The Fixer

This route is located on the Drug Wall of South Gateway Rock. It is the line of pitons up the left side of the slab that holds "

Pure Energy

, and "

Rocket Fuel

".

Begin this horrifying mankfest below the line of pitons and climb more or less straight up the face. At first the climbing is easy, but at about 40 feet, there is a section of mandatory 5.8/.9 slabbing with no pro. In this section, I touched a ledge/handhold which crumbled like a sugar cookie and promptly filled all of my footholds with sand. After going up down and around and up and down, I finally arrived at the first piton feeling really lucky to be alive. The climb goes up and then does a rising traverse up and left from here following the pitons. The climbing is difficult friction and edging on holds that have the constitency of sugar cookies. I remember doing one cruxy sequence using a hold that felt a grainy sandy wafer/cracker that would crunch any second. There is an optional #4 Camalot placement in a pocket, but it takes away a foothold. There is one more cruxy section out towards the end of the traverse on very steep, sandy smearing. After the hard bit, go up a short 10a headwall and then up extremely loose chossy 4th class to the anchor above the slab.

I felt extremely glad to be back on the ground after this one. My partner did not want to follow this route and thought it was stupid climbing on holds that crumble when you touch them.

I gave this route 2 stars for pure scariness, mankiness, and overall unique horrifying experience. Have fun ;-P

Very serious runout to the first piton with mandatory 5.8/5.9 climbing on crumbly sandy friction. Then 5 drilled pitons that range from angles to really old look ring pins. It is difficult to say how good this protection is due to the rock quality.

Addendum: The Fixer's P1 has new anchors as of July, 2005. Brian Shelton, Stewart Green, Jason and CJ replaced the 2 old pitons in the belay pothole with 2 modern stainless steel 1/2" bolts and hardware.