Hidden Fortress

It’s easy to imagine all the foreheads crunching as the BCC’s regulars’ eyebrows arch at the four stars being ascribed to

Hidden Fortress

in this post, so here’s my case:  (Yes, the name of this route is the same as the crag.)  This route is the epitome of BCC sport climbing as it developed in the late 1980s, when our local legends were thrashing up scree and through the brush trying to find the steepest unclimbed walls, and the ethic was to space the bolts to keep it “real” and maintain one’s bona-fides.  And Gary and Pat certainly fell into that group, being responsible for such routes as

To Air is Human

,

Lend Me a Dime, Stranger than Friction

, and

Vector Madness

, as well as the lion’s share of routes on Glass Ocean and Beer Belly Buttress.

They found a gem in

Hidden Fortress

: 8 bolts of puzzling and pumpy quartzite in 90 feet that overhangs by 15 feet.  Put it this way, if this were next to

Black Monday

*, that route would be considered a casual warm up before the day’s main event.  (*3.3 stars from 333 votes as of this writing).  Plaintiff rests.

Endnotes:  As of 2021, the bolts (3/8” stud) still look good despite being 30+ years old (but, of course, you be the judge).  Both the Ruckmans and the Calderone guides indicate a second pitch, but give no details other than its trad, and in any event a second pitch seems superfluous since it would be completely out of character with the money pitch and given the variety of more recent routes that have good pitches going to the top. Date of the FA from Calderone.

Only sport route starting from the ground with plain (non-camouflaged) hangers.

8 draws and 2 for the anchors (tat recently replaced with chains).