Cruising to Infinity - Above & Beyond

[pinner]

Anyone else been on this? Had quite the adventure yesterday...

Decided last minute to go past the Bulletheads and up to the Solarium to get on Sunblessed. Hadn't been there before, and headed off the 3rd peak trail far too early, got scrambling around some slabs and steps and ended up out at Above & Beyond...

Cruising to Infinity (5.10c) looks awesome, and the description reads thus:

"A tall east facing wall, is split by a long impeccable finger and hand crack, albeit dirty. Climb up to belay in an alcove (.. Good protection in the crack, balance left to finish (10c). Rappel. Full rack"

The first 5.8 pitch is about 20 m of middling awkwardness, which I got the lead on. Second pitch, passed the rack off to my partner, who used all the gear that would fit in the first 20m or so... This left about 10-15m of unprotectable hand crack before it narrowed down to fingers which he could protect again. On top of that the whole thing was quite hollow and bonging with every jam and gear placement - creepy. He ended up finding a place to build an anchor with a #3 Camalot , a bad nut and a tipped out .4 Camalot equivalent, and lowered.

There is a climb not shown in the McLane guide between Crusing to Infinity and Ad Infinitum, which goes up the arete between the two. It sports some old Barley bolts, some new bolts, and the means to retrieving our gear; a fixed line in good shape.

Thanks to whoever's working back there!

I jugged your line on prussiks while clipping bolts and placing gear on our lead rope. Belayed my partner up to me (the route is stout! he ended up batmanning and pulling on draws most of the way), then he jugged up the rest of the way, past a second station which seems to be the top of the unnamed route, to the anchors at the top of Cruising, where the line was fixed. From there he was able to pull up our rope, retrieve the gear, and after another rap at the intermediate station, get back to me. When pulling on the small cam, he said the whole block shifted significantly.

We were left to wonder if anyone else had climbed Cruising and been stuck at the top - it is well over 35m between the two stations on Cruising, the guide doesn't mention double ropes, just advises to rappel, and the other anchors we used were 10-15 meters away and around an arete on a different aspect, on a route not shown in the guide.

At any rate, after 8 hours car to car and 1.5 pitches climbed, we learned if you plan on climbing it, take double ropes, and lots of handsize gear!

Thanks again to the unknown saviour!