Route 6

A beautiful line that ascends an aesthetic, mildly-overhung hand crack in a shallow dihedral, Route 6 is one of the finest crack climbs in White Rock. It's well worth the annoying approach to Pajarito Gorge, just to climb this one.

Start out with an improbable boulder problem up the thin crack directly below the obvious splitter. This opening section is arguably the the technical crux of the climb, but is well protected by finger-sized cams. After surmounting this initial trickiness, cruise up a lower-angled finger crack to a stance below the steep handcrack. Crank strenuous moves to get established in the hand crack, and do your best to hang on as sustained 5.9 and 5.10 jamming leads all the way to the cliff top.

Route #6 in the

Pajarito Gorge main cliff. Crappy photo from before the era of digital cameras... .

On the left side of the Main Wall. Pretty much as far left as you'd want to go without a rope. Look for the obvious, steep splitter in a shallow dihedral. A few feet to the right is an overhung hands/fingers crack in a slot, which kind of looks like a cobra (this is "Bunghole Slot", Route 7). A few feet right of that is another obvious right-trending fist crack (the start of Route 8 and 9).

The pro is great, and available nearly everywhere. You will need to build a gear anchor at the top.

Rack: BD cams from .3 to #3, as well as a TCU/C3 or two. Some doubles in the .75 to #3 range are useful (you don't necessarily need doubles on all these pieces). Stoppers optional.