Mother 1

This was described in the guide book as a classic route...deservedly so IMO! The approach to the base of the crack is hidden. Essentially, there is a huge pile of boulders and flakes around the base of the climb. So, if you walk up in front of this, and take a tunnel into a cave on the left, you end up in a cave with a hole coming out that would get you there. Instead of coming out of that hole, go all the way to the VERY back of the cave, look down to the right, and you will find a hidden easy chimney that puts you right at the base.

In any case, get to the bottom of the nice looking crack (one crack to the right from a huge chimney,

Baldwin's Chimney

, 5.4, that splits the whole face, and ends up at a chockstone on the left). The first half of the pitch is wide for about 50 feet. Wedge yourself into the thing, and heel toe your way up. I had my left side in, so, maybe rack up mostly on the right. After about halfway, the crack becomes an excellent, and steep handcrack until it peters out, and ends on a flat section. From the flat section, you go left to belay at the chockstone. You will have to jump over

Baldwin's Chimney

to get to the chockstone. Or, if nobody is watching, just downclimb, and cruise over to it...:) The belay at the chockstone can be made with slings, and/or your lead rope. And you could back it up with a large cam, but, with the same 100 million ton boulder.

To get off the route, you continue up the Parabolic Slab, (5.2). I'm reasonably sure you could also do this in the same pitch as Mother #1, and skip the chockstone belay. Either way, this continues up, and slightly right from the end of the Mother #1 crack for about 30 feet. It's a low-angled slab with crystals. No pro, but, no worries (maybe a little interesting in the rain). You can do a really fun, overhanging rappel off the back side of the slab (this is the same rappel that is shown on the back of the guidebook). This rappel takes you to a walk off that continues by sort of spiraling back down the crag clockwise.

You can also rap off the top of

Father #1

which is the 5.11 finger crack to the right on Mother #1.

After we did this route, a geology student informed us that the rock is well over 2 billion years old, and some of the oldest rock they know of...pretty cool beta anyways!

This is a fairly long (maybe 110 feet??), fairly wide crack that ends up as a hand crack. I don't think I placed a single stopper, but a couple mid-big cams will do the job. It was nice to have at least a #4 cam. Bring long pants and tape gloves!!!

Per

matt severini

: there are now anchors directly on top of the crack that were placed in 2014.