Safeway Spire - Five Finger Discount

Five Finger Discount climbs Safeway Spire.

P1 - Climb up the dihedral past some bad rock, to a belay in a chimney. 5.10d, about 100'.

P2 - Cut left out of the chimney on bolts to a hanging belay on the face. C1, 30'. (Note that this pitch looked as if it would go free without too much trouble 5.11+?)

P3 - Aid crux thin gear. 30' of manky rock to a splitter crack, that leads to another hanging belay. C2-, 70'. (Note that this pitch also looked as if it would go free, the crux of which would be the manky rock on dicey gear.)

P4 - Continue up the widening crack system to a belay. 5.10 or C1, 70'.

P5 - Climb 20' of 5.9 to a thin crack in a tight dihedral, (Loweballs make this go clean). Continue to a wide crack and fun climbing, drilled pins and an interesting mantel gets you to the summit. 5.9 C1, 130'. (Note that everything but the last 30' of this pitch will go free without to much trouble. The last 30' might go free with a variation out left instead of following the bolts out right.)

We short fixed pitch 2 thinking it was much longer then it was, I would combine pitches 1 and 2 in the future. We combined pitches 3 and 4 with no problems.

This route will likely go free at hard 5.12.

To find Five Finger Discount, walk about a mile past the Liberty Cap cragging area up Ute Canyon, Safeway Spire is obvious. Start on the southeast face.

Double set of cams to #3 Camalot. #3.5, #4, #4.5, #5. Loweballs, stoppers, can't remember using tri-cams, Belay chair? NO PITONS AND HAMMER!