There and Back Again

The route begins just left of the white recessed wall that is left of the start of Black Orpheus. The route is also to the right of the large black arch that is the left side of Black Arch Wall. There are no fixed anchors on the route and I suggest taking all your gear with you instead of leaving any in Oak Creek for later retrieval.

p1 Begin at the base of a yellow 180' pillar with black knobs on the face that leans up against the wall. Climb the face to the top. 185'.

p2 Climb up to a left facing corner, then up corner to a belay ledge. 90'

p3 Straight up 15-20 feet of face climbing leads to a +/-2 foot thick left facing dihedral that looks like an backwards "s". After an awkward move, you should get to another belay stance. 80'

p4 Climb left to a face with many edges and up a thin crack to a ledge with some loose boulders. Try not to kill partner with boulders and here you have a choice. Go immediately left and up to a ledge with some bushes and belay from there (80' and the way the route is supposed to go), or, go right up a left facing corner and then into a right facing dihedral that leads to a ledge (150' and pretty fun). If you go the second way, your next pitch will go left to an obvious crack on black rock and up for 20' and you're done.

p5 head up and right to an overhanding crack that is libacked and jammed up to a ledge (top of 4th pitch if you went right at p4 choice) then up the crack on black rock to an eventual ledge and belay spot. 110'

From the top of the route, head up and left, then down and left, into the painted bowl. Keep looking left for the vegetated area with a pine tree. Once at the pine tree, keep scrambling until you see the bolted rap anchor. Two 60 meter rappels will get you to the slabs. Walk down skiers right to a gully, then to Oak Creek.

The beginning of Pitch 3 has a 15-20 foot runout section that may bring protests from leaders, otherwise, protection is adequate.