Super Cat of the Desert

Super Cat is one of the best climbs I've done at Indian Creek. Like Desert Shield and Pistol Whipped, it is both magnificent and fully deserving of the glorious grade of Indian Creek 5.12. Awesome!

Begin with a reachy/bouldery move up the bedding rock well left of the obvious crack line. Arrange some thin pro, reach right and clip a bolt (looks good despite the old hanger) and perform some fun face moves up to the obvious horizontal. Plug in a #4 Camalot here and hand traverse right for 15 feet before stepping up to a huge, hollow flake. Ascend this with bear hugs or by jamming the left side (pro here seems better, but I didn't want to fall). The top of the flake is a good rest and you can finally reach right and place bomber pro in the start of the actual crack system. Even though you've just done 50' of climbing, things really begin here.

Climb splitter tight hands up gently overhanging rock to a pod rest below the roof. Pull this with difficulty and then punch it up the 50' headwall splitter. This section narrows from tight hands to perfect fingers, and is sometimes slightly offset.

Here's the heavy-handed beta: I climbed this with a single 70m cord but employed some shenanigans to make it all come together. First, I tied into both ends of the cord and climbed the first stretch up to the top of the hollow flake (only clipping one end of the rope). From here I reached over to the crack proper and placed three pieces (a mini-anchor of sorts) and clipped the other end of the rope to these, and untied from the first end and dropped it to the ground (making sure to completely undo the knot so it could slide through all the gear). Meanwhile, my partner switched the belay from the first side to the new active side of the rope. From here I climbed to the chains and was able to lower back down to the ledge at the base of the climb after unclipping all the gear on the way down. A 69m rope or less would not have reached, nor would the 70 if I had left it clipped through any of the gear. This was a good way to do the route with a single rope and, more importantly, minimize drag on the upper two-thirds of the climb.

The meat of the climb takes #1 Camalots (6 or 7 should be OK), but a bunch of 0.4's, 0.5's, and 0.75's are important too. A #2 Camalot protects the move off the ground (a #2 can also be placed in the hollow flake and also just above the cave/roof). Black and blue Aliens are good for getting to the bolt, and a #4 C4 was key for the horizontal break, but a #3 might fit too. A FULL 70m cord is essential and two ropes are probably better.