Not So Sweet

A bit of an awkward adventure climb, and it should be approached in that spirit. Steep climbing up a monster flake begins this interesting,varied, and physical route. There is a middle transition section with some funky body positions (I remember ending up riding a big cylinder shaped ledge in a manner reminiscent of the movie Dr Strangelove). The route ended with a weird slightly overhanging face section (crux) where your body was half in and half and out of a chimney. A big bonus for the effort involved is a gorgeous summit with a great view of the surrounding South Seas formations. Not a ton of non-wide gear and placing and cleaning what was there was somewhat challenging. The Burr and Busse guide rates this route 5.6. That seems, at least by current notions, severely sandbagged. Both the very strong crack climber that I followed up this and myself ( a gym and outdoor sport climber who doesn't like cracks all that much), thought a grade in the 5.8 range was appropriate. We'll see what other people think.

Up the 4th class gully from the W.This goes up over (from behind it) Nutra Sweet (5.11). Nutra Sweet is effectively the rap line for Not So Sweet. Single rope rap to the ground.

Gear, 0.75 to #5, nuts (the recent guide book says only to #3 but your "adventure factor" will be greater w/o some big gear in the #4-#5 range)