banana peel dry?

[supafly]

Thinking of heading up tomorrow to do banana peel, what's the chance of it being dry?

are there specific pitches that tend to dry more slow than others or seep?

[Astotts]

here is a photo of one time that I climbed it in march it was one day after the rain and the r/h diagonal approach gully to the snake start was running with water. The whole route was dry except for this pitch.
hope this helps with your decision [/img]

[Anders Ourom]

Aha! I see that you too clipped the off-route bolt on A Troll's Sonnet, although damp conditions provide a reason. Perhaps time to move it, and the one on the pitch below, also off-route.

[thebigchin]

Aha! I see that you too clipped the off-route bolt on A Troll's Sonnet, although damp conditions provide a reason. Perhaps time to move it, and the one on the pitch below, also off-route.

Ha! I've often thought that bolt was way out of character, considering the scorn you place on nearby bolts to established climbs!

[Astotts]

Photos never lie.
I admit it, I am an off-route bolt clipper.
But i vow to repent for my ways by never clipping that bolt again, even when climbing ATS.
I actually thought thats the way that Banana Peel went, because at the bottom of the frame in the wet there is a great little set of divots.
Cheers

[Anders Ourom]

Just teasing, eh? I wondered even as I put that bolt on ATS in whether it was in the right place, and if it would tempt people doing Banana Peel. Maybe I need to go back and reconsider whether it needs to be higher, or there at all, for ATS that is. I don't think it makes much difference for BP, and strictly speaking isn't near the route, which is well to the right at that point. Worth a look.

[thebigchin]

I think that the start of BP has changed to incorporate that bolt. The traffic and chalk has cleaned the slab making it look even more like the regular start.

That's not a bad thing, IMHO.As you have pointed out in other posts, pretty much anything right of Diedre is climbable at 5.9 or lower, so does it really matter if the route takes one path or another to get to a particular feature?

I noticed ATS had a bunch of chalk on that short corner so it IS getting some traffic. That may actually be due to people thinking that it is the BP route. It's a more obvious line than the regular route.

[Dru]

If you do the unprotected variation pitch off the fault below that, instead of the older "stem off the tree" pitch further right, you end up at the ATS belay first anyhow and then that bolt is right there.

It does add some drag if you clip it though.

FWIW Banana Peel must be the easiest route on the Apron by about a grade despite what the guidebooks say*. If you climb the pitch in the photo, then up the short groove on the next pitch and go left at the top instead of right out across the slab as per normal BP, you end up on Sparrow and can follow that to the top for a way more consistent climb.

* I say this cause I soloed Calculus around 3 times, Over the Rainbow twice, Diedre and Slab Alley once each, but must have done BP solo about 40 times, maybe half of those with the Sparrow finish. BP just feels a lot more secure than any of the other routes and consequently easier.

If I had to grade them I would say
BP 5.6 R (except crux is not R)
Diedre 5.7+
OTR, Calculus 5.8 (Calculus just a few moves and very secure)
Slab Alley 5.9 (just the old bolt ladder, rest way easier)

I never felt confident enough to solo Snake, it's not any harder at any one crux than the bolt ladder on Slab Alley but way more exposed, sustained and committing overall, especially if the traverse is wet.

The lowest crux on Sparrow , off the belay on p2 is pretty insecure for me too. Dont't know if I could do that without the confidence of a belay.That's why I climb the bottom of BP and move over halfway up

[pinner]

I think the only time I've been on-route to start BP was the first. I've climbed it a half dozen times, including simul, plus soloed once, and I don't think I've done it the same more than twice...

I've probably clipped that bolt every time (except soloing) as well. It likely has something to do with the fact that Squamish Select was the first guide book I ever owned, and I didn't realize that "Select" meant there were a whole bunch of climbs that weren't in it, until years later
Never had a more experienced climber to show me the ropes, and tell me that there were more than 5 routes on the Squaw (made it hard to find Jungle Warfare, as I was looking for the only line of bolts off the ground, but found several...), just an equally dumb and excited friend, BD camalots #1,2, and 3 (good choices for our first 3 cams in Squamish, eh?), and a bunch of home made nuts (real nuts, that is), and stoppers made of sawed-off angle iron and circular iron pipe we squashed a little with a vice.

You should have seen us the first time on BP, when I ran out 70m of rope on the upper pitches near the toilet-bowl, yelling down in high winds "I need more rope", him yelling back "there is no more rope!", me disbelieving, and finally swinging my way over to that perched boulder to belay with my arm slung around it.. Never heard of a gear belay, nor imagined one, and was very disturbed to find no bolts. That, and our 3rd member had never tied into a rope before.

Should've seen my face too when I first saw the McLane guide and found out that all that empty rock wasn't empty....

[thebigchin]

, and a bunch of home made nuts (real nuts, that is), and stoppers made of sawed-off angle iron and circular iron pipe we squashed a little with a vice.

Luxury!! We made harnesses from our rotten shoelaces and had to short rope all our pitches with a dental floss rope!