesome route!!! very powerful (for me at least...to many lay backs) but is definitely a new classic.

I climbed the first and second pitch twice, one day we bailed because we started way to late and last monday we tried again.

I'm a at 5.10c/0.5d(almost d) trad level and the first bolt of the second pitch is fairly easy to clip, there is good feet and hands to clip it and like someone else said already you can clip it and then go down again to rest if you want.

Although we didn't finish the whole route since it was a very hot day and I didn't have enough water and I started feeling dehydrated we did everything before pitch 10 including the first 5.10d that was the one that drained all my energy at the end.

The other bolt that you talked about I don't know where it is because I didn't find any bolt in the whole route that was as you descrive "dangerous" ( Every time I see a bolt it always makes me happy ).

If someone ask me if I will do it again, of course I will!! and I will totally recommend it.

I thought that Jesse James was fearless!!!! but I guess that is only in the movies...

[NateDoggOG]

This thread is an instant classic.....

[jessejames]

This thread is an instant classic.....

I agree. The childish ad-hominem attacks bring a smile to my face

[jessejames]

I'm climbing this route again tomorrow and bringing a camera. I'll post pictures of the destruction to the Mil Falcon belay ledge and the bolting insanity.

Wearing my helmet too .. just in case some of you boys hike up to the top to drop rocks on my head!

[Jonny5]

... I'll post pictures of the destruction to the Mil Falcon belay ledge and the bolting insanity.

...

Picture= 1000 words.

[NateDoggOG]

I have not climbed Sunset Strip so can not comment as to the quality or nature of the route.
I have climbed Millennium Falcon since SS was opened however, and I know which belay ledge JJ is talking about. I feel that the cutting of trees there was absolutely unnecessary. There were a couple cedars that were up to a foot in diameter that are now just stumps.
Also, Millennium Falcon is extremely dirty, and I while understand that this is a side effect of new routing, if some joe blow nobody went and cleaned a new line but in the process showered dirt all over an already prominent route, we would sh*t all over him for that.
I honestly have nothing against CM, and I'm just playing a bit of devils advocate, but I do think that people should be held accountable for their actions, no matter how trivial they might be.

[Squamishmonkey]

Jesse,
I did a quick lap of this route this morning to see what all the fuss is about.

Firstly the name calling and insults are unnecessary.

Secondly the technical issues you bring up..
1) The bolt off the belay after pitch one can be clipped easily, step on the good hold, grab the two under clings, stand up and back step the chimney flake...you are now in range of the bolt. The bolting is not unreasonable for a 10d climber (The routes top grade) and if you climb any of the slab routes on the apron you will find bolts much further away from the belay.
2) There is a fully bolted anchor with chains at the top of the 11a MF pitch, it is just feet left of the stump. It is very very obvious. The tree has been cut as trees cover routes in leaves etc and will eventually die or become unstable. It is good practice to cut out the trees in Squamish and install modern anchors, also the tree removal will mean MF stays cleaner. I found the ledge to be in comparable condition to when MF was opened.
3) The offending bolt serves two purposes, it indicates the start of the separate line from the MF chimney and protects the first move to reach the hand crack. It is very reasonable to add a bolt there or not, either way it is the smallest nit-picking considering the effort, time and expense put into cleaning a FA in that area.

Please take pictures of you at the first belay doing those moves and having a bolt in front of you.
Please take a picture of the modern anchor you missed and the dead tree and ledge that make a great belay stance
Please take a picture of one bolt just below a hand crack.

...may I suggest you offer an on-line apology to Colin and a big thanks to him for putting up another good route.

Regards
Eric

[TravisMcC]

I also climbed this today and I am in agreeance with everyone except Jesse.

It was a fantastic route with lots of varied terrain that calls upon a vast array of granite skills. It takes a more direct line MF and seems to be the more natural (it was always a shame to get left out of that stellar finger crack on pitch three on MF!). We joined pitches one/two, four/five and six/seven. I thought the first 5.10d crux was significantly harder than the second one, but my partner thought the opposite.

I like the bolt at the start MF chimney pitch (after 11a MF pitch). I am 6' 2" and I can barley reach the crack from the good stance. Anyone shorter will have to make a very committing move to get established and coming off there (if climbing MF) would result in a horrendous pendulum fall.

Initially I thought the bolt on pitch four (before pulling the roof) may have been overkill, but my partner pointed out that it is likely to prevent the rope from getting wedged in the crack and thus causing lots of rope drag. I was happy it was there in hindsight.

I would recommend taking off any gear on the rear gear loops before doing the last chimney pitch... we lost ~ $100 worth of gear in span of a one or two shimmy moves.

Awesome climb! Get on it.

Also... Jesse, if you'd like to avoid possible factor two falls, perhaps you can clip into the top bolt of an anchor before you lead up? Just a suggestion...

[jonny2vests]

I agree. The childish ad-hominem attacks bring a smile to my face

Meanwhile any point you may have had has been obliterated by stupendous lack of tact.

[hans]

I climbed this on Friday.

FWIW I am really short and had no trouble clipping the first bolt on pitch 2, though I did find some of the other bolts on the route to be rather high.

I thought that the grades were rather stiff on a lot of the pitches, though the two 10d pitches were straightforward. In fact the last one was quite easy for 10d. The chimney pitch was pretty burly, and definitely harder than the 5.9 chimney pitches on Epinephrine for example. The hanging belay at the base of the chimney sucks, and linking the last two pitches may be a good way to go.

There was a sign on the route that said that the Europa bolt ladder was moved, and directed Europa climbers up the first 10d pitch. The bolts on this pitch were close in terms of protection for a leader, but too far for aiding from what I could tell. This may make Europa unclimbable for a 5.8 or 5.9 leader, though this is not necessarily a bad thing IMO, as climbers on Europa are a hazard to climbers below.

As far as the route goes, it was a good climb, but not classic IMO. At least not yet. A lot of the cracks are quite dirty still and seem to be only partially cleaned. I used my nut tool to clean as much as I could on the pitches I followed. Traffic will certainly help in this regard, and in a cleaner state this will be a great climb, particularly if you like left facing laybacks

FYI pitches 3 and 10 are absolutely fantastic.

I took a couple of pictures and posted them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hansbauck/ ... 516360737/

[cmoorhead]

Bolting. If I decided to take a hard line trad approach to this line I could have reduced the bolt count to 1-3 protection bolts total, this would have greatly decreased the potential popularity of the line. Instead, I decided to make this line user friendly. Some people will find a few of the bolts, being close to natural gear placements, distasteful. I think most people will happily clip them and quickly move through the terrain.

The bolting on pitch 2. First of all this pitch could be adequately protected with one #6, #5, and #4 camalots. I decided not to do it this way because bringing offwidth cams is a big deterrent for many climbers, plus you would have to climb the rest of the route with large cams dangling off your harness. Getting to the first bolt is totally protectable: Step one- take the one #4 camalot that you brought and stick it in the back of the chimney (bomber placement) Step 2- climb up to the first bolt and clip Step 3- down climb two moves and retrieve the #4 as you will want it up higher on the pitch.

Bolting on pitch 7. This bolt wasn’t put in to mark the start of this pitch (although this is a nice side effect). There is a couple of moves off the ledge to get to the bomber cam placement, although it is fairly hard to imagine falling off this now with the current dry conditions, when this ledge is a little muddy (a lot of the time) it isn’t hard to envision greasing off of this, the resulting fall would be a horrifying pendulum plummet right onto the anchor.

Tree removal off MF ledge. Since I first climbed MF there was a bolt anchor behind the trees on the wall, I didn’t drill a new anchor here, and there was also a ton of tat around the tree.
As far as taking out the trees on this ledge, the primary reason was that the wall above (including the MF chimney) is the dankest section of the wall, staying wet long after the rest of both routes are dry. Opening up the wall to wind and sun allows it to dry way quicker. Secondly these trees continuously shed needles down on to both routes, choking the cracks with detritus, in the long term both these routes will be consistently cleaner.

I don’t expect everyone to buy into these justifications, but the reality of climbing in Squamish is that this type of “gardening” has been done over and over again for decades. I think many would be surprised to see how vegetated trade routes and popular crags once were. Freeway, Photophobia, Jungle Wafare, Skywalker, The Feather, Alaska Highway, High Plains Drifter, and Wiretap are examples of routes that exist because a number of sizable trees were removed, cragging areas that had forest right up to the walls rendering them virtually unclimbable include numerous crags in the Smoke Bluffs, Petrifying Wall, The Commonwealth, Quercus Cliff, Forgotten Wall, and Fern Hill to name a few.

[cmoorhead]

Dirt on Millennium Falcon. I spent a day cleaning up my mess on the first three pitches of MF. In fact I scrubbed sections to a higher standard than they were originally in. cleaning loose dust becomes a little futile, you sweep it off on a section of a climb and depending on the winds it just ends up somewhere else on the route or on adjacent routes.

Europa Bolt Ladder. Is right beside pitch 9, so rather than having two bolt ladders side by side, I decided to combine the two, I removed the original bolt ladder and put five bolts very close together on the .10d pitch. The bolts are close enough together to be an effective bolt ladder. The aid climber might have to do two more straightforward aid moves off of cams to get back onto 5.8 terrain.

[jred]

Wow! Sounds like somebody backed off something they had no business on in the first place who is trying to save face. Claiming the bolt on pitch two was too far from the anchor and then claiming to have climbed up to 5.12 seems a bit off, that sh*t was easy enough for everybody else it seems. Attacking one of Squamish's most prolific and excellent developers based on one of your cowardly experiences is purely idiotic. Post like this sicken me, they show zero appreciation or understanding about the route development process, how much time, money, blood are involved. Perhaps you should get out and see what is involved in route development yourself before spouting off like such a major twat. The route was amazing Colin, all of the difficult bits were very well protected, it was very clean and well thought out and I consider it one of the best multi-pitches of it's grade in Squamish, it seems I am not alone in this opinion.

[jessejames]

I re-climbed the route today (and onsighted the rest of it). It's a nice little climb. Not enough exposure and too many ledges to be super-classic, but worth the effort. The bolts are really puzzling and inconsistent though - almost the entire climb is super-protected except pitch 2, which has a highball death-fall on the belay. Getting to the bolt is scarier than a bad day in Bosnia, which is completely out of character with the rest of the route. I can suggest a good psychologist for whomever claims that's fourth class. On the upper pitches, you'll find bolts next to bomber cracks and two virtual bolt ladders. I'm not really complaining about the over-protection, but it would nice if the damn thing was consistent. In other words, fix pitch two.

As for the grade, I think 10d is accurate and it's easier overall than the Grand Wall. For me, the 5.9 chimney at the end was by far the crux ...

There IS a bolt anchor at the top of the 11a on Mil Falcon, so I have to eat some crow there. Cutting those trees was nevertheless completely unecessary butchery. I'm suprised someone hasn't hauled a chainsaw up the Grand Wall with that mentality ...