March Madness

This is a line that continues above

Is This Your Crack?

or

Vegan

and heads to the top of the Second Pew. It takes on the dihedral to the right of the obvious cave (which was a mixed climb in late March) at mid-height on the right side of the Second Pew. The 1st pitch of this is worth the effort. The section above this weaves around to avoid some weirdness, but it could be straightened out.

P1. To make this a longer adventure, you can start with

Grits with Eggs Over-Easy

or you can start on

Vegan

.

P2. You can continue up or even start with

Is This Your Crack?

. You can belay below the cave or even the 2 bolt anchor above

Face with Bolt Route

.

P3. This was climbed from the cave with a ~20 foot downclimb to a traverse right to the start of the dihedral. Pull aboard on nice crystalline jugs. Move up the dihedral into the slot/chimney. There is a crux move about mid-pitch where remembering to chimney may make it feel more secure. Near the top of the slot/chimney, you can move right onto big knobs. 5.8+, 100' or 150'.

P4. You are now in a sort of bouldery meadow. The 1st two forays attempted to move straight up to the obvious wide crack with a leaning squeeze chimney or boulder hop a bit to the right that was thwarted by a V-shaped crevasse without great pro or holds. Ultimately the wide crack was attained with a walk left to a short wall left of a big tree and a traverse back right a few feet below the tree to gain the wide crack. 5.6 PG-13, 100'.

P5. You can place a #3 Friend or #2 Camalot in the narrower slot next to the wide crack. A barn-door move up and onto face holds makes quick work of the crack. You would need something like a #6 Camalot if you actually wanted to protect this section. Continue up 4th / low-end 5th class that becomes 3rd class terrain (shared with

A Way To The Top

) to the top of the Second Pew. 5.6, 150'.

To descend, there is a ~75' downscramble that can be more interesting if there is snow. Once onto the gap between the Second and Third Pews, it's best to drop maybe ~75' down to get around to the north of the pinnacle between the Pews. Then, it's hiking from the saddle down to the packs.

Part of why this was named as such was the mad weather we experienced: snow, then sunshine, then sprinkles of rain, a couple of rainbows, then sunshine, then blowing snow, and then sunshine.

This ascends the dihedral right of the cave ~200' from the nadir of the right side of the Second Pew. It connects to an obvious, wide crack to the right of a decent-sized tree.

This was done with a rack to a #3.5 Camalot, although, P5 would require something big if you wanted to protect the wide crack bit.