The Cobra

Perched on the right side of the Royal Arches visor is a cobra shaped corner system accessed by 4 pitches of adventurous slab climbing that breaks off from the pendulum on Royal Arches.

From the pendulum, climb a pitch of well protected slab that also serves as the first pitch of Super Visor. Break off right at the second bolt on pitch 2 and clip a couple more bolts before stepping across a water streak and running it out to the anchors. The next pitch contains a single lead bolt but does accept some supplemental gear. Pitch 4 is a neat traverse straight right which will get you to the base of the true corner system and contains the only bad rock on route. It is rated R on the original topo but protects well with modern gear. The first pitch of the corner system contains an amazing splitter crack that apparently goes at 10c but unfortunately is filled with a lot of grass. We were able to free climb up to the last 30 feet at 5.11. If someone were to perform some gardening, this pitch would be classic but at the moment it is not very fun to lead. Pitch 6 is a splitter 4” crack that can easily be linked with the previous pitch and gets you to a hanging belay at the base of the cobra’s head. Pitch 7 is what you came for. It’s a  5.11a enduro splitter corner to undercling on an epic feature in an amazing position that pops you out at the edge of the valley rim.

The hardware on route is all up to date as of October 2021 (courtesy of the ASCA) with the exception of the pitch 3 anchor which contains one 1/4” bolt and one new 3/8” bolt that was just added. This single 1/4” bolt was originally a lead bolt on pitch 4 per the Reid topo. With the new P2 anchor added by the ASCA in 2012, I believe the new anchor location for P3 makes the most sense. We went up there with the Reid topo, sloan topo and information from various forums on Supertopo but we found all of the above to be quite inconsistent and inaccurate. Use the current hand drawn topo.

Climb to the pendulum on Royal Arches and then follow the topo.

Doubles from .2 to #3, single .1 & #4, set of nuts, offsets useful, 70m rope