Water Stains

This is a decent shortish backcountry route, described by Hill (1993:165), and by Schein (2013). P1 heads up over an arching, left-facing left-leaning corner, leading to some wandering face climbing to the right to a 2-bolt anchor (~30m). The first bolted anchor for Halfbreed lies about 8 feet to the right. P2 leads through a deep but short left-facing corner (crux). Then either head right to belay at a 6" diameter tree, or Hill's topo suggests a belay farther left (~45m). P3 heads slightly left through bulges to a bolted anchor shared with Twist o flex (~30m), although other options are probably also available. P4: easy 5th leads to a ramp, 3rd/4th class then to the saddle between the summits.

If approaching from the Crest, it works OK to hike first to the saddle south of the Thumb's summits, and then clamber/downclimb/rappel down the southwest face (take some webbing to refresh the rap anchor?). Hill also suggests hiking around from the base of the northwest ridge would work. Find the start at the base of the waterstains, to the right of Twist-O-Flex and left of Halfbreed. Take the standard descent off the south ridge. NB: In the 3rd edition, 1st printing (1993) of Hill's guidebook, the topo (pg. 167) correctly shows this route as #11, but his photo topo (pg. 166) incorrectly has it marked as #9. In the 3rd ed., 2nd printing (1996) and 3rd printing (2000), the photo topo is correctly numbered.

Single set of nuts, doubles of cams to 2.5 inches seemed to work. Some sections of P1-P3 may be vaguely R rated in 5.7 terrain. Bolted anchors at top of P1 and P3.