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Peak Mountain 3

Moby Dike

FA Vaino Kodas, Moe Hershoff, 2004
CREATED 
UPDATED 

Description

Moby Dike is a pretty good climb in a good location at a prominent quartz dike at the very top of the Blob/Bitty Buttress ridge. It's a bit short given the approach, and the quartz holds are still flaking off. The FA party rated this 5.9, but it felt hard to me. The moves and clips at the 3rd and 4th bolts seemed quite hard, balancy and precarious.

Approach: From the Blob parking pullout, look for the first formation on the skyline right of East Blob. You'll see a steep orange wall with a prominent vertical white dike. Moby Dike climbs the left side of the dike which, not obvious from the road, is a left facing corner. Leaping Lizards, listed in Rossiter, is to the right of the dike. Hike up the trail to Blob and find your way east below Blob Slab to the base of the gully below East Blob. Scramble up a trough on the right of the main gully to a large bench with trees. Follow this right/east to its end, and you'll be below the climb. You could climb up trad from here to the bolt anchors at the start of the climb, but better, reverse your path for about 100', then go up a bit and climb right up a third class ramp past 2 small trees to a ledge. Follow this to its end, then do a short exposed but very easy traverse to the bolt anchors.

The route: Traverse right and make several hard moves up the quartz band. Hand traverse left around the roof (reachy) and then up easy rock to a ceiling. One more hard move over the ceiling leads to the anchors.

Descent: You can reverse the third class approach from the start anchors or rappel with a 60m rope from the top anchors to the next lower level and hike west to rejoin the approach.

Protection

7 bolts plus 2-bolt anchors at the top and at the start.