Walk of Payne

P1 (5.6/5.7): follow a left-leaning ramp into a wider crack. Follow the widening crack as it turns into a small chimney. Set belay at the base of the obvious handcrack above. Haas calls this pitch R in "

South Platte Climbing

". Truthfully, we found this pitch to be not bad or runout if you have wider gear.

P2 (5.9): follow the splitter hand crack, through some widening slots, until at the base of the OW pitch. This pitch was awesome.

P3 (5.9, OW): follow the wide crack up and through a slot/chimney. Move right into the wider pitch, and make delicate slab moves while using the wide crack the best you can. We did not bring big enough wide gear for this, and my partner had to run it out 30 feet on awkward terrain. Be sure to bring plenty of wide gear (3 3s? 3 4s? a couple of 5s? maybe even a 6? That seems crazy, but it'll make you feel better!).

P4 (5.9 X): Haas's guidebook calls this pitch 5.9 PG-13. Haas must have some giant cojones, because we saw literally no pro except maybe a tiny cam in a crap, friable flake. The guidebook suggests staying on the face after the crack runs out to the top. Although maybe not much harder than 5.8 with one steep slab move, looking to be at least 5.9, with virtually no pro on the face, any fall could prove fatal or at least femur shattering leaving you with a burly rescue situation. The book suggests staying out of the wide gully to the left. We decided this option looked better and traversed hard left (over PG-13 slab) at the cracks end into the bushy gully. We followed this to the top working through a roof and a squeeze chimney at its end. This seemed to be the safer option with not bad climbing, albeit a little bushy.

(Credit to Haas.)

On the far left side of Tick Dome, you will notice a large, right-facing corner up high on Tick Dome on its left side. This is the aforementioned gully we used to escape the terrifying 5.9 X slab pitch.

You don't need much small stuff for this. I also don't think we placed a single nut. Bring doubles from 0.3 - 1, triples (at least) of 2-4, at least one 5, and maybe a 6.