I understand other routes get a little dirty from route-building, sure. Those trees, however, were actually PART of the route - they provided climbing holds and protection at the top of the pitch. Protection is now absent, and the slab is covered in debris. I understand it's just 5.8, but 5.8 unprotected slab covered with pine needles is kind of nasty. I consider Mil Falcon to be damaged from the removal of those trees - and I do recall the uproar when J.Frimer caused damage to Great White North while building Milk Road.cmoorhead wrote: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.
As for the bolt ladder, there are no options for gear protection there anyway, so I don't have any real beef with closely-spaced bolts. What I find strange is that the climb on the whole is supremely well-protected, but the bolt off the anchor on pitch 2 is VERY hard to clip. I understand some people are better climbers than others, perhaps better at chimneying, but my typical grade is far above 10d, and I find it extremely spicy reaching that bolt (I'm 6'0 also). Something is really fishy on that pitch and totally out of character with the rest of the climb, which is super-chill if you climb 5.10 ...
Other than that, it was a stellar climb ..
Jesse James